Taken from a 1993 Forest Service map of bear habitat, shown in green. The orange line is the area proposed for protection. Gray and dark gray green show private land. Major trails are shown as double lines (old roads). This area did not go through the Roadless Area review process since it was a more recent acquistion and still listed as "uninventoried".

Location:  Jackson County, on the headwaters of the Tuckasegee River, N of US 64 and NW of lake Toxaway.  The Big Pisgah Mountain tract on the east is in the Pisgah Ranger District of the Pisgah National Forest.  The remainder of Panthertown to the west is in the Highlands Ranger District of the Nantahala National Forest.

Access:  From NC 281 at Lake Toxaway go N to left turn onto Cold Mtn. Road(Cty 1301).  Follow this to Cold Mtn. Gap and its end at gate and E entrance into the Panthertown area.  For access to W entrance, take US 64 W of NC 281 to Cedar Creek Road (Cty 1120) and follow to Zachary's Gap, go right (NE) on Cty 1121, avoiding turns onto other roads until reach gate.

USGS Topographic Quadrangles:  Big Ridge, Lake Toxaway.  See also Burt Kornegay's Slickrock Expeditions, Inc, map, "A Guide's Guide to Panthertown Valley".

Features/Description/Potential:
    Outstanding scenic attraction with excellent trout streams.  Has been called  "Little Yosemite" because of its big bald rock outcrops, most notably Big and Little Green Mts., and Blackrock Mtn.  The area is the entire unspoiled headwaters of the Tuckasegee R, which begins where Greenland and Panthertown Creeks join in the valley and then drops through the nearly inaccessable Devil's Elbow gorge.  The south ridge boundary is the eastern continental divide.  The entire area is a bear sanctuary.
    The valley is geologically unusual in having a flat sandy bottom bordered by the big rock knobs.  There is a very unusual large bog bordered by a pine forest lying along Panthertown Creek between Big and Little Green Mts.  Trails lead to the tops of both Big and Little Green Mts.  There is a large waterfall (Schoolhouse Falls) on Greenland Creek E of Little Green with rare plants and mosses.  There is a nice cascade on Panthertown Creek just NE of the bog, and another falls higher up NW of Big Green Mt. Water is tea-colored, due to boggy ares high up on creeks just below continental divide ridge of Hogback Mt. (also called Mt. Toxaway)  Very little decent timber.  (Long-term residents report that 50 or more years ago the upper Greenland Creek region was all open fields.  Hence "Greenland".)  Good trail system of old roads.
    Unusually high native trout productivity, as much as 5 times that normally seen in S. Applachian streams.  (Western Carolina University (Prof. Jerry West) is studying the differences in nutrition for trout in this area versus the lower productivity areas of the Horsepasture and Toxaway Rivers and Bearwallow Creek in the Jocassee watershed.)  It is a catch-and-release trout fishing area.  With open roads this area would get such heavy use that its resource values would be damaged.  It is an extremely popular area.
    To the East, Dismal Falls on the NW slopes of Big Pisgah Mt., is a special management area of 216 acres noted for its scenic and botannical attributes..  To the North, the Panthertown area runs all the way to the Bonas Defeat Gorge of the Tuckasegee River, a 305 acre special management area.  The Gorge consists of steep gneissic rock cliffs and exposed streambed with features illustrating hydraulic action and geologic forces: potholes, cascades and enormous boulders.  There is a 250 ft waterfall on Flat Creek in this area..

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