Lakeside Trail

The Lakeside Trail circumnavigates the full peninsula of Red Top Mountain State Park, providing the longest and most comprehensive hiking experience in the park with repeated lakefront access points, numerous cove overlooks, and passage through the full variety of forest habitats on the peninsula. The loop follows Lake Allatoona's deeply irregular shoreline—a product of the reservoir's flooding of ridge-and-valley topography—resulting in frequent dramatic views across open water to forested ridges on the opposite shore.

The trail's topographic variation comes from repeatedly crossing the peninsula's ridgelines between coves, with short but energetic climbs rewarded by lake views from each ridge. The forest transitions from dry, rocky ridge tops dominated by chestnut oak and Virginia pine to moist cove hardwood forest with tulip poplar, beech, and sweet gum in the drainages. Late October provides excellent fall color from the hickories and maples. A large beaver lodge in a sheltered cove mid-route is clearly visible from the shore, and the beaver family frequently forages at dusk. Bald eagles increasingly winter on Lake Allatoona as the population has recovered, and osprey nest at the park from April through September. The full loop takes most hikers three hours and can be shortened by using connecting trails to cut across the peninsula.