Description: Watauga Lake, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains and the Cherokee National Forest in northeastern Tennessee, enjoys the most stunningly beautiful lake and mountain views in the 'Volunteer State'. This Insiders' Vacation Guide provides lake vacation information.
real estate (47992) vacation (6398) tennessee (2775) tva (110) appalachian trail (78) high country (54) appalachian mountains (30) watauga lake (12) lake watauga (3) cherokee national forest (3)
Watauga Lake, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains and the Cherokee National Forest in northeastern Tennessee, enjoys the most stunningly beautiful lake and mountain views in the 'Volunteer State'. Started in 1942 and finally dammed on the last day of 1948, Watauga Lake is the TVA's highest-elevated reservoir in Tennessee. Surrounded by densely forested mountains in the "high country", Watauga Lake sits 1,959 feet above sea level at "full pool" (full summertime elevation). At Watauga Lake, it's usually a fe
Watauga's surface covers 10.05 square miles of two mostly-rural Tennessee co unties: Johnson County and Carter County. Watauga Lake is accessible only by winding mountain roads. The Appalachian Trail crosses the southwestern tip of Watauga Lake. The lake is located south of Mountain City (Tennessee), west of Boone (North Carolina), east of Elizabethton (Tennessee), southeast of Bristol (Tennessee), southwest of Damascus (Virginia), and northeast of Johnson City (Tennessee).
James Mooney, an American anthropologist, said that that the meaning of Watâ'gi (commonly misspelled Watauga, Watoda, Wattoogee, and Whatoga) has been lost ( Myths of the Cherokee , 1900). However, there are several conjectured meanings of "Watauga" that you can find online: "beautiful waters", "clear waters", "whispering waters", "running waters", "falling waters", "foaming at the mouth", "village of many springs", "broken waters", "river of plenty", and more. Regardless of its true semantic origins, most