The Plateau’s Secret Season

Written By: Marlene Osteen | Issue: March-2022 | Photograph By: Cynthia Strain Photographer

It has been termed the “secret season” – a short pause in the year when magical scenes appear on the Plateau. All around us are tableaux that might have been lifted from a Currier & Ives print.  

It happens briefly during the winter to early-spring months when Plateau residents can bear witness to panoramas of skaters in mittens holding hands across the ice at Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park or red-faced children, their tiny heads kept warm by toboggans, barreling down Scaly Mountain in snow tubes. 

On the Tuckasegee and Cullasaja Rivers, fishermen are bundled up in thick plaid coats, up to their knees in rubber boots and icy waters casting long lines from the shoreline. 

Nature fills the Plateau and our vision with all its wonders – granite rock faces glistening with ice formations, scenic trails transformed by snowfall, and frozen waterfalls along the Panthertown Valley Trail, oft referred to as the “Yosemite of the East.”

And amid all the awe-inspiring imagery, most wonderous of all is the “Shadow of the Bear” – the vision that occurs semi-annually, once in the fall and now again from mid-February to early March, before the dawn of spring.  

Unlike the autumn season when visitors throng to the Plateau, there’s minimal activity at the site of its appearance on Whiteside Mountain at the Rhodes Overlook on US 64 between Cashiers and Highlands.  One can linger now on one of the highest mountains in the eastern United States at an elevation of 4,930 feet and witness the specter of the Shadow of the Bear as it comes out of hibernation – making its appearance for just 30 minutes on sunny days.  With the trees stripped of their foliage, there’s a clear and unobstructed view of the phenomena of that small dark shadow as it begins to grow, arising from the floor of the Cashiers Valley as it eventually transforms into the shadow of a bear.

Later this month, when the bear no longer makes itself known, and the earth begins to lean over a bit and tilt on its axis, new members of the animal kingdom will manifest themselves.  If you use your imagination, it’s easy to envision the Shadow of the Anteater or the emergence of the Pregnant Beaver. 

Visitors to Rhodes Big View are encouraged to bring cameras to record their experiences, and  parking is available.  Sightseers are cautioned to exercise vigilance when crossing the road – there are many rubberneckers behind the wheel at the viewing site and along the road.  To learn more about the late winter possibilities available on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau, visit cashiersareachamber.com, and highlandschamber.org.