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Elevation-Microclimate

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Avalanche

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Went from Gatlinburg to Cherokee to Asheville, then to Black Mountain and Chimney Rock. Weather is different when you get higher up.

One thing I noticed, there are no homes on Newfound Gap Rd, or around the Mt Mitchell area. All the homes for sale are in lower elevations where you cant take advantage of elevation snows.

When you go north past Little Switzerland to the Linville, Newland, Banner Elk, and Blowing Rock you find homes and the elevation is 3200 to 3700, plenty of elevation for guaranteed seasonal snow.

When I was in Boone during Dec it was partly cloudy, 10 miles down the road in Blowing Rock it was raining, then 15 miles south toward Lenoir it was sunny.

Love the microclimates of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mnts.

For those that have traversed most of the NC mountains, are there any places in high elevations that have homes (potentially for purchase), or are areas you know are good for annual snow that may be nestled away from major towns or that the majority of the public may be unaware of? Just thinking outside the obvious. I know Beech and Grandfather are.

Linville and Newland caught my eye with 3700 feet in elevation, receiving around 30 annual inches of snow, and also having stores and some commerce, with an easy drive to bigger areas with a lot of commerce.
 
There are homes near Mt. Mitchell with elevation I have gone and looked at them and land there over 4500' in elevation. I have been shopping mainly land but also homes in the area for years. I have one tract of land already in Ashe County that's above 3000'. The thing I don't like are all the Hoa's and Poa's. Essentially the NC/Tennessee border is all high elevation, just along the border itself. Watauga has gotten pricier in general.
 
Shouldn’t even be that many homes up there in the first place . Go ahead and continue to erode and destroy the natural beauty of our mountains in exchange for cheaply built wooden McMansions . The mountains are very much still unprotected and we are losing them rapidly so go ahead and buy your piece before it all looks like a high elevation Clayton or some other crap hole !

Sorry but I’m pretty concerned about rare and beautiful ecosystems like this being ruined by our collective greed . Gl to you.
 
Lickwx said:
Shouldn’t even be that many homes up there in the first place . Go ahead and continue to erode and destroy the natural beauty of our mountains in exchange for cheaply built wooden McMansions . The mountains are very much still unprotected and we are losing them rapidly so go ahead and buy your piece before it all looks like a high elevation Clayton or some other crap hole !

Sorry but I’m pretty concerned about rare and beautiful ecosystems like this being ruined by our collective greed . Gl to you.
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Kind of a strange place to take a stance. If it's not in a national park in this country its up for grabs, sorry but that's the deal. If you want to rail against development you should probably start with the coast, those homes probably should not be there and nature many times reclaims that property. There are many, many people living sustainably up in the mountains, much more so than around our area. Land in private hands is almost all of the time better off than land in the hands of large commercial groups. But the fact is somebody already owns every bit of that land here, there and everywhere, they can choose to clear cut, develop, build however they see fit. Somebody wanting to build a home, within the legal confines of the building restrictions, should absolutely do so. Without that the local economies and governments would fall apart.
 
Lickwx said:
Shouldn’t even be that many homes up there in the first place . Go ahead and continue to erode and destroy the natural beauty of our mountains in exchange for cheaply built wooden McMansions . The mountains are very much still unprotected and we are losing them rapidly so go ahead and buy your piece before it all looks like a high elevation Clayton or some other crap hole !

Sorry but I’m pretty concerned about rare and beautiful ecosystems like this being ruined by our collective greed . Gl to you.
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I understand, Im looking at areas that have already had some homes and commerce dating back 100 years. Way past the time to tell people in Linville and Blowing Rock they shouldnt build. The early settlers probably shouldve stopped at Winston or Hickory, but oh well, they traversed west. I completely get your sentiments though. If it looked like Newy York, I wouldnt want to be there.
 
Avalanche said:
One thing I noticed, there are no homes on Newfound Gap Rd, or around the Mt Mitchell area. All the homes for sale are in lower elevations where you cant take advantage of elevation snows.
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That's because it's all government land.

Newfound Rd exists solely inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Mt. Mitchell is a state park that is surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest.
 
Thor said:
Kind of a strange place to take a stance. If it's not in a national park in this country its up for grabs, sorry but that's the deal. If you want to rail against development you should probably start with the coast, those homes probably should not be there and nature many times reclaims that property. There are many, many people living sustainably up in the mountains, much more so than around our area. Land in private hands is almost all of the time better off than land in the hands of large commercial groups. But the fact is somebody already owns every bit of that land here, there and everywhere, they can choose to clear cut, develop, build however they see fit. Somebody wanting to build a home, within the legal confines of the building restrictions, should absolutely do so. Without that the local economies and governments would fall apart.
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Shouldn’t be a massive local economy up there. This is one area where the value of the people’s private property rights there is outweighed by the value of protecting those spaces . Everyone wants to live like a king but we have nearly 8 billion people on this planet and that just isn’t possible! Yes I rail against the coastal homes even more especially considering they are all second homes ! Land management is one thing I don’t think capitalism does well at all.... cough cough Brazil , Indonesia and every developing nation that is rapidly growing with free markets ... cough cough the entire polluted southern us ( Florida number 1!)
 
Fun fact: when they tried to build the smoky mountains logging companies railed hard as they owned hundreds of thousands of acres . It was nearly a national forest instead , and in fact it was originally supposed to be much larger if it wasn’t for logging companies ! So if we were to take the stance of the private property owners we wouldn’t have the smoky mountains park.... we would have the 1000000000 home / second home smoky mountain resort .
 
I’m not against homes up there but the sparse rural nature which is more sustainable is rapidly being replaced by a more suburban character clear cut character
 
Lickwx said:
Fun fact: when they tried to build the smoky mountains logging companies railed hard as they owned hundreds of thousands of acres . It was nearly a national forest instead , and in fact it was originally supposed to be much larger if it wasn’t for logging companies ! So if we were to take the stance of the private property owners we wouldn’t have the smoky mountains park.... we would have the 1000000000 home / second home smoky mountain resort .
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There wouldn't have been homes built on national forest land. Had it gone that route, it would have existed just as it has today.

As for logging, it is not inherently bad. Forest regeneration is an absolute must and sustainable logging is one of the cleanest ways to achieve such. Try to not think of logging as it existed in the early 20th century, and think of instead the way Carl Schenck did. Carl was a trailblazer on forest management and sustainable logging practices and was the cornerstone of the Pisgah and Nanatahala National Forests here in WNC, both of which combined total more than twice the number of recreational acres for the taxpayer, than the GSMNP does.

This is one of the best documentaries out there if you can find it. It was on PBS not long ago:

 
BlueRidgeFolklore said:
There wouldn't have been homes built on national forest land. Had it gone that route, it would have existed just as it has today.

As for logging, it is not inherently bad. Forest regeneration is an absolute must and sustainable logging is one of the cleanest ways to achieve such. Try to not think of logging as it existed in the early 20th century, and think of instead the way Carl Schenck did. Carl was a trailblazer on forest management and sustainable logging practices and was the cornerstone of the Pisgah and Nanatahala National Forests here in WNC, both of which combined total more than twice the number of recreational acres for the taxpayer, than the GSMNP does.

This is one of the best documentaries out there if you can find it. It was on PBS not long ago:

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To piggyback off of this, if y'all haven't visited Schenck's first forestry school, The Cradle of Forestry in the PNF, you really should. It's just a short drive north on 276 above Looking Glass Falls.

Sustainable forest management practices have been a backbone of the WNC forest and the wildlife that inhabit the woodlands, even since the time of Cherokee. Even they knew that the only way to maintain wildlife clearings, such as the Cataloochee Valley where the elk then and now roam, was to cut and burn, but that the animals that live among the forest would benefit the most. Have you ever been into an old growth high canopy forest and it be silent? Hardly any wildlife at all where it offers no protection and the sunlight can't reach the forest floor. You go into a 5 year growth clearcut and you hear songbirds galore, see signs of wildlife everywhere coming and going from the the thickets that are now vibrant with blackberries, briars, grasses and edible shrubs. This regeneration is called "Early Successional Growth":




"Can't see the forest for the trees" is not just a euphemism here. It has a very practical meaning. The forest is the flora AND the fauna, and it's on us to ensure that they both persevere.

I'll step off my soapbox now.
 
I don't want this to turn into an off topic discussion about development so I won't reply further beyond this. I work as a Civil Engineer in Raleigh and dealing with this type of thing is my life everyday. There are a lot of misconceptions about development. The Mountains are an absolutely beautiful place and should be preserved as best they can. The problems really come up in areas that are more rural where the building codes and regulations either aren't in place or are not enforced. The "Good Ole Boy" mentality is where it gets dangerous for the environment More responsible development brings more funding for parks, infrastructure and tighter regulations. We are not Brazil, Mexico or some third world country. There are ways to build and live sustainably and nobody wants to preserve the beauty of the mountains more than the people who already live there, but those people need jobs too, need schools for their kids, need roads that are maintained and there is only one way to get all that.
 
Thor said:
I don't want this to turn into an off topic discussion about development so I won't reply further beyond this. I work as a Civil Engineer in Raleigh and dealing with this type of thing is my life everyday. There are a lot of misconceptions about development. The Mountains are an absolutely beautiful place and should be preserved as best they can. The problems really come up in areas that are more rural where the building codes and regulations either aren't in place or are not enforced. The "Good Ole Boy" mentality is where it gets dangerous for the environment More responsible development brings more funding for parks, infrastructure and tighter regulations. We are not Brazil, Mexico or some third world country. There are ways to build and live sustainably and nobody wants to preserve the beauty of the mountains more than the people who already live there, but those people need jobs too, need schools for their kids, need roads that are maintained and there is only one way to get all that.
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That is true , however the mountains are very much still mostly unprotected which is the issue . Also this brings up an interesting question , if growth is what brings jobs and funding then are we just supposed to grow nonstop?

One model I wish the state of NC had looked at was what New York State did with the Adirondack mountains . 6 million acres of protected land , however it’s the only protected land where people are allowed to live and have homes . It’s like a slightly less protected national forest . It’s interspersed with more strictly protected areas .
 
Lickwx said:
One model I wish the state of NC had looked at was what New York State did with the Adirondack mountains . 6 million acres of protected land , however it’s the only protected land where people are allowed to live and have homes . It’s like a slightly less protected national forest . It’s interspersed with more strictly protected areas .
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There are still areas here in WNC where people own land privately within the boundaries of the USFS land. They're called "Inholdings" and the land was owned by said family before the establishment of the National Forest in that area. Once it becomes USFS land, the land is protected from any new development in nearly all circumstances.
 
Lickwx said:
Shouldn’t be a massive local economy up there. This is one area where the value of the people’s private property rights there is outweighed by the value of protecting those spaces . Everyone wants to live like a king but we have nearly 8 billion people on this planet and that just isn’t possible! Yes I rail against the coastal homes even more especially considering they are all second homes ! Land management is one thing I don’t think capitalism does well at all.... cough cough Brazil , Indonesia and every developing nation that is rapidly growing with free markets ... cough cough the entire polluted southern us ( Florida number 1!)
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If I could afford a house on the beach I would do it in a heartbeat because most likely I could afford the insurance to rebuild if necessary.
 
BlueRidgeFolklore said:
That's because it's all government land.

Newfound Rd exists solely inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Mt. Mitchell is a state park that is surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest.
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Also, there arent many roads, outside of 441, that even go through the Great Smoky Mnts. Plenty of trails for hiking.

I think the corridor of Linville, Newland, Elk Park, and Banner Elk have homes for purchase, and are also high 3500plus feet in elevation, and average 30 plus inches of snow annually, without having to be on a mountain peak like Sugar and Beech Mnts.
 
Avalanche said:
Went from Gatlinburg to Cherokee to Asheville, then to Black Mountain and Chimney Rock. Weather is different when you get higher up.

One thing I noticed, there are no homes on Newfound Gap Rd, or around the Mt Mitchell area. All the homes for sale are in lower elevations where you cant take advantage of elevation snows.

When you go north past Little Switzerland to the Linville, Newland, Banner Elk, and Blowing Rock you find homes and the elevation is 3200 to 3700, plenty of elevation for guaranteed seasonal snow.

When I was in Boone during Dec it was partly cloudy, 10 miles down the road in Blowing Rock it was raining, then 15 miles south toward Lenoir it was sunny.

Love the microclimates of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mnts.

For those that have traversed most of the NC mountains, are there any places in high elevations that have homes (potentially for purchase), or are areas you know are good for annual snow that may be nestled away from major towns or that the majority of the public may be unaware of? Just thinking outside the obvious. I know Beech and Grandfather are.

Linville and Newland caught my eye with 3700 feet in elevation, receiving around 30 annual inches of snow, and also having stores and some commerce, with an easy drive to bigger areas with a lot of commerce.
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I've traveled across the western North Carolina and Georgia Mountains quite a bit. There are three primary areas where the valleys are 3,000' or higher where people reside.

One is the area you mentioned in Avery and Watauga counties. Elk Park is a small town in western Avery County that sits right around 3,300', it resides just up the slope facing west above Roan Mountain, TN so they get a ton of northwest flow snow in the winter whereas other areas further south and east like Crossnore get less. I know this because I knew a family that lived there for 20 years. The great thing about this area is you don't need to own air conditioning. If it gets above 80 here, its 105+ in Columbia.

The second area is southern Macon and Jackson counties, this would include Highlands and Cashiers, and Sky Valley just into the Georgia side. This area is fairly expensive with homes north of 500k. It doesn't receive as much snow being on the southeast side of the Apps, but it primarily stays in the 70s in the summer just like Avery and Watauga. You probably are already aware of this region.

The third area is the area straddling the North Carolina and Tennessee border that is primarily parkland. The surrounding area drops off pretty substantially, so there aren't many high valleys. Maggie Valley at 3,000 is one of the exceptions, there are homes on the surrounding mountains that are in excess of 4,000'. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are jokes and they are no higher than Atlanta, but granted the Smokies are easily accessible being in proximity, I'm sure you already know that as well.

One other area of mention is a place not many have ever heard of, or care to, but that is Suches, Georgia. It is an hour and a half north of downtown Atlanta, and sits right around 3000' in elevation. There isn't much more there than a post office, but its temperatures reflect its high elevation. There aren't many homes, but there are some nice ones.

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J.C. said:
I've traveled across the western North Carolina and Georgia Mountains quite a bit. There are three primary areas where the valleys are 3,000' or higher where people reside.

One is the area you mentioned in Avery and Watauga counties. Elk Park is a small town in western Avery County that sits right around 3,300', it resides just up the slope facing west above Roan Mountain, TN so they get a ton of northwest flow snow in the winter whereas other areas further south and east like Crossnore get less. I know this because I knew a family that lived there for 20 years. The great thing about this area is you don't need to own air conditioning. If it gets above 80 here, its 105+ in Columbia.

The second area is southern Macon and Jackson counties, this would include Highlands and Cashiers, and Sky Valley just into the Georgia side. This area is fairly expensive with homes north of 500k. It doesn't receive as much snow being on the southeast side of the Apps, but it primarily stays in the 70s in the summer just like Avery and Watauga. You probably are already aware of this region.

The third area is the area straddling the North Carolina and Tennessee border that is primarily parkland. The surrounding area drops off pretty substantially, so there aren't many high valleys. Maggie Valley at 3,000 is one of the exceptions, there are homes on the surrounding mountains that are in excess of 4,000'. Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are jokes and they are no higher than Atlanta, but granted the Smokies are easily accessible being in proximity, I'm sure you already know that as well.

One other area of mention is a place not many have ever heard of, or care to, but that is Suches, Georgia. It is an hour and a half north of downtown Atlanta, and sits right around 3000' in elevation. There isn't much more there than a post office, but its temperatures reflect its high elevation. There aren't many homes, but there are some nice ones.

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Thank you for the feedback. I like the smokies, but theyre out as parkland. Elk Park could be the area. High elevation, guaranteed snow and summer temps in upper 70s. I will look into that!!
 
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