The nearby “Tail of the Dragon,” a stretch of US Highway 129, has 318 curves in 11 miles and is America’s number one motorcycle and sports car road.Get a preview of the next several hundred miles at Humpback Rocks, at Milepost 5.8, an enormous rock outcrop that served as a landmark for wagon trains in the 1840s. In North Carolina, travelers look down on stunning views of the Appalachian Mountains, Snowbird, Slickrock, and Joyce Kilmer Forests and on clear days can see the Great Smoky Mountains in the distance.

This ridge route gets its name from the two National Forests it crosses: the Cherokee National Forest and the Nantahala National Forest. It took 30 years to construct this paved 50-mile, two-lane road that climbs to elevations of over 5,300 feet between Robbinsville, North Carolina and Tellico Plains, Tennessee.

Frequent turnouts, hiking trailheads and picnic spots give travelers ample opportunity to fully enjoy the beauty of the mountains. Built during the Depression, the road was designed from the outset to be a meandering drive through the Appalachians from Virginia to Western North Carolina. Perhaps the most famous scenic byways in the North Carolina mountains is the Blue Ridge Parkway. Scenic byways take travelers through National Park land, National Forests, rustic valleys and peaceful farmland to breathtaking mountain vistas, waterfalls, scenic small towns, vineyards, and historic sites. The North Carolina mountains and foothills are laced with Scenic Byways, roads designated by the federal government and state government for their outstanding archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational and scenic qualities.

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