IF YOU GO
One of the most spectacular canyons in the eastern U.S., Tallulah Gorge is 2 miles long and more than 600 feet deep. Rim trails lead to several overlooks. Hundreds of steep steps take visitors down into the gorge. A permit is needed to hike onto the gorge floor (only 100 permits per day). A suspension bridge 80 feet above the bottom provides spectacular views of the river and waterfalls. Tightrope walker Karl Wallenda crossed the gorge in 1970; towers that he used can still be seen. The visitor center has exhibits on the area’s terrain, ecosystem and former resort town near the gorge. An award-winning film takes viewers on a dramatic journey through the gorge, including footage of rock climbers and kayakers.
Tallulah Gorge State Park. 50 campsites. 8 a.m. to dark. Visitor center open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. $5 parking. 338 Jane Hurt Yarn Drive, Tallulah Falls. 706-754-7981; georgiastateparks.org/tallulahgorge.
Georgia’s rugged mountain scenery — magnificent waterfalls, rushing whitewater streams, deep gorges — is some of the most spectacular in the eastern United States.
What made — and is still making — it this way, geologists say, is a geological phenomenon known as “stream capture.” In that process, a stream or river is diverted from its own bed and flows instead down the bed of a neighboring stream — mainly because of erosion over thousands to millions of years.
In essence, “eroding streams are battling one another for supremacy,” said geologist Bill Witherspoon, co-author (along with Pamela Gore) of the new book “Roadside Geology of Georgia.” One such never-ending battle, he noted, is between the Chattahoochee and the Tugaloo rivers for dominance in North Georgia.
As Witherspoon explained, stream capture has shaped many of Georgia’s most dramatic mountain features that draw thousands of visitors. They include picturesque Toccoa Falls (Stephens County), which drops 186 feet; Amicalola Falls (Dawson County), which at 729 feet is the Southeast’s tallest waterfall; and Black Rock Mountain (Rabun County), named for its sheer cliffs of dark-colored biotite gneiss rock.
Georgia’s textbook example of stream capture, though, may be the breathtaking Tallulah River Gorge in Rabun and Habersham counties. At more than 600 feet deep (from the rim), it is the fourth deepest canyon east of the Rocky Mountains. At only 1,000 feet wide, it is also one of the narrowest.
During a walk along the gorge’s rim and down into the gorge itself last weekend, Witherspoon explained its fascinating geology.
The steep-walled gorge, he said, formed over the past 2 million years (a short time in geologic terms) when the Tugaloo River, which flows along the Georgia-South Carolina border to the Atlantic Ocean, eroded through a ridge and “captured” the Chattooga and Tallulah rivers — which formerly flowed to the Chattahoochee and the Gulf of Mexico.
As it changed course, the swift-flowing Tallulah carved its gorge through hard quartzite rock — a process still ongoing today.
In the sky: The moon will be full Tuesday — the "Bony Moon," as the Cherokee peoples called February's full moon, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Venus is low in the west just after dark. Mars sets in the west just a few hours after sunset. Jupiter rises out of the east around 8 p.m. Saturn rises out of the east around 3 a.m.
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