Blue Ridge Parkway Archives

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On June 29, 2000, 32-year-old Chris Boone of Spruce Pine, N.C. set the speed record for a bicycle on the 469 mile Blue Ridge Parkway in 29 hours 36 minutes and 22 seconds. After a prayer with his support team, he began this journey at Milepost 469 in Cherokee, N.C. at 4:00 a.m. When he reached Spruce Pine, it began to rain, and it would rain the rest of the day, through the night,…

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September 4, 2019

Journal

“South End Runner” chosen as finalist in Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition

We have been honored to have our documentary photograph "South End Runner", selected as a finalist in the 11th Annual Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition. The category for selection is Blue Ridge Parkway – People on the Parkway. The image is of an employee at the Pisgah Inn who ran each morning from the Inn to Wagon Road Gap and back at Milepost 412. He is half-way home. If you are inclined to vote for "Best in…

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March 23, 2014

Journal

Dr. Harley Jolley …”Mr. Blue Ridge Parkway”

At the age of 92, one may accumulate many credentials ... all of which are true. Seasonal ranger and historian for the Blue Ridge Parkway as a young man... Veteran of the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), even as a younger man... Veteran of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.... Distinguished retired Professor of History at Mars Hill College.... Recipient of North Carolina's Order of the Long Leaf Pine.... Kind. Compassionate. Respecting. A historian's historian. A friend to…

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January 20, 2013

Journal

Two national parks, a night sky, “The Soul Tree”, and the poet laureate of the Blue Ridge Parkway …

I receive personal pleasure by creating occasions which bring constellations of memories and relationships into view at one time. An intent on a recent clear evening around 11:00 pm was to execute a test exposure for a motion time-lapse project that I will be doing for Grandfather Mountain this winter. I chose the Waterrock Knob Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, looking west towards the Smokies. The foreground incidentally included an old fir snag which was the subject material of…

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November 22, 2012

Journal

A champion falls …

It should no surprise that the eastern hemlock was my favorite tree growing up. It ALWAYS provided shade for those trout streams that I fished with my father, ALWAYS embraced the cold and deep swimming hole where I swam as a kid, and ALWAYS with verdant comfort dotted the winter landscape scenery of the Blue Ridge Parkway. When they began to die off in my backyard of Haywood County, I felt for the first time my own impending mortality. What…

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September 24, 2012