Friday, May 7, 2010

Extend the Blue Ridge Parkway!

As you enter the Smoky Mountains on U.S. Highway 441 just past Cherokee, North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway comes off to the right. From here it travels 469 miles to Front Royal, Virginia, through some of the prettiest land on the eastern seaboard. About every 10 years my wife and I decide to revisit the Blue Ridge, for a good hike and to take some scenic pictures. The names stay with you...a memorable night in the Peaks of Otter Lodge (milepost 86) after camping for a week, a stop a Brineger Cabin (milepost 239), a preserved piece of Blue Ridge history.

Guide to the Blue Ridge Parkway
The biggest problem with the Blue Ridge Parkway is that it takes 4 hours to get there from our house in Cherokee County, Georgia and the Blue Ridge Mountains are just minutes away. I think that extending the Blue Ridge Parkway further south, through the remote area west of Murphy, crossing into Tennessee above Farner, then picking up the "Cohutta Loop" west of Ducktown. Now in Georgia, the loop represents old Georgia Highway 2 as it travels through remote sections of wilderness, packed with scenic views and unusual names (Hell, Potatopatch Mountain), like the current Blue Ridge Parkway.

I would think that this road would end in Eton, coming down from the Cohuttas on the old CCC Road to Eton (just north of Chatsworth if your looking for it on a map).