For a backcountry lodge, the Hike Inn is forward-thinking when it comes to conservation practices.

From the earliest architect’s sketches to today, everything about the Hike Inn is designed to ensure that we’re good stewards of Mother Nature’s precious resources. The inn was constructed on stilts to lessen our footprint on the mountaintop and we use recycled barrels to collect rainwater to irrigate our native plants and trees.

Being a non-profit, we also have to be good stewards when it comes to finding ways to lower our operating costs. Photovoltaic solar panels lowers our total electricity usage and the hot water at the bathhouse comes from a solar-thermal systems to lower our fuel costs as well as the inn’s carbon footprint. Odor-free composting toilets help save more than 200,000 gallons of valuable drinking water every year.

One of our most popular stops on our nightly tour of the Hike Inn is our worm beds, and vermiculture is one of our most valuable teaching tools. Instead of sending our organic waste to a landfill, the staff recycles it back into the soil using red wiggler worms — who can eat half their body weight a day in organic material. The beds compost everything from kitchen scraps to office paper, producing hundreds of pounds of valuable organic fertilizer.

Protecting Georgia’s natural resources is the core of our mission, but we believe everyone can do their part as well. People don’t necessarily come here for an education in nature and conservation, but we try to make sure they leave with one.

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