Constitution Lakes — Attraction in Forest Park

I ended up randomly in Atlanta this weekend and did the quality research beforehand - I looked for weird things to do here on Reddit, and this creepy Doll's Head Trail popped up. Luckily I had two chums in the area who were more than willing to drive over and investigate with me, so off we went. It was an interesting drive through East Atlanta; I was mostly excited to see a Piggly Wiggly, but I imagine your mileage may vary on such a sighting. I also learned about trap houses. Anyway.

The weather for this was actually ideal. The temps were unseasonably low (a concern I had about wandering into Hotlanta in August), probably in the low 80s, and it was cloudy, which gave the whole adventure a spooky vibe. There were a few other cars in the parking lot but aside from two guys fishing and a couple we stumbled across who looked to be up to no good, we saw no one.

As hikes go, this is much more of a walk than anything remotely strenuous - the total mileage can't be more than a mile or two, and the first few tenths of a mile are on a paved path before ultimately shifting to normal dirt. I've spent some time in the northern part of the state hiking up the GA high point Brasstown Bald but this area is devoid of altitude; anyone with working legs should be able to navigate this easily. Beyond the doll shizzle, optics are limited. The path goes by Constitution Lake, where we could see a row of turtles in the distance, but that was about it. Pretty meh.

The obvious highlight is the Doll's Head Trail/Loop, which probably takes about 10 minutes or so to get to from the parking lot/trailhead. Honestly? Cool idea, and I can see how I stumbled across it online, but a lot of it was literally just garbage. I'm from NJ, and we have a few similar themed paths - notably a Fairy Trail in Maplewood that features little houses with dolls/action figures nestled into tree trunks, etc. Other than a few legitimately neat set pieces, mostly centering on (you guessed it) doll heads, most of what we saw out there was just moldy crap. It's a shame, because I think they could really make this edgy and unsettling, especially come Halloween time. But by opening this to the public to assist - always a gift and a curse - a lot of people seemed to just use it as an excuse to dump some of their old crap from the garage. A shame, and the group that's monitoring the trail (and there seems to be an official one, based on some of the signage we saw) should probably step in and make this more appealing. A random/spooky doll head hanging from a tree? Yes. Here for it. A piece of rusted metal from the 1980s just dropped into some foliage? No, that's littering. My chum did express interest in coming back to contribute so hopefully she can help lead a renaissance for this space.

This is tough to recommend unless you're really in the area. I'd focus on something in a nice section of the ATL that's not cosplaying as the city dump, at least until they figure out how...

The boardwalks that are standing are good quality, the paved sidewalk path is clear and sturdy and accessible for people with wheelchairs or other mobility aids. The wooded walking paths are not accessible for mobility aids, but for walking persons, they are pretty easygoing compared to other wooded areas I have explored. There's a few sections where there's lifted wooden walkways over areas that are particularly prone to mud and that was nice.

A whole lot of weird art, and I'm a fan of it but I recognize that it is not everybody's cup of tea. Also met a couple people independently of each other who were in the area who let me know that I should probably not be in the area for too long after dark because people get mugged here and that's less than ideal. That's just what I was told though, I did not get mugged.

I did get a bit of heat exhaustion though, but that's not the locations fault, that's my own fault. There's a creek not too far from some of the walking paths, and I cooled off there which was great for my body but also absolutely made for a longer shower at the end of the day because I have never seen such calm water so full of hidden debris. Not even like normal litter trash, this appeared to be stuff that fell off of rail cars over the last 20 years or so, large chunks of rusted metal submerged and lightly covered in algae so it looks like a normal rock until you accidentally break your toe on it and get a splinter that makes you start calling around to find out when your last tetanus shot was. Even with a sawyer filter I wouldn't trust what you can get from this creek fire drinking purposes, so while I shouldn't have to say you should bring water, I'm going to highlight that you absolutely should bring your own water.

There's a circular brick and concrete thing just off the beaten path, it shows up on google maps as Mysterious Circle Structure which does not answer any questions.

Lotta train traffic nearby, kinda adds to the ambiance in a weird Appalachian Gothic kinda way, but I might be projecting due to all of the...

The main trail was clearly marked and was a very easy walk. There were several boardwalk areas that went over water and land. The trail itself was nice but it looks like it is fairly neglected. Trash was overflowing in the few bins and there was quite a bit of trash along the trails. The Rail Ridge trail takes you to Doll’s Head which was a cool novelty but was a very small section of the overall loop. We also branched off onto the south river trail which was really hard to follow and seemed to be marked by piles of chalk!? We got to a point where we could not tell where we were and just double backed to main trail. No real way to get lost but we didn’t want to trample through all the brambles and boggy areas. The boardwalk was unrailed so watch the little ones although the water seemed really shallow. Some areas were falling and rotted. It could be a really nice little spot if a little love was shown to make it cleaner and maybe a porta potty at the trailhead. We did see a little family of deer and quite a few water fowl. My boys enjoyed exploring and I just love that there are little pockets of nature like this...