Issaqueena Falls is a beautiful, nearly 200 foot cascade on Cane Creek in the Stumphouse Tunnel Park northwest of Walhalla. The top of the falls is very easy to see - just park your car and walk 50 feet or so along the stream until it flows over the edge. Unfortunately, that's about all you can see from the top - just water disappearing over the edge. A trail down the right side of the gorge offers an easy view of the top part of the cascade and, further along, a real scramble down a steep slope to the bottom.
Legend has it that an Indian maiden, Issaqueena, rode to the nearby fort to warn of a pending Indian attack and then escaped from pursuing Indians by pretending to leap to her death over the falls, but actually hiding beneath them.
Near the Falls is Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel. The tunnel was started in the early 1850s as an attempt (unsuccessful) by the railroads to burrow though 1.5 miles of solid granite mountain, hoping to link Charleston to the Midwest. After 6 years of chipping and drilling with hand tools and black powder, lack of money and the Civil War brought work to a halt. A century later, Clemson University used the tunnel to age blue cheese. The tunnel was closed when rockslides interfered with life & limb, but recently about 500 feet of it has been reopened. It gets quite dark once inside, and quiet as a tomb except for water dripping from cracks overhead. As we were walking slowly into the tunnel, feeling our way in the dark, a frog (we hope) jumped out of a puddle right in front of us. Kind of Disneyesque, or at least a little spooky. As you can imagine there isn't much to see in a dark tunnel especially since there is no light at the end - until you change your perspective when you turn around to leave. Click here for a virtual picture of the tunnel interior.
About the mountain's name "Stumphouse" we've heard a story that, to escape pursuing Indians, Issaqueena and her settler boyfriend hid in a huge old hollow stump on the mountain, long enough to set up housekeeping. Unfortunately, the local historian, a descendant of the original settlers, says the mountain really was named after a house built on top of a stump. The house-in-hollow-stump story is the more interesting, but........
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