As I write this post, I’m wondering in my head, if this area isn’t akin to the “hill country” regions like the Cameroon Highlands of Malaysia, the Central Highlands of Vietnam, or the Darjeeling region of India. We haven’t visited any of these yet, though we will in the next few years. As I understand it, during the Gilded Age, the area around Newland, North Carolina, which has been our home base for the past week, have historically been regions where the wealthy would come to escape the summer heat, build large mansions, and enjoy exclusive activities for the wealthy. The high elevation and pine forests were thought to be a cure to tuberculosis and other diseases as well as an escape from heat and humidity. I wonder this because, during our upcoming time in Southeast Asia, we are thinking these too give us respite from the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia for a time. Yet, I also wonder because to me, these places get old fast.
We’ve enjoyed our week here but I’m also quite happy to be moving on to our next stops as we progress up the East Coast towards Maine. We’ve hiked a bit and explored area towns. Yet anything you want to do seems to take 30 minutes to an hour to get to, along very slow moving, windy roads. If you get stuck behind someone slow these drives become a maddening snails pace to get anywhere. Weekend traffic from tourists creates long jams and small towns become overrun with people.
And all of those putting on airs (here is a link for younger generations who may not get the reference)…. Expensive mountain condo’s, overly preppy clothing, land yachts galore, and expensive high end boutique shopping venue’s for yet more stuff. I’ll stop now….
Here are some of the things we got up to during our visit.
Stand-Up Paddle Boarding on Price Lake
I had pretty much convinced Hillary and DJ to go whitewater rafting in Tennessee, only to discover they only took parties of 4 or more. And we weren’t about to drive two and a half hours to the next closest option. Instead, we decided to try stand-up paddle boarding on Lake Price, a mere 40 minutes away, over narrow winding roads. This turns out to have been an awesome choice.
Canoe, kayak, or stand up paddle board rentals are first come, first served, and we arrived right when they opened. One price for as long as you want to use the boat, and they even provide dry bags/boxes if you need them.
Price Lake is a quiet mountain lake. No motorized boats, lots of fish jumping, few bugs while out on the water, a light breeze, and nearly full sun. At 3,400 feet above sea level, we enjoyed two hours of paddling and hanging out with temperatures in the low 80’s while much of the rest of the east sweltered in the 90’s plus.
Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation
The next day we set out early to visit Grandfather Mountain and the Mile High Swinging Bridge. Before arriving, it looked to me like equal parts amusement park and national park (not a good thing in my mind). The price tag for this was steep at $33/head, with AAA discount, and I probably wouldn’t have dragged everyone there if not for its appearance on the Pedestrian and Historical Bridges Series of Nomad Mania.
Hugh MacRae Morton, who at one point owned all of Grandfather Mountain, extended the road up to the summit and built the first swinging bridge in 1951. He had to be equal parts crazy and visionary. This is a steep summit and many of the views and hikes up here, though quite short, are full of ladders and cables to help hikers. While there are lot of visitors, the trails are quite enjoyable, if not very rocky, and they have done a good job building a nature center and garden with a strong education focus.
It is not a for-profit park, as I had initially thought. Over time, the family worked with The Nature Conservancy to protect the area before transitioning to the private foundation that runs it today. They also handed the undeveloped backcountry, much larger than what the foundation maintains, to the state of North Carolina as a state park.
Moses H. Cone Memorial Park
Two years on from Hurricane Helene there are still large chunks of the Blue Ridge Parkway which are closed. That meant, to get to Moses H. Cone Memorial Park we had to drive about 11 miles further than we otherwise would have. I mention this simply because it is surprising how much is still being repaired as of Summer 2026.
Hurricane damage aside, we wish the park would have been closer to where we were staying. The house itself is beautiful. A vacation home for an old textile baron from years gone by. Yet the property boasts 25 miles of carriage trails with views of the mountains and Bass Lake. It would have been a great place to put on our packs and get in some of the Camino training we have been light on since leaving St. Marks.
Unfortunately we hit the park as afternoon thunderstorms moved in, so we only got a brief glimpse of the trails before escaping to our car and a drive back to Blowing Rock.
Blowing Rock Art & Historical Museum
The town of Blowing Rock itself was rather disappointing. It’s a small town, yet it was overrun with tourists walking from expensive boutique shop to high end cafe. It feels very much like a pretentious town where everyone wants to see and be seen. It’s really not our thing.
That said, the town boasts an amazing, though small, art and historical museum on the southern end of Main St. BRAHM, or Blowing Rock Art & History Museum opened in 2011 and was the result of a group of devoted volunteers joining forces with the town to build this museum on a prime piece of real estate alongside a much needed parking garage. It is free to enter, and during our visit, hosted an exhibit of George Masa and Ansel Adams photographs, as well as artists works from around North Carolina. It also had an exhibit on baskets of native tribes of the area, plus an entire room focused on the history of Blowing Rock.
We were very surprised by the quality of this museum, the dedication of the town and the volunteers who got it off the ground, and that it’s free for all to come and enjoy.
Linville Falls Overlook
On our last full day in North Carolina we decided to explore Linville Falls. I was looking to see Pisgah National Forest, which, as it turns out is really many pockets of land in the region managed by the US Forest Service – not one contiguous tract.
We walked a little less than 4 miles along a mixture of newly minted, wide gravel trails, stairs, and some soft pine-needle covered forest trails, to see four different overlook points to the falls. They are, of course, beautiful, but it was interesting to see the damage, and portions still closed two years after Hurricane Helene. The falls suffered a ton of damage, wiping out a bridge across the river and the National Park Service information center that had been here.
The forest itself is full of very tall pine trees and what I can only describe as a Mountain Laurel forest. What looked like Mountain Laurel formed a secondary canopy about 15-20 feet overhead through much of the walk. I’ve never seen Mountain Laurel growing very much like a tree vs a shrub so I’m not sure what it is exactly.
We thoroughly enjoyed the walk here and are happy to see all the work to rebuild and recover after so much damage.
In Summary
To quote DJ (more or less), “it’s a beautiful area but I would never want to live here.” We had a great time exploring the area around Newland, NC. It is beautiful, but at times is overrun with people. With windy mountain roads and small touristy communities this means it is maddeningly slow and takes forever to get anywhere.
All the hikes we did were wonderful, and they, thankfully, were not overrun with people. We didn’t have a car with high clearance so we really couldn’t make it to some of the longer or more difficult trails which was a shame.
We did visit a few businesses right at opening time to avoid the crowds and really enjoyed a couple of them.
First, we sat at the bar and enjoyed tastings at Kettell Beerworks in Banner Elk, celebrating our 29th Anniversary and planning how we might celebrate our 30th next year. The beer was good enough and we found a couple we enjoyed.
We also stopped by Linville Falls Winery after visiting the falls itself and may have zeroed in on spending 1-3 months in Sicily next year for our 30th. The winery is beautiful and the wines were quite good. This probably should not have been a surprise as it was started by someone who cut his teeth winemaking in Sonoma.
At any rate, we had fun but its time to say goodbye as we head to off to Ashfield, MA by way of Romney, WV and Scranton, PA.