08/19/2026
Mount Mitchell: 6,684 Feet to the Top of the East
There is a point on the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville where the hardwoods thin out, the air drops ten degrees, and the forest around you stops looking like North Carolina and starts looking like Canada. Keep climbing and you reach the highest ground in eastern America: Mount Mitchell, 6,684 feet above the sea, the tallest peak anywhere east of the Mississippi River....
There is a point on the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville where the hardwoods thin out, the air drops ten degrees, and the forest around you stops looking