If you’re looking for a springtime day trip while you’re staying in the North Carolina mountains, and want to see some of the area’s truly photogenic scenery, check out Crabtree Falls. This wildflower and waterfall hike is north of Asheville, off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Milepost 339, between Mt. Mitchell State Park and Little Switzerland.
Five years ago, we did a list of good wintertime hikes ranging from easy nature trails to fairly strenuous hikes. It remains one of our most-read blog posts ever. Visitors to the Blue Ridge mountains near Asheville, NC, want to know good places to hike in winter (and the other three seasons as well). So why not add more to our list of seasonal favorites?
Looking for an easy hike to a waterfall when you come to our neck of the woods in western North Carolina? Look no further than Toms Creek Falls just north of Marion, North Carolina, in McDowell County.
| The Inn on Mill Creek B&B in late October |
“Peak week” for fall color has arrived in our neck of the woods, between Black Mountain and Old Fort, NC (2,300 feet in elevation). The Inn on Mill Creek B&B is situated two miles inside Pisgah National Forest, and with so many different tree types, we are seeing large bursts of varying color all around!
| Color has reached 2,500 to 3,500 feet |
This week brings more color to our elevation (2,300 feet), and it looks like peak color at elevations around Asheville and Black Mountain, NC, will be happening over several days through the very end of October. As usual, we are still waiting on the oak trees! Gah! However, other tree types, such as sugar and red maples and sassafras, are beginning to change more rapidly. As it stands, this year’s predominant fall color is velvety gold, with birch, beech, hickory, sassafras and others providing different shades of yellow, bronze, and yellowish-orange. Early changers, such as sourwood, dogwood and sourgum are still showing color (mostly red hues) while tall tulip poplars are now bare after a rainstorm on October 14th caused their brown-tipped yellow leaves to drop.
Into week 3 of our fall color reports we go, on this rainy Tuesday! While not very common in October around these parts, the rain is actually doing a bit of good “clean up” duty, sending some of the early, dull-colored leaves to the ground and making way for the stars of the fall color show that are just starting to shine.
| Roaring Fork Falls |
A lot of our guests like to hike to waterfalls, and while choices are limited east of Asheville and involve a little bit of driving (scenic routes, of course), the quality of the waterfalls near Black Mountain and in McDowell County near Old Fort more than make up for it. Here’s a short list, in order of drive time from the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast to each waterfall hike’s trailhead:
Looking for some incredible views when you visit the mountains of Western North Carolina? Combine a day of scenic driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville with an easy hike, such as the Chestoa View Trail (0.6 miles long).
