Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area Powers Island Unit

This is for the Powers Island section of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, part of the Cochran Shoals unit (along with North Interstate, Sope Creek and Columns Drive). It’s located east of the river, north of I-​285 and just east along North Interstate Parkway from the much larger and busier North Interstate unit of the NRA. Note that the address shown on the street at the entrance road (1650 Riveredge Pkwy) will not work in Google Maps. 5814 Riveredge Ln. gets you there.
I don’t think Powers Island gets much business. There was no one in the rather large parking lot when I arrived on a Thursday morning and I saw only two other people as I hiked all the trails. Compare that to the throngs I encountered a short time afterwards over the river at the North Interstate section.
The Powers Island unit has two basic sections: the island itself, which you access via a bridge from the SW corner of the parking lot, and the larger part on the east side of the river which you access from either the NW or NE corners of the parking lot.
The island trails are pretty great, and a little spooky. You’ll find a wide easy path crossing the bridge and heading north up to a ‘boat landing’, which looks more like a set of stairs leading into the river. And that’s all the trail that’s shown on the park service maps. However, there is an unmapped but easily identified trail that loops from the landing to the northern tip of the island and back again, hugging the water’s edge most of the way — first along the river then along the channel between the island and the mainland. This trail is a bit spooky — the foliage gets dense, the trail gets narrow and you may find yourself thinking you’ve been transported to the Amazon, were it not for the ever-​present traffic noises. It really is amazing to hike a trail like this in the middle of the city. The trail isn’t long, maybe a half mile total.
On the other, larger side of the unit, the trails are a little more standard for the Chattahoochee River NRA and are all marked with the usual park service markers. The trail along the western side looks out over the channel to the island — where you just were hiking if you did it the way I did. After passing an intersection, the trail continues north to a dead-​end. You have to backtrack from there. To the east of that trail, a trail runs up in elevation to the east, ascending the river’s bluffs. That one will get you heart pumping but like all the trails in the NRA unit, it isn’t real long.
All the Chattahoochee River NRA parks are awesome. This one is a little different than the rest, particularly on the island itself. If you like hiking alone in a jungle, here’s your spot.