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Blowing Rock

Photo: Fjmustak / CC BY-SA 4.0

🎡 Attractions

Blowing Rock

Blowing Rock, NC · High Country

About

North Carolina's oldest travel attraction has been charging admission for the view since 1933, and the view earns it: a gargoyle of weathered gneiss juts out over Johns River Gorge, with the blue-hazed ridges of Grandfather Mountain and the Pisgah backcountry stacking up to the horizon. The walled gorge funnels wind back up the cliff with such force that snow has been seen falling upside down and a tossed glove tends to come back to you, the quirk behind a Cherokee legend the staff still tell. Stone steps, garden paths, and an observation tower fill the half hour it takes to walk it, an easy first stop before you point the car down the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Highlights

Cliff-edge overlook 4,000 feet over Johns River GorgeThe wind that returns light objects and blows snow upside downCherokee legend of the leaping brave and the praying maidenGarden paths, stone steps, and an observation towerNorth Carolina's oldest travel attraction, open since 1933

Getting there

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The Blue Ridge Mountains26 places

The Blue Ridge Mountains

The ancient, blue-hazed peaks of the southern Appalachians, threaded by the Blue Ridge Parkway from Shenandoah to the Smokies. Mile-high summits and the highest peak east of the Mississippi, waterfalls you can walk behind, long-range overlooks, and mountain towns like Asheville with the Biltmore at their heart. Go in October for the color, but the haze is blue year-round.