The Cumberland Plateau in general -- and especially this Big South Fork area of Upper Cumberland Plateau -- is a particularly important and fascinating part of the world.  It is today and always has been a wild place, literally.  The Nature Conservancy describes the area in this way:

"Stretching across eastern Tennessee from Alabama north into Kentucky, the Cumberland Plateau rises more than 1,000 feet above the Tennessee River Valley to a vast tableland of sandstone and shale dating as far back as 500 million years. Carved over time by flowing water, the plateau today is a labyrinth of rocky ridges and verdant ravines dropping steeply into gorges laced with waterfalls and caves, ferns and rhododendrons.

The Cumberland Plateau's rivers and streams sustain some of the country's greatest variety of fish and mollusk species, and ravines and deep hollows are among the richest wildflower areas in southern Appalachia. John Muir was one of the first naturalists to document the natural bounty of this, the world's longest expanse of hardwood-forested plateau. He memorialized his crossing of the Cumberland Plateau in the book A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf.

For thousands of years, the Cumberland Plateau remained a remote and rugged paradise. Infertile soil and rough terrain discouraged early settlement. Artifacts found in caves and rock shelters suggest Mississipian and later Cherokee hunters camped here but never established permanent dwellings. English, Scotch-Irish and German settlers staked their claims mostly in the valleys and ventured to the plateau only sporadically to mine coal and harvest timber."

Because of its incredible geology and diversity of flora and fauna, the area has been recently singled out for special recognition and conservation efforts by Friends of the Big South Fork, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, The Natural Resources Defense Council, The Alliance for the Cumberlands and The Dogwood Alliance.  To see a compilation of articles about the natural and cultural research taking place in the Big South Fork NRRA, take a look at the Appalachian Highlands Science Journal.