Taken from a 1993 Forest Service map of bear habitat, shown in green. The orange line is the area proposed for protection in The Wilderness Society's "NC Mountain Treasures. Gray and dark green/black show private land. Major trails are shown as dashed lines.

Location: Stradles border between Cherokee, Macon and Clay Counties, SE of Andrews and North of Hayesville.  NW of Boteler Peak wild area.

Access:  Fires Creek Game Management Area N of Hayesville

USGS Topographic Quadrangles: Shooting Creek, Hayesville, Topton, Andrews
(extreme SW tip is on the Peachtree Quad).  John Ray, (author of the Bartram Trail Guide in GA and NC), and two of his pals have undertaken (as of Dec 2001) to write a guidebook to the Chunky Gal Trail and the Rim Trail, with descriptions also of the side trails that feed into them.  These trails will all be measured and mapped, and presented in much the same way as the new Bartram Trail Guides.  John Ray says his group will also do maintenance to bring all the described trails into useability.

Features/Description/Potential:
    The Tusquitee area is the Fires Creek basin which is formed by an elongated horseshoe-shaped rim of mountains rising to 5200 ft at its closed, ENE end.  The mountain-ridge on the south is called the Tusquitee Mountains, and on the north, the Valley River Mountains.  The upper easterly end of the basin is a bear sanctuary, where even deer hunting has been prohibited up until this year(1994).  The basin has been roaded and cut in various places, but still is in continuous woods, so that many people would not realize it had been cut over before.  Fires Creek, and its tributaries run WSW toward the lower, open end of the horseshoe.  These creeks are crystal clear, since the entire watershed is national forest and protected by the horseshoe rim of mountains, and should be excellent trout streams.  The underlying rock seems to be a slaty schist that weathers in the creek beds to flat cobbles, and does not appear to produce many waterfalls.  The mountains are made of strata of this rock that dip steeply, roughly to the SW, producing some overhanging ledges on the NE rim of the horseshoe rim.  This might have led to some waterfalls on the NE face of the rim but a hike part way up Big Tuni Creek found that instead the creeks fall pretty steadily over endless boulders.
     The 25 mile Rim Trail (FS#72) is an outstanding recreational feature of the Fires Creek area, running the entire length of the rim of mountains to form a complete loop.  The center of the basin is roaded, the main one being FS 340, the Fires Creek Road.  It is possible to drive to near the end of this road (very rough surface) where it climbs around Shinbone Ridge.  From here trail #80 follows Shinbone Ridge to the Rim Trail at County Corner Springs (where Clay, Macon and Cherokee Counties meet) at 5000 ft.  The Rim Trail connects to the S. Nantahala Wilderness and the AT via a trail from Tusquitee Bald down Big Tuni Creek, across the Big Tuni Road, becoming the Chunky Gal Trail which crosses the Boteler Peak Wild Area, crosses US64 to the Chunky Gal Wild Area, and thence to the AT near Whiteoak Stamp. From County Corner Gap the Rim Trail also connects N to the Piercy Bald Wild Area.  (See John Ray's Trail Guide for Chunky Gal and Fires Creek Rim Trails.  Available from Ray at 1190 Old Seneca Rd., Central, SC, 29630.  email:  jrrarh@mindspring.com)
     The SW portion of this old RARE II area has been pretty well chopped up by timber activity.
     On the NE corner of the wild area Big Choga Creek has a bog noted as a significant natural area.  Cat Stairs Falls near Old Road Gap is also noted as a natural area.
     This is a beautiful wild-feeling area, extremely well-suited for recreational activities such as wildlife management, hiking, backpacking, hunting and fishing.  It is said to have a good population of deer, bear, and turkey; and pig scratchings were seen on the scouting trip.   Development is encroaching all along the southern edge of the Tusquitees, and very likely along the north side of the Valley River Mountains as well, this being closer to Andrews. It is one of the wild places left to get really excited about.  The entire area inside the rim is bear sanctuary.
 

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