The North Carolina Sierra Club's Guide to the JOCASSEE GORGES: Horsepasture, Bearwallow, & Toxaway Region

By Bill Thomas

1998, N.C. Chapter of the Sierra Club

Like the U.S. Geological Survey map of the Reid Quadrangle, other descriptions of the area, and the Jocassee Gorges themselves, this handbook isn't easy to interpret at first glance.

But if you study the book enough, you begin to realize it is the comprehensive picture of the North Carolina section of the Jocassee Gorges it is intended to be.

There are text descriptions focusing on the three major waterways - Horsepasture and Toxaway Rivers and Bearwallow Creek, and four passageways - Grassy Ridge/Chestnut Mountain Road; Auger Hole Road; Cane Brake Road; and Foothills Trail.

There are a few really nice color photos, mostly off the beaten path (that is, not on the Horsepasture River).

And Thomas makes good use of the line of high-tension powerline towers built in 1989, using the towers' numbers as landmarks.

But all the real information is in the map in the centerfold. It's a nice section of the USGS topographical map of the area, with the roads, trails, waterfalls, and place names added.

There are really two ways to look at this Trailguide:

  1. A nice description of how to get to various locations in the Jocassee Gorges area; or
  2. A nice list of potential projects for the development of the state park/gamelands project.
For example, there's a waterfall just below the confluence of Jakes Branch and Bearwallow Creek, listed as Indian Br. Falls. It looks like a good destination for a future trail. And I continue to lobby for an overlook of Windy Falls, say somewhere on Narrow Rock Ridge.