Nature
Whiteside Mountain rises in western North Carolina between Cashiers, Highlands, and the Georgia border and is famed for the highest cliffs in Eastern North America. Its notable features include Devil's Courthouse and a small overhanging ledge with a platform less than seven feet across, where dangerous winds led the Forest Service to restrict access beginning in the 1980s. The mountain holds deep Cherokee associations, preserved in its name, Sanigilâ'gĭ, and in the tradition that Spearfinger built a bridge to it from the Hiwassee River. Later folklore attached a de Soto story to a cliff inscription, but that tale was rejected and the carving was identified in 2021 as a twentieth-century memorial made by Rev. Herman Miles Alley.
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North Carolina · United States
