LEFT: Look closely to see me atop what is possibly the highest section of the cliffs of White Rocks. These may possibly be the highest cliffs in Virginia. At least nothing else immediately comes to mind that is visually higher. I’ve seen a couple articles stating that these Cliffs are 500’ high, which I believe is exaggerated. But I have no problem believing that at their highest they are somewhere between 200 and 300 feet high. RIGHT: Looking southeast from White Rocks over Wallen Ridge, Powell Mountain, Clinch Mountain, and the Chimneytop-Fodderstack-Stone Mountain massif, one can make out peaks along the TN-NC line and farther into North Carolina.
Rick Shortt PHOTOS
Looking southeast from White Rocks over Wallen Ridge, Powell Mountain, Clinch Mountain, and the Chimneytop-Fodderstack-Stone Mountain massif, one can make out peaks along the TN-NC line and farther into North Carolina.
Rick Shortt photos
Sand Cave is an impressive and enchanting shelter cave with a sandy floor and high ceiling. Nearly the size of a football field, it has a nice little waterfall spilling from the top of one side, visible at the right of this photo which was taken on another visit.
Rick Shorrt photos
An easy scramble up the back side of the rock on the right takes you to the top of one of the most dramatic sections of the White Rocks cliffs.
Cumberland Gap has a long history of being used as a travel route by Native Americans, and more recently by the early European colonists starting in the 1700s. There is much more to the area than that simplistic sentence but in the present it is also a prime hiking destination. The towering cliffs of White Rocks and the huge sandstone alcove of Sand Cave in particular make for a spectacular hike in far southwestern Virginia’s (also Kentucky and Tennessee’s) Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.
LEFT: Look closely to see me atop what is possibly the highest section of the cliffs of White Rocks. These may possibly be the highest cliffs in Virginia. At least nothing else immediately comes to mind that is visually higher. I’ve seen a couple articles stating that these Cliffs are 500’ high, which I believe is exaggerated. But I have no problem believing that at their highest they are somewhere between 200 and 300 feet high. RIGHT: Looking southeast from White Rocks over Wallen Ridge, Powell Mountain, Clinch Mountain, and the Chimneytop-Fodderstack-Stone Mountain massif, one can make out peaks along the TN-NC line and farther into North Carolina.
Looking southeast from White Rocks over Wallen Ridge, Powell Mountain, Clinch Mountain, and the Chimneytop-Fodderstack-Stone Mountain massif, one can make out peaks along the TN-NC line and farther into North Carolina.
Sand Cave is an impressive and enchanting shelter cave with a sandy floor and high ceiling. Nearly the size of a football field, it has a nice little waterfall spilling from the top of one side, visible at the right of this photo which was taken on another visit.
