Day 22 (November 23rd)

Today, we left the our cabin in the mountains, and went to Tallulah Gorge. Here's a little history overview.

Tallulah Gorge is the Tallulah River's water-carved canyon. It's an incredible monstrosity of over 600 feet deep with partially forested walls of quartizite. Until the turn of the 19th century, it was completely unchanged by man. Many stories were written by europeans and indians alike about mysterious powers of the thundering waters. It surged its way over a series of plummeting cataracts, night and day.

The first (somewhat crazy, in my opinion) person to tightrope walk it did so in July 24th 1886 and drew a crowd of 5000. Known as Professor Leon, many watched the man walk across the gorge on a tightrope. Close to the center, one of his guylines broke and he nearly fell to his imminent death. Luckily, he caught his spare cable, sat on it for 25 minutes and then completed the walk.

In 1905-1909 many rich men bought land around the gorge and formed the Georgia Power Company. They made the gorge dam which opened in September 1913. This slowed the water flow to a trickle and killed most of the tourism. Soon, the thunder of water became moaning of wind in the Gorge.

On July 18, 1970 63 year old Karl Wallenda duplicated Prof Leon's tightrope walk in under 40 minutes with two headstands, dedicated to his family members in a car crash and 'The Boys in Vietnam'.

Just before the turn of this century, the state of Georgia and the Georgia Power Company began a unique partnership with plant to allow more water to be released from dam for scenic considerations, termed 'Aesthetic Flow'.

Today there is a continuous 35 cubic feet/second of water flowing into gorge, except for scheduled days where only 12 cubic feet/second flowing for hiker exploration at the bottom. In tourist season (memorial-labor day) on weekends it is increased to 200 cubic feet/second. On 5 weekends per year, it's increased to 500-700 cubic feet/second for high speed kayaking.

Back to our trip. We walked past some of the stunning scenic overlooks, and down to the Gorge Floor via several hundred steps. Even with a mere 35 cubic feet per second, the flow is pretty amazing. We walked up the stairs again, took a look at the massive dam, and hopped in the car to head back to NC.

We decided not go home because we would not arrive until very late, so Dad booked us a hotel in Asheville.