The Blue Ridge Parkway through Western North Carolina

The Asheville stretch

The Parkway runs 469 miles from Virginia to its southern terminus at Cherokee, and its most scenic stretch threads right past Asheville. Close-in highlights:

• Folk Art Center (Milepost 382) — the Southern Highland Craft Guild's gallery and shop, just northeast of town.
• Craggy Gardens (MP 364) — a high bald that turns purple with catawba rhododendron in mid-June.
• Mount Mitchell (via NC-128 off MP 355) — at 6,684 ft, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, with a summit you can nearly drive to. It's a NC state park inside the Parkway corridor.
• Graveyard Fields (MP 418) — waterfalls, blueberries in late summer, and blazing color in fall.

South toward Cherokee

Heading southwest, the road climbs past Waterrock Knob (MP 451, sunset views over endless ridgelines) before dropping to the Southern Terminus at Cherokee, where the Parkway hands you straight off to the Great Smoky Mountains. This is the highest section of the entire Parkway — and the first to close when ice moves in.

Seasons and closures

The Parkway has no fee and never really “closes,” but sections gate shut for ice, fog, and rockslides, especially the high stretches in winter and early spring. Peak leaf color rolls through in October. Real-time section closures are mapped at the Parkway's road-closure map, and the nonprofit Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation is a good planning resource.