Blue Ridge Parkway Day #12
Friday, October 31, 2025
On the road early for our final day on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Many miles to cover today and lots of fun experiences. We started the day here at Looking Glass Rock Overlook soon after sunrise. We will end the day on the exciting Tail of The Dragon!! (See photos below!)
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Cowee Mountain Overlook. Still some frost on the ground this early morning at these elevations.
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Cowee Mountain Overlook.
The Richard Balsam Overlook is the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The temperature was in the upper 20’s when we arrived.
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At 6053 feet above sea level, there was more than just a little frost on this Halloween Day.
The southern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway terminates at Cherokee, NC. Here we visited the Oconaluftee Visitor Center.
From ChatGPT:
The Oconaluftee Mountain Farm Museum in Cherokee, North Carolina is an open-air historic site behind the Oconaluftee Visitor Center that recreates a late-19th-century Appalachian farm. It features authentic log buildings like the Davis House, barn, apple house, springhouse, and blacksmith shop relocated from across the park, showing how mountain families lived, farmed, and worked over a century ago.
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We strolled along the Oconaluftee River Trail. Still some nice fall colors even on the final day of October.
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Leaving Cherokee, NC we headed toward the Fontana Dam. Turning a corner on yet another fantastic curvy road, we happened upon this view on NC Route 28 (Fontana Road).
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When originally researching a possible future trip to the Tail of The Dragon, I happened to come across what appeared to be an interesting dam. I always said, if we ever get to this part of the country I wanted to visit Fontana Dam. Well, when we realized the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway was so close to the Fontana Dam and Tail of The Dragon, we just had to make this our final day on the route.
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Some interesting information about the dam posted at their visitor center.
Fontana Dam is an absolutely amazing structure and makes for some great images.
From ChatGPT:
Fontana Dam in North Carolina is an impressive hydroelectric structure on the Little Tennessee River, built by the Tennessee Valley Authority during World War II to supply power and aid regional development. At 480 feet tall, it’s the highest dam east of the Mississippi and forms the scenic 10,000-acre Fontana Lake. The Appalachian Trail crosses its crest, and a visitor center interprets its history and engineering.
A rather vertigo-inducing vantage point.
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The top of the dam is a road, and you can see how close the water is to the top of the dam on the Fontana Lake side of the road. Compare this to the height of the previous image.
View from the top of Fontana Dam across Fontana Lake.
While walking across the dam, this group of car enthusiasts drove past. We will see them again later in the day when we get to the Tail of The Dragon/Deal’s Gap. The group consisted of several Porsches, Corvettes and Ferraris.
From an engineering standpoint, these spillways were fascinating. If you read the caption on the right, it is amazing to consider they had to line the bottom of these spillways with concrete bases to prevent the water from completely eroding the dam. How cool it would be to see the spray shoot up 150 feet when the water hits the bottom!
An image of the gates at the top of the spillway, which are opened when Fontana Lake levels get too high.
Looking down into the spillway. What an ominous view and another vertigo-inducing vantage point.
After leaving Fontana Dam, it was time to head for the Tail of The Dragon/Deals Gap. The Tail of The Dragon is a well-known route on NC 129 leading from NC to TN. It is a favorite of motorcycle and sports car enthusiasts. It is “only” 11 miles in length, but consists of 318 turns in that span. It was incredibly fun to drive the Type-R on that route. It finally got to do what it was built to do!!
From ChatGPT:
The Tail of the Dragon is a legendary 11-mile stretch of U.S. 129 at Deals Gap on the North Carolina–Tennessee state line, famed for 318 tight curves and no intersections or driveways. It’s a bucket-list route for motorcyclists, sports car drivers, and thrill-seekers winding through the Smoky Mountains’ rugged forests. The intense twists, scenic surroundings, and rider culture make it one of America’s most iconic back-road experiences.
The Tree of Shame at Deals Gap/Tail of The Dragon.
From ChatGPT:
The Tree of Shame at Deals Gap is a quirky, unofficial landmark near the southern end of the Tail of the Dragon motorcycle route. It’s a tree-like display at the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort adorned with broken bike parts and other wreckage from riders who didn’t quite conquer the Dragon’s famous curves. It serves as a playful yet stark reminder of the road’s difficulty.
Look who we caught up with; stopped at Deals Gap. We had a nice visit with one of the guys as he fueled his Porsche Boxster Spyder. They were a group of friends, probably in their 60’s, who made the trip from KY with their cars to drive The Dragon and other fantastic driver’s roads in this area. Of all the wonderful cars in this group, this Porsche GT3 RS was by far my favorite!! The gentleman on the right - with his hands in his pockets - owned this one.
It’s no Porsche GT3 RS, but here we are in the Type-R on the Tail of The Dragon.
There is an outfit known as US 129 Photos that takes pictures as you drive by. You can then go on line and view your photos, and order high resolution copies for yourself. This is just a low resolution screenshot of one of the images they captured of us driving by. It was quite a fun experience; glad we did it once.
A view of us driving off into the sunset….
A fitting way to end our trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Thanks for coming along on this adventure with us.
Stay tuned for Route 66 - COMING SPRING OF 2026!!!
