Blue Ridge Range: The Gentle Mountains

Welcome to the ancient, rumpled realm of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Writer Ron Fisher and photographer Rik Cooke guide you through the gentle mountains that rise in a sky-wash haze from Pensylvania to northern Georgia. The New River, America’s oldest stream, flows across the entire range while a 470-mile continuous span of skyline road leads from Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Seven national forests harbor 130 species of trees and an astonishing diversity of mosses, fungi, flowering plants, and wildlife. Meet Cherokee Indians who continue the artistic traditions of their ancestors as well as descendants of European settlers who developed their own lasting heritage of folk crafts.