Highlands, a summer resort in Southwestern North Carolina, near the Georgia and South Carolina boundaries. Highlands is accessed from the East via the U.S. Hwy.64 and from the West North Carolina Hwy. 28.

ENVIRONMENT

Highlands is situated on a high plateau of the Blue Ridge Mountains, at an elevation of approximately 4,000' just west of the main drainage divide of the eastern part of the continent. Surrounding peaks on the Blue Ridge approach 1,525 m in elevation.

The Cowee Mountains lie to the north, and beyond them, across the Tuckasegee Valley, the Balsams. The Great Smoky Mountains lie to the northwest, with the Nantahalas to the west, across the Little Tennessee Valley. To the south and southeast is a series of gorges of spectacular rivers, punctuated by high waterfalls, that drain into the Piedmont from the escarp-ment of the Blue Ridge.

These include the Toxaway, Horsepasture, Thompson, Whitewater, and Chattooga with the last named designated as a National Wild and Scenic River flowing through Ellicott Rock Wilderness Area, a short distance south of the Station. Much of the land in the Highlands region is within Nantahala National Forest. In addition, sections of Pisgah, Sumter, and Chattahoochee National Forests are nearby.

Both the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway are within reasonable driving distances. Opportunities for field studies in the Highlands area are superlative. Near the southern edge of the Blue Ridge affords easy access to a great variety of communities over a gradient in elevation of 1,800 m, extending from oak-pine and stream-bottom forests of the Piedmont, through the mesophytic cove forests of the Appalachian slopes to the spruce-fir forests and grass and heath balds of the summits of the higher mountains.

The area is renowned for the diversity of its plant and animal life, and few regions outside the tropics offer such opportunities as the southern Blue Ridge for analytic and experimental work in ecology, systematics, and biogeography.

* More on Highlands coming soon.

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