No need to travel to the tropics to fly through the treetops. The Nantahala Gorge canopy tour, located just twenty minutes from Robbinsville runs on the southern edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park amidst the Nantahala National Forest. The 3-hour zip line flight is powered by gravity and a gradual 3 percent elevation change. The zip line is just one way to get to each section on the 20 acre course. Flyers use three Sky Bridges to get to the 11 zip line sections in the trees, slope side and elevated platforms.
More than a zip line ride, this adventure takes you through multiple ecosystems, past hemlocks into hardwoods, and through a deciduous forest packed with native flowering plants such as mountain laurel, dogwood, rhododendron, giant Frazier magnolias, rare umbrella magnolias, silver bells and much more.
Canopy tours originated in the lush rainforest of Costa Rica where adventurous biologists, desperate to study the diversity of animal life that habituates the upper canopy level of forests, devised a system of cables and platforms that would allow them to explore this previously inaccessible ecosystem. This naturally transformed into a breathtaking eco-tourism activity that allowed people to enter and experience the upper realm of a rainforest.
For more details, contact Blue Waters Mountain Lodge or see www.BlueWatersMtnL.com