A wonderfully scenic river located in Transylvania County, North Carolina. Horsepasture is home to many, many waterfalls, including Bust Ass Falls and Turtle Back Falls, and flows into Lake Jocassee.
Horsepasture River came by it's name during the Civil War, when local farmers herded their livestock into the river gorge to conceal them from Union soldiers under Sherman and Stoneman.
During the 1970s, a private corporation began building a hydroelectric facility at the headwaters of the river. Their plan was to divert the water flow through a large pipe all the way to a power plant at the South Carolina state line. Luckily, like most things involving South Carolina, this was doomed to failure. Extensive protesting, and finally federal intervention killed the project.
Currently the area is navigating some legislative hurdles on the path to being declared a state park. Hopefully the efforts to protect the river will succeed, as it would be a damn shame to lose this area to a bunch corporate land-developers.