The North Carolina Bartram Trail is a hiking trail created to honor Philadelphia naturalist William Bartram’s 1775 visit to Western North Carolina. Begun in the 1970s, it follows Bartram’s route into Cherokee country from the Georgia state line across Scaly Mountain and the Fishhawk Mountains, down into the Tessentee Valley, through Franklin, up to Wayah Bald, down to the Nantahala Gorge, and on to its end at Cheoah Bald. The trail meets the Appalachian Trail at Wayah Bald and Cheoah Bald and offers a less-traveled route through some of Western North Carolina’s most spectacular natural habitat. Bartram traveled very near this place on his visit to the Cherokee “Middle towns,” whose principal town was Cowee, north of Franklin. In his book Travels, widely read in Europe, he gave what is considered the most complete surviving description of Cherokee life in the eighteenth century. The North Carolina mountains and foothills were later designated the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area in recognition of their natural beauty and living traditions of music, craft, agriculture, and Cherokee culture.