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Living High In North Carolina's High Country
From the Spring 2005 Issue
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There is no end to the activities in the High Country, summer through winter. Each weekend in summer features craft fairs, music festivals, hiking and rafting excursions, concerts on lawns, and old-fashioned parades with homemade floats. Trout season begins in the spring; fall is the setting for enjoying the splendor of nature at its finest, and winter, well, ski on.
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The gathering of the clans happens every year at the Highland Games at Grandfather Mountain, the largest event of its kind in the country.
PHOTO BY VICKI ROZEMA
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Highland Games: Each year the largest gathering of Scottish Clans in the United States meets on Grandfather Mountain with bagpipes and kettle drums to entertain the public.
Valle Crucis Fair: Hundreds of crafts people gather each year in the tiny valley of Valle Crucis for one of the most anticipated events of summer.
Wooly Worm Festival: This is the 27th year for an event that put Banner Elk on the map. Food, crafts, entertainment, and of course, the Woolly Worm races with actual cash prizes for the most fleet of foot.
Trout Season: It begins in the spring, and if you don’t have your own favorite fishing spot, services are available with guides and equipment.
Doc Watson Music Festival: Cove Creek hosts its most famous son with bluegrass long into the night.
The Appalachian Summer Festival: Boone hosts this multi-arts cultural festival featuring the finest in music, dance, theater and the visual arts. Named one of the “Top 20 Events in the Southeast.”
Skiing: The excellent choices include Appalachian Ski Mountain in Boone; Hawksnest Resort at Seven Devils; Ski Beech Mountain, the highest ski area in eastern North America; and Ski Sugar Mountain Resort, near Banner Elk, with the highest vertical drop and longest run in the state.
Blowing Rock Stage Company: The area’s only resident, professional theater featuring outstanding drama, music and comedy from June through September.
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If it’s spring, it’s time for trout fishing in the mountains, where lakes
and ponds are richly blessed with bounty for a catch.
Photo courtesy of NC Division of Tourism, Film and sports development.
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Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show: This week-long summer hunter/jumper competition first began in 1923 and is the longest-running equestrian event in the country, attracting competitive riders from almost every state and many foreign countries.
Today’s residents in the High Country share a kinship with the first settlers of this land in seeking to preserve God’s legacy. Each new soul choosing this sacred spot quickly comes to understand that because we are only the temporary guardians of the land we’re here to love, we should walk softly in these mountains with a sense of humility and a respect for the divine.
For these mountains do not belong to us. We belong to them. |
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