Carolina Whitewater: A Paddler's Guide to the Western Carolinas (Canoe and Kayak Series)

Carolina Whitewater: A Paddler's Guide to the Western Carolinas (Canoe and Kayak Series) Review

The ultimate guide to paddling whitewater in the western Carolinas, Carolina Whitewater has guided boaters to the best water in the Tar Heel and Palmetto states for almost 30 years. This latest edition includes expanded and updated information for the classic rivers, like the Chattooga, French Broad, and Nantahala, in addition to many new steep creeks including Cove, Rockhouse, and Hurricane. New to this edition is a section on flatwater that is suitable for canoe camping and can be handled by beginner and novice paddlers. Profiled runs are from the Broad River and two of its tributaries, the Enoree and the Tyger. The convenient at-a-glance format for each river section makes it easy to find critical details such as difficulty, length, paddling time, gradient, and more. River descriptions, shuttle and gauge information, and topographic-based maps complete the useful information needed to help boaters pick rivers to match their ability. With over 80 detailed profiles and more than 60 maps of the best canoeing and kayaking waterways in the Carolinas, this guide is indispensable. From quiet float trips on the French Broad to exciting runs on the fast-flowing Nolichucky, Carolina Whitewater details the best paddling experiences in both states.

Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads (Touring the Backroads)

Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads (Touring the Backroads) Review

Have you ever been to the mountains of western North Carolina and wanted to see the scenery but escape the crowds? Maybe you were tempted to take off down a side road but hesitated, fearful of getting lost. Now, Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads can help you make that escape.

The book's 21 tours cover the entire mountain region of western North Carolina and provide numerous opportunities for seeing unspoiled landscapes and pastoral scenes. But scenery is not the only focus. Once you're on the backroads, you might speculate about the history behind the old white clapboard farmhouse that dominates the valley ahead, or you might wonder about the rest of the story behind the two sentences on the historical marker at the side of the road. Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads fills in those details. Drawing from local histories and early travel writings, each tour is designed to be a journey through the history of the ages, and stories about early settlers combine to present a perspective that makes the scenery come alive.

This third edition features updated directions, additional sites, new photographs, suggested spur trips, and nearby recreational opportunities. Use this guidebook to plan your next day trip, weekend getaway, or cycling adventure!


John F. Blair's Touring the Backroads series includes travel books that literally take readers off the beaten path to historic sites and landmarks. Each book departs the highways and thoroughfares in favor of the backroads, giving directions, suggested routes, and historical details along the way. These books can be read at home, or they make excellent travel companions for those looking for something beyond the norm.

Western North Carolina: A History from 1730 to 1913

Western North Carolina: A History from 1730 to 1913 Review

From the introduction to the appendix, this volume is filled with interesting information. Covering seventeen counties—Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga, and Yancey—the author spent about ten years searching and gathering materials.

Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical

Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

School Segregation in Western North Carolina: A History, 1860s-1970s (Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies)

School Segregation in Western North Carolina: A History, 1860s-1970s (Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies) Review

Although African Americans make up a small portion of the population of western North Carolina, they have contributed much to the area's physical and cultural landscape. This enlightening study surveys the region's segregated black schools from Reconstruction through integration and reveals the struggles, achievements, and ultimate victory of a unified community intent on achieving an adequate education for its children. The book documents the events that initially brought blacks into Appalachia, early efforts to educate black children, the movement to acquire and improve schools, and the long process of desegregation. Personnel issues, curriculum, extracurricular activities, sports, consolidation, and construction also receive attention. Featuring commentary from former students, teachers and parents, this work weighs the value and achievement of rural segregated black schools as well as their significance for educators today.

Handcrafted in the Blue Ridge: Discovering the Crafts, Artisans, and Studios of Western North Carolina

Handcrafted in the Blue Ridge: Discovering the Crafts, Artisans, and Studios of Western North Carolina Review

Western North Carolina is fast becoming known as the Santa Fe of the east coast. Here, tucked into the hills and at the end of dirt roads, skilled American artists and artisans are producing crafts of rare beauty and striking originality. Come visit the studios and galleries of over 150 weavers, jewelers, glass blowers, potters and wood carvers. The book includes practical information about each studio, including directions, address and phone number, hours of operation, and LISTPRICE range, as well as information about local lodging.

The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (Civil War America)

The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (Civil War America) Review

The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (Civil War America) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780807855034
• Condition: New
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In the mountains of western North Carolina, the Civil War was fought on different terms than those found throughout most of the South. Though relatively minor strategically, incursions by both Confederate and Union troops disrupted life and threatened the social stability of many communities. Even more disruptive were the internal divisions among western Carolinians themselves. Differing ideologies turned into opposing loyalties, and the resulting strife proved as traumatic as anything imposed by outside armies. As the mountains became hiding places for deserters, draft dodgers, fugitive slaves, and escaped prisoners of war, the conflict became a more localized and internalized guerrilla war, less rational and more brutal, mean-spirited, and personal--and ultimately more demoralizing and destructive.

From the valleys of the French Broad and Catawba Rivers to the peaks of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, the people of western North Carolina responded to the war in dramatically different ways. Men and women, masters and slaves, planters and yeoman, soldiers and civilians, Confederates and Unionists, bushwhackers and home guardsmen, Democrats and Whigs--all their stories are told here.

Early Tourism in Western North Carolina (NC) (Images of America)

Early Tourism in Western North Carolina (NC) (Images of America) Review

At the beginning of the 20th century, many Americans moved from farm to town, changing from agricultural employment to jobs in factories and retail shops. Along with these new occupations came a new idea called vacation. Ready access to automobiles made leisure travel, once reserved for affluent citizens, increasingly feasible and affordable for working class people. With its cool climate and outstanding scenery, the mountain region of North Carolina became a welcome refuge and ideal tourist destination for weary workers and their families. Western North Carolina, often touted in promotional materials as the land of the sky, hosts Mount Mitchell- the highest mountain east of the Mississippi River-hundreds of waterfalls, some of the world's oldest mountains and rivers, and abundant wildlife. The well-known Blue Ridge Parkway, numerous inns, lodges, hotels, campgrounds, and restaurants were constructed to serve the region's growing number of visitors. Early Tourism in Western North Carolina celebrates the rise of tourism from 1900 to 1950 in the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. Sites featured include the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Grandfather Mountain, Blowing Rock, Asheville, Mount Mitchell, Chimney Rock, the Biltmore Estate, and the Cherokee Indian Reservation.

Methodism in Western North Carolina

Methodism in Western North Carolina Review

Methodism in western North Carolina

Blue Ridge Commons: Environmental Activism and Forest History in Western North Carolina (Environmental History and the American South)

Blue Ridge Commons: Environmental Activism and Forest History in Western North Carolina (Environmental History and the American South) Review

In the late twentieth century, residents of the Blue Ridge mountains in western North Carolina fiercely resisted certain environmental efforts, even while launching aggressive initiatives of their own. Kathryn Newfont examines the environmental history of this region over the course of three hundred years, identifying what she calls commons environmentalism—a cultural strain of conservation in American history that has gone largely unexplored.

Efforts in the 1970s to expand federal wilderness areas in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests generated strong opposition. For many mountain residents the idea of unspoiled wilderness seemed economically unsound, historically dishonest, and elitist. Newfont shows that local people’s sense of commons environmentalism required access to the forests that they viewed as semipublic places for hunting, fishing, and working. Policies that removed large tracts from use were perceived as “enclosure” and resisted.

These battles often pitted industrialists against environmentalists. Newfont argues that the side that most effectively hitched its cause to local residents’ commons culture usually won. A few perceptive activists realized that the same cultural ground that yielded wilderness opposition could also produce ambitious protection efforts, such as Blue Ridge residents’ opposition to petroleum exploration and clearcut timber harvesting.

Incorporating deep archival work and years of interviews and conversations with Appalachian residents, Blue Ridge Commons reveals a tradition of people building robust forest protection movements on their own terms.

Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads (Touring the Backroads Series)

Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads (Touring the Backroads Series) Review

Have you ever been to the mountains of western North Carolina and wanted to see the scenery but escape the crowds? Maybe you were tempted to take off down a side road but hesitated, fearful of getting lost. Now, Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads can help you make that escape.

The book's 21 tours cover the entire mountain region of western North Carolina and provide numerous opportunities for seeing unspoiled landscapes and pastoral scenes. But scenery is not the only focus. Once you're on the backroads, you might speculate about the history behind the old white clapboard farmhouse that dominates the valley ahead, or you might wonder about the rest of the story behind the two sentences on the historical marker at the side of the road. Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads fills in those details. Drawing from local histories and early travel writings, each tour is designed to be a journey through the history of the ages, and stories about early settlers combine to present a perspective that makes the scenery come alive.

This third edition features updated directions, additional sites, new photographs, suggested spur trips, and nearby recreational opportunities. Use this guidebook to plan your next day trip, weekend getaway, or cycling adventure!


John F. Blair's Touring the Backroads series includes travel books that literally take readers off the beaten path to historic sites and landmarks. Each book departs the highways and thoroughfares in favor of the backroads, giving directions, suggested routes, and historical details along the way. These books can be read at home, or they make excellent travel companions for those looking for something beyond the norm.