Tatham Gap / Rockpile Ridge Trail What can't be seen here is that this tree is just below the "hard freeze" line. This is just about 5000 ft, on the south side of the mountains, above this point trees are stunted, the largest will be killed every twenty or so years by the same type of ice you see on the branches here, except much thicker and staying on them for days or even weeks. On June 21, 1838, North Carolina troops escorted three hundred Cherokee prisoners from Fort Montgomery (now Robbinsville) across the Snowbird Mountains on the first leg of their thousand-mile trek to Oklahoma. They crossed the Snowbirds on the military road built on the long-familiar Cherokee trail between the Cheoah community and the Valley Towns (from present-day Robbinsville to Andrews.) One can walk or drive along this route, today, finding in some places the wagon ruts made by the Army as they transported the Cherokees in their first stage along the Trail of Tears. The Tatham Gap/ Rockpile Trail was significant in Cherokee history even before the events of the Removal, and it figures in legends and oral history. Like other ancient trails made by game and by early people, it could be thousands of years old say archeologists and anthropologists. It takes a direct route from the watershed of the Valley River (in Cherokee, Gunahita, or "long") into the valley and watershed of the Cheoah River. Both of these river valleys stand at about 2,400 feet elevation, but the surrounding peaks rise above 5,000 feet. The trail makes its way through the 4,500 foot high gap, a relatively easy way between the two valleys, and one that avoids traveling through the Nantahala Gorge.