It’s been a lovely start to the fall season so far, with pleasant days and cool nights, but a warm end to the first week of October and some rain forecast for the following week may keep color from dashing out of the starting gate at elevations under 5,000 feet. So let’s see where the fall color will shine over the next week or so.
While peak color has ended in several areas above 3,500 feet, color remains at elevations below that, including the immediate Asheville area. We still have green leaves on our oak trees, in fact. Fall is going to linger on into November, yay!
Oh la la, fall color is making a real splash at elevations above 3,500 feet in the mountains around Asheville, NC, this week, with peak color set to arrive at those elevations over the next few days. Meanwhile, here inside Pisgah National Forest at 2,300 feet, the fall foliage is starting to quickly dominate the landscape in some parts of the forest (as you can see from our cover photo of our labyrinth taken on Oct. 16).
As we enter mid-October, color is slowly but surely progressing at our elevation of 2,300 feet above sea level, inside Pisgah National Forest east of Asheville, NC. Mother Nature is using a mostly-yellow color palette at the moment.
Early October is when we start to see colorful “pops” peeking through all the green in Pisgah National Forest and the area around Asheville, NC. Ready to find out where to hunt for bright fall foliage? It’s time for our second week of fall color reports for the NC mountains near Asheville and Black Mountain!
Here we are – the 2016 fall season has arrived to the North Carolina mountains! We’re one week into fall and, somewhat similar to last year, we have actual fall color to report even though it’s very early in the season and still mostly green.
As a tribute to the 100th anniversary of the North Carolina State Park System in 2016, we’ve been featuring one of the four state parks closest to the Inn on Mill Creek each month this summer. We cap off our summer and our highlights of nearby state parks this month with Lake James State Park.
We’ve got a secret hidden gem of a place to share with you: the nature trail at the Old Fort Picnic Area. If you’re reading this, shhh. Don’t tell anyone. Just kidding. But not about the nature trail and the picnic grounds being a gem.
Each month this summer, we’re featuring one of the four North Carolina State Parks closest to the Inn on Mill Creek, and August is reserved for a guest favorite: Grandfather Mountain. Let’s learn a little bit about this special place.
During the summer months, we’re profiling the four state parks near Asheville, NC, as part of Inn on Mill Creek’s nod to the 100th birthday of the North Carolina State Park System in 2016. Our July feature is Chimney Rock State Park and its iconic 315-foot granite namesake. Currently, the way to get to the top of Chimney Rock is a set of 499 steps. So…up, up, up, we go. Let’s do this.
