What to See in Blowing Rock - Top Sights and Attractions

Blowing Rock is a rocky outcropping land feature in the town of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, above a gorge in the northern most portion of Caldwell County.

The prevailing wind blows through the gorge toward Blowing Rock. There, at the end of the gorge, the wind's path of least resistance is up the steep slopes surmounted by the outcropping, resulting in a nearly vertical and typically strong wind.

The legend of the Blowing Rock is that a Cherokee brave leapt from the rock into the wilderness below, only to have a gust of wind return him to his lover on top of the rock. This is a typical example of a lover's leap legend. Blowing Rock is private property; a fee for access is payable at the adjacent souvenir shop.

The 2008 feature film Goodbye Solo features Blowing Rock in its concluding scene.^[3]

Memorial park in Watauga County, North Carolina. The Moses H. Cone Memorial Park is a country estate in honor of Moses H. Cone in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. It is on the Blue Ridge Parkway between mileposts 292 and 295 with access at milepost 294. Most locals call it Cone Park. The park is run by the National Park Service and is open to the public. It contains 3,500 acres, a 16-acre trout lake, a 22-acre bass lake, and 25 miles of carriage trails for hiking and horses. The main feature of the park is a twenty-three room 13,000-square-foot mansion called Flat Top Manor built around the early 1900s. At the manor, there is a craft shop and demonstration center, along with an information desk and book store.

The activities in the park are walking, hiking, cross-country skiing, and horseback riding. More people use the park for hiking and horseback riding than any other activity. There is also fishing available at the two nearby fishing lakes. Many people also do amateur and professional photography, especially in the autumn. The park is open year-round and sees 225,000 people each year being the most visited recreational place on the Blue Ridge Parkway and second in visitors after the Folk Art Center that sees 250,000 visitors. Together with the Julian Price Memorial Park, it is the largest developed area set aside for public recreation on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Moses obtained advice from noted conservationist Gifford Pinchot, the pioneering forester at the Biltmore Estate and First Chief of the US Forest Service, on planting white pine forests and hemlock hedges.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 as Flat Top Estate, a national historic district. The district encompasses four contributing buildings and two contributing sites. They include the historic landscape, Flat Top Manor house (1899-1900), carriage house (c. 1899–1905), Cone Cemetery (1908), Sandy Flat Missionary Baptist Church (1908), and the apple barn.^[4]