Boone
Boone, NC · High Country
Boone is 3,333 feet up in North Carolina's High Country, with an average July high of 78 degrees and a January low of 23. A statue of Doc Watson sits on a bench downtown. The…
Photo: Fjmustak / CC BY-SA 4.0
Attractions
Blowing Rock
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
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