Issaqueena Falls and Stumphouse Tunnel

Issaqueena Falls and Stumphouse Tunnel near Walhalla, South Carolina, lie in the Sumter National Forest in Oconee County and share a parking lot, a good stop on a road trip through the Blue Ridge. According to Wikipedia the waterfall is 100 feet (30 m) high; another source says about 200 feet (60 m), so the figures differ. The name comes from a legend: a young Cherokee woman named Issaqueena is said to have leaped down the falls with her lover, and the stories differ on how it ended.

The tunnel was meant to be part of the Blue Ridge Railroad, which was to link Charleston across the mountains with the Ohio region. Construction began in 1856; by 1859, 1,617 of the planned 5,863 feet (493 of 1,787 m) had been excavated, and then the state stopped funding. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Clemson University aged blue cheese here, because the tunnel stays at about 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) year-round. You can walk into the tunnel, and the town of Walhalla runs it as a visitor attraction. A wide gravel path leads down to the waterfall: the view from the top is limited, while at the bottom you see the whole fall. The site is about 7 miles (11 km) north of Walhalla on S.C. 28.