05/28/2026
Terra Incognita Vineyard
Join us on Saturday May 30 at 11:00am for Along the Divide: What Shapes Our Mountains presented by Geologist Bill Witherspoon, author of Roadside Geology of Georgia, and Kris Johnson, retired National Parks forester.
This free program includes a presentation followed by an educational hike of the Terra Incognita Vineyard property that starts at 12:30. Here’s a quick excerpt from Bill’s monthly newsletter:
“Trivia question: What geographic feature runs through both Gainesville, Florida, and Gainesville, Georgia, as well as Georgia’s Capitol building, Terra Incognita Vineyard, and North Carolina’s
Grandfather Mountain? Answer: the Eastern Continental Divide (ECD). Rain that falls on one side of the ECD makes its way to the Atlantic Ocean. On the other side, the flow is to the Gulf of Mexico.
In “Along the Divide,” we trace the ECD from the sandhills of Florida to mile-high peaks in North Carolina. We see how Atlanta’s location astride the divide is no coincidence. We explore how erosional competition between watersheds continually shifts the ECD, in some cases resulting in spectacular mountain scenery. We finish with a current controversy among geoscientists, bearing on the frequent claim that Southern Appalachian summits are among “the world’s oldest mountains.”
