ET&WNC tunnel #5 Doe River Gorge

If you come in to the Gorge from Railroad Grade Road, you can easily walk right past this former east portal of tunnel #5.  It’s completely covered over and only the remains of the cut can be seen…look:

The west portal is partially open, but filled with rather murky looking water.  Wonder what lives in there?  Anyway, that’s my hiking buddy providing scale for this opening:

From this tunnel on, the line went on up to the fabled magnetic iron mines at Cranberry NC and, for a while, on to Boone.  That’s another story, told in several locations.