Southern Nantahala Wilderness Area-CNF

After the Cherokee were removed from their "Great Blue Hills of God" (the Blue Ridge Mountains), loggers stripped the trees from the land and shipped them out via the railway. The main line of that railway ran along the Nantahala River, and evidence of it still exists in a wilderness shared by Georgia and North Carolina (see North Carolina, Southern Nantahala Wilderness).

Steep, rugged, reforested country cut by numerous streams and old drainages characterizes the southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The streams feed the Nantahala, Hiwassee and Tallulah Rivers, and the wide non-wilderness right-of-way along the Tallulah neatly divides the Georgia share of the wildland. The eastern section is the northern portion of Georgia's Coleman River Wildlife Management Area. In both sections spruce and fir cover the ridges (opened by grass-heath "balds"), and mixed hardwoods grow on the slopes. Elevations here are lower than in Tennessee. Several unique bogs support endangered species.