The upper Tallulah River Basin is as scenic as it is rugged. The highest elevations are found in North Carolina on Standing Indian Mountain, elevation 5,499 feet, where the Tallulah River headwaters are located. After coming into Georgia and passing through the old mining and logging town of Tate City, Georgia in eastern Towns County, the river enters into what some people call Tallulah's upper gorge or the Rock Mountain Gorge. This upper gorge is far less dramatic that the more famous Tallulah Gorge, but it starts just upstream from the river's confluence with Coleman River and runs nearly past Rock Mountain on the western side of the river. The scenic gorge is accessible via a drive along the Tallulah River Road (Forest Service Road 70). The Tallulah River Road follows an old railroad bed before ending in the Southern Nantahala Wilderness and provides the only access to Tate City. Heavily wooded today, the upper Tallulah River Basin was stripped nearly bare by logging in the 1930s before the establishment of the Chattahoochee National Forest.