NC Blue Ridge Parkway Fall Foliage Report
Moving westbound on I-26 during the second week of October, road-trippers in Western North Carolina are greeted with splashes of color near 1,800 feet in elevation.
It’s mostly green, with some yellow, and the occasional burgundy. I jump on the Blue Ridge Parkway where it meets the French Broad River.
It’s the last time I’ll encounter traffic for 72 hours.
At 2,100 feet the overlook here appeared to be sprinkled with locals escaping the city for meals and phone conversations in their cars.
Mostly, Subarus.
Headed south, we climb in elevation. Near 3,300 around milemarker 400 — the greens, yellows, oranges, and reds wrap around the curves and cliffs. It’s majestic. And it goes on for miles, uninterrupted.
The maximum speed limit is 45 miles per hour. There are no stop signs and overlooks in abundance. The dramatic changes in weather provide epic sights to behold.
Welcome to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Western North Carolina, where we ascend to 6053 feet at Richland Balsam Overlook, the highest point on the 469 mile drive connecting the Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks.
At Richland Balsam the yellow leaves that clung to the branches the week before, have fallen. The clouds, thousands of feet below, wash over the ancient Appalachians like a slow river.
Up here, these are the last breaths of autumn.
Slowly descending south, we head towards Cherokee, the southern extremity of the engineering marvel. This upper leg of the Parkway is its most powerful.
It’s where we snake through the steepest terrain in the southern Appalachians, where water splashes off the open rock faces populated with orange moss and purple, white and yellow flowers.
It’s the most dramatic road trip on the East Coast of the United States.
During these early days of the latest federal government shutdown all typical and visible operations on The Blue Ridge Parkway appear operational. On this trip I spent one night at Mt. Pisgah and Sunburst campgrounds and overnighted primitively one night.
Park Ranger law enforcement was present and interacting with travelers, reminding them about Parkway regulations evven if they hadn’t violated any — and didn’t intend to.
