Daniel B.
Yelp
Hillcrest Orchards is one of the many apple orchards in Ellijay, the "Apple Capital of Georgia." Ellijay is about a 1.5 hour drive north of Atlanta. You can take 400 or 75 (and 575) up to Ellijay. Apple-picking can be a fun fall day activity. I chose to go to Hillcrest based on word-of-mouth.
Apple-picking at Hillcrest is available the last 3 weekends in September and every weekend in October. My advice: go as soon as you can (e.g. the 2nd or 3rd weekend in September). I went on Sunday and most of the apple trees had been picked clean from the previous 4 weekends. It was pretty disappointing.
It costs $6 per person to get access to the grounds. After that, it costs $7 to get a 1/2 "peck" bag and $11 to get a full peck bag -- bags to fill your apples with. When we went, there were signs posted that said, "Very few apples left to pick." Well, we didn't drive all the way up to Ellijay for nothing, so we still went into the orchards.
The apple trees yielded a few varieties of apples including Rome, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, and Gala. Admission to the grounds also gives you access to playgrounds for the kids, cow milking (yes, you can milk a freaking cow), a bee farm, a pig race (yes, a freaking pig race), tractors, and other country and farm-like activities. Check Hillcrest's web site for more details. There's also a petting zoo and go-kart racing, but I believe those activities cost extra.
I think we picked maybe 3 or 4 good-sized red Rome apples. Nobody leaves empty-handed, though. When you make your way back inside, there is a country store with tons of pre-picked apples from the orchard. You can fill up the rest of your bag there. At this point, you might as well just go to Kroger or Publix, but hey, I'm a practical person. You come here for the apple picking experience.
It was packed on Sunday, so be prepared for a bit of traffic on Highway 52 between Hillcrest and the nearby B.J. Reece Apple House.
We were headed to a pot luck-ish sort of event later in the day and I really wanted to bring my friends some good, homemade apple pie from Ellijay. We couldn't find any at Hillcrest. So instead, when we got back to Atlanta, we found a good $5.99 apple pie at the Publix Bakery.