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North Carolina’s westernmost river basin remains relatively unspoiled. A lot of people are working to keep it that way.
The Hiwassee River rises in north Georgia and cuts across North Carolina on its way to joining the Tennessee River near Dayton, Tenn. Its drainage includes all of Clay County and almost all of Cherokee County, except for a western tip that is in the Ocoee River Basin of Tennessee.
Its principal tributaries are the Valley River, which rises in the Snowbird Mountains above Andrews and flows western to join the Hiwassee at Murphy, and the Nottely River, which also comes out of Georgia and flows into Hiwassee Lake downstream from Murphy. The Hiwassee is 147 miles long and its basin is 2,700 square miles.