Where do you actually go for a walk in Sandy Springs that doesn't end back at your car in the same parking lot you started in? For most of the past decade, the honest answer was: nowhere, really. You picked a park. Morgan Falls Overlook Park if you wanted river views and a dog park. Big Trees Forest Preserve if you wanted quiet and a canopy. Each one was its own errand, its own drive, its own dead end.

That is changing, and not in the vague "the city is investing in green space" way that shows up in every municipal newsletter. There is a specific, mapped, partly-built trail spine now threading along the Chattahoochee that is meant to link these parks into one system instead of a list. Some of it opened last year. The next piece of it is being actively funded right now. If you live here, this is the year the shape of that spine starts to become visible on the ground instead of just on a planning document.

The 1.88 Miles That Changed the Math

The first physical piece of this puzzle is already open and it has a name most residents have never heard: the Springway Trail Morgan Falls Connector. It is a 1.88-mile paved segment that runs from Morgan Falls Overlook Park to Roswell Road at Cimarron Parkway, and it had its ribbon cutting in May 2025 after construction delays pushed it past its original timeline.

The connector was the first section built under the city's larger Trail Master Plan, and it was not cheap or simple to get across the finish line. The Sandy Springs Conservancy contributed $30,000 in community support funds specifically so the city could secure a $3 million Georgia Outdoor Stewardship construction grant to build it. One of the segment's more distinctive features is a boardwalk along Orkin Lake, which means part of the walk from the river overlook toward Roswell Road happens on a raised deck over water rather than a standard sidewalk cut through woods.

Before this connector existed, Morgan Falls Overlook Park's own on-site hiking trail topped out at about two-thirds of a mile, a loop within the park's 30 acres. The connector nearly tripled the walkable distance available from that same trailhead without anyone having to get back in a car.

The Next Link Is Already Being Drawn

Here is the part that hasn't shown up in the neighborhood chatter yet. The Morgan Falls Connector is only the first section of what planners call Segment 2, a 5.4-mile loop meant to eventually connect Morgan Falls Overlook Park, Big Trees Forest Preserve, and the Chattahoochee River into a single continuous route. The Conservancy's June 2026 newsletter update confirmed the city is now working with the PATH Foundation and Kaizen Collaborative to secure funding for the next 1.6-mile addition, identified as Segment 2C.

What makes this next stretch worth watching is where it goes. Starting at Morgan Falls Overlook Park, the planned trail extends east, following a tributary of the Chattahoochee through mature forest, past rock outcroppings and small waterfalls, before reaching Roswell Road. That is not the language of a standard sidewalk extension. It is a route through terrain that most people driving Roswell Road every day have no idea is back there.

Funding and design work for Segment 2C, along with a companion piece called Segment 2E, is still in progress. The city is finalizing design plans and easement agreements, so this is not a project you can put a firm completion date on yet. But the fact that the Conservancy is actively lining up the same kind of grant partnerships that got the first segment built is the strongest signal available right now that this isn't a shelved plan. It's a project in motion, one funding round behind schedule but not stalled.

Here's how the distances stack up if you're trying to picture the difference between what exists today and what's coming:

• Morgan Falls Overlook Park's original on-site trail: about two-thirds of a mile
• The Morgan Falls Connector, opened May 2025: 1.88 miles, linking the park to Roswell Road at Cimarron Parkway
• The planned Segment 2C addition, currently in funding: 1.6 more miles, through forest and past rock outcroppings toward Roswell Road
• The full Segment 2 loop once complete: 5.4 miles, connecting Morgan Falls Overlook Park, Big Trees Forest Preserve, and the river

That last number is the one that matters. Right now, Big Trees Forest Preserve and Morgan Falls Overlook Park are two separate destinations you drive to independently. The finished plan puts them on the same trail.

The Forest That Was Always There

Big Trees Forest Preserve deserves its own mention here because it is the kind of place that gets undersold by how easy it is to miss. The John Ripley Forbes Big Trees Forest Preserve sits at 7645 Roswell Road, tucked in next to the North Fulton County Government Annex building, and it is easy to drive past without knowing it's there. Inside are three named trails, Spring Hollow, Powers Branch, and Bluff Flats, winding through old growth hardwood forest along the Powers Branch stream. It is dog-friendly, has a restroom and water fountain at the trailhead, and free parking.

What Big Trees currently lacks is a walkable connection to anything else. You drive to it, you walk its loop, you drive away. Once Segment 2C and the rest of the Segment 2 loop are built, that changes. Big Trees stops being an isolated stop and becomes one anchor of a continuous river-adjacent trail system that also includes Morgan Falls Overlook Park's dog park, boat dock, and kayak and paddleboard rentals.

A Park That Wasn't a Park Yet

The other project moving on a real 2026 timeline is Old Riverside Park, a 23-acre forested property along the Chattahoochee in western Sandy Springs, north of the Riverside Swim and Tennis Club near the intersection of Old Riverside and Riverside drives. This one is not part of the Segment 2 loop, but it is part of the same broader pattern: the city converting river-adjacent land that has sat undeveloped or underused into something residents can actually walk into.

The master plan for Old Riverside Park includes public river access, a playground, green infrastructure, nature trails, and a restroom facility, while intentionally leaving most of the site's natural features untouched. City officials expect construction to wrap before the end of 2026, which means this is one of the few park projects in Sandy Springs right now with a completion window that falls inside the current year rather than sometime in a future budget cycle.

What You Can Walk Today, and What's Coming

If you want to experience the part of this system that already exists, the current route looks like this:

1. Park at Morgan Falls Overlook Park and take the on-site hiking trail down toward the river overlook and porch swings.
2. Pick up the Springway Morgan Falls Connector and walk the 1.88 miles toward Roswell Road at Cimarron Parkway, crossing the Orkin Lake boardwalk along the way.
3. From there, it's a short drive up Roswell Road to Big Trees Forest Preserve for the Spring Hollow, Powers Branch, or Bluff Flats trails, still a separate stop for now.
4. Keep an eye on Old Riverside Park through the rest of 2026. Once construction wraps, it adds a fourth river-access point on the western side of the city that didn't functionally exist before.

None of this is dramatic on its own. A boardwalk here, a funding grant there, a 23-acre parcel getting cleared for a playground. But taken together, it's a city methodically converting a scattered list of parks into a single legible trail along its own river, one grant cycle at a time. For anyone who already calls Sandy Springs home, that's the kind of change worth tracking before it shows up finished, because the segment that's currently just a funding request on a Conservancy newsletter could be the stretch of trail you're walking your dog on next year.

If watching this kind of neighborhood change makes you curious about what it means for property near the river corridor, or if you're weighing a move to be closer to Morgan Falls, Big Trees, or the new Old Riverside Park, the David Lawhon Group knows this stretch of Sandy Springs block by block. Schedule a consultation and we'll walk you through what's actually happening here, on the trails and in the market.