June 1989

Doe River Gorge

This was shot during the ET&WNC RR Historical Society's first excursion into the Doe River Gorge. We were at the large retaining wall that can be seen in several photos in Mal Ferrel's book "Tweetsie Country". I believe the old photos were taken from across the river to the left. The retaining wall seems to be in good shape for having been built over 100 years ago, but there is a large hole in the ballast that would exclude a vehicle of any size negotiating the rails at this point. This shot, looking towards Blevins, gives a nice view of the unusual undulating rock strata that would be a great challenge for someone to model. Just in case someone has the wrong idea, this is NOT Pardee Point, even though a picture caption in an ET book seems to indicate that it is. Pardee point is a short distance ahead up the line. Also, for anyone who is not familiar with the ET and the Gorge, the track in the Gorge is not the original ET track, but was laid in the 60s for a short lived tourist line and amusement park.