Citico Creek Wilderness is a

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

within the

Cherokee National Forest The Cherokee National Forest is a United States National Forest located in the U.S. states of Tennessee and North Carolina that was created on June 14, 1920. The forest is maintained and managed by the United States Forest Service. It encompas ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

. The wilderness contains the entire upper drainage of Citico Creek, which consists of the north and south forks and at least eight tributaries. Three steep-sided ridges descend west from the crest of the

Unicoi Mountains The Unicoi Mountains are a mountain range rising along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina in the southeastern United States. They are part of the Blue Ridge Mountain Province of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The Unicois are ...

— Brush Mountain, Pine Ridge, and Sassafras Ridge.

History

Citico Creek is named after the ancient

Overhill Cherokee The Overhill Cherokee were a group of the Cherokee people located in their historic settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Tennessee in the Southeastern United States, on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. This name was used b ...

village of Citico, which was located at the creek's mouth along the

Little Tennessee River The Little Tennessee River (known locally as the Little T) is a tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It dra ...

. The village site was inundated by the creation of Tellico Reservoir in 1979. Most of the Citico Creek watershed was logged in the early 1920s by the Babcock Lumber Company, and most of what was not logged was destroyed by a massive forest fire in 1925. The

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Natio ...

purchased the devastated land in the 1930s, and its policy of allowing natural processes to heal the forest has led to the development of a mature, second-growth

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

along Citico Creek.

Forest

Diverse

cove A cove is a small bay or coastal inlet. They usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creek (tidal), creeks, or recesses in a coast ...

hardwood forests — which include yellow poplar, white oak, red oak, and hemlock — are found in the

bottomland Upland and lowland are conditional descriptions of a plain based on elevation above sea level. In studies of the ecology of freshwater rivers, habitats are classified as upland or lowland. Definitions Upland and lowland are portions of a ...

s along stream beds. The ridge slopes are covered by a mixed hardwood-pine forest consisting primarily of white oak, red oak, and hickory in moist areas and substantial stands of white pine, pitch pine, and shortleaf pine on drier slopes and ridgecrests. While most of the forest is second-growth, two pockets of

old growth An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio ...

forest remain within the wilderness area. One is a stand of primarily beech and maple in the vicinity of Falls Branch Falls, which is easily accessible from the

Cherohala Skyway The Cherohala Skyway is a National Scenic Byway and National Forest Scenic Byway that connects Tellico Plains, Tennessee, to Robbinsville, North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. Its name is a portmanteau of Cherokee and Nantahala, ...

via the Falls Branch Falls Trail. The other is an isolated patch of hemlock near Glenn Gap.United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, ''Citico Creek: Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Wilderness Study Report'' (14 June 1982), 3.

Recreation and protection

Citico Creek Wilderness is bordered on the east by the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness and on the north by the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in the southeastern United States, southeast, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline o ...

(on the other side of the Little Tennessee River). The Bald River Gorge Wilderness is located immediately to the southwest. The Cherohala Skyway traverses the southern boundary of the Citico Creek Wilderness, and the Benton MacKaye Trail roughly follows its eastern boundary.

References

External links

Citico Creek Wilderness
- Wilderness.net {{Authority control Wilderness areas of Tennessee Wilderness areas of the Appalachians Blue Ridge Mountains Protected areas of Monroe County, Tennessee

History

Forest

Recreation and protection

See also

References

External links