A letter from a local
The High Country grows on you fast.
Boone sits up at 3,300 feet, which in the South means cool summers, actual snow, and that long blue view off the Parkway every single day on the way home. It's a college town, so it's young, cheap by mountain-town standards, and there's live music somewhere most nights.
The goods: Rocky Knob's bike park is in town, Grandfather Mountain's rugged mile-high ridgeline is twenty minutes out, the Watauga Gorge brings real whitewater, and the New River — oldest river on the continent, allegedly — winds past for the mellow days. Winter is small-hill skiing and big-hill fun.
Work is the university, outdoor businesses, and a growing remote crowd that discovered High Country rent. Most folks here are stacking a life out of pieces they actually like.
Come in early October when the hardwoods go full riot and the Parkway turns into a forty-mile golden tunnel. The High Country recruits hardest in the fall.
— Eli