The Blowing Rock - Scenic Roadside Look-Outs on Waymarking.com

The Blowing Rock is an immense cliff 4,000 feet above sea level, overhanging Johns River Gorge 3,000 feet below. The phenomenon is so called because the rocky walls of the gorge form a flume through which the northwest wind sweeps with such force that it returns light objects cast over the void.

The current of air flowing upward from The Rock prompted the Ripley's "Believe-It-Or-Not" cartoon about "the only place in the world where snow falls upside down." Visible from "The Rock" down the gorge to the southwest are Hawksbill Mountain and Table Rock. To the west are Grandfather Mountain (the highest peak in the Blue Ridge chain) and Mount Mitchell (the highest peak east of the Rockies).




At the time the rocks of the Blue Ridge Mountains were being thrust up by tremendous forces that slowly squeezed the rocks of the region very much like a huge vise, other natural processes of weathering and erosion started tearing down the young mountains. Now, after more than 250 million years have passed, mountain building has ended and erosion has gradually stripped off the uppermost miles of rocks that were originally here. In the process, rocks that were once buried and squeezed under the weight of miles of rock are now exposed at the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains where we see them at The Blowing Rock and other areas in this region.

These old rocks were drastically changed (metamorphosed) by high pressure and temperature during the hundreds of millions of years while they were still buried. Geologists have classified these metamorphic rocks as GNEISS (pronounced "nice"). The age of the gneiss has been determined to be 1,055 million years by the geologists of the U.S. Geological Survey. This age is based on the amount of radioactivity still present in the small crystals of the mineral zircon found in the rock. This particular rock is officially designated THE BLOWING ROCK GNEISS by Geological Survey of The United States.

During the formation of the Blue Ridge Mountains, strong pressure in the rocks of the earth's crust produced many features which we now see at The Blowing Rock. These features include the more or less "striped" appearance caused by the alignment of the crystals of minerals in the rock. The pressure also caused many microscopic cracks in the rock. Weathering has widened and enlarged these cracks. Erosion by running water has removed the weathered material to such an extent that the present form of The Blowing Rock has been created.


There is also a legend here at the Blowing Rock,
It is said that a Chickasaw chieftan, fearful of a white man’s admiration for his lovely daughter, journeyed far from the plains to bring her to The Blowing Rock and the care of a squaw mother. One day the maiden, daydreaming on the craggy cliff, spied a Cherokee brave wandering in the wilderness far below and playfully shot an arrow in his direction. The flirtation worked because soon he appeared before her wigwam, courted her with songs of his land and they became lovers, wandering the pathless woodlands and along the crystal streams.

One day a strange reddening of the sky brought the brave and the maiden to The Blowing Rock. To him it was a sign of trouble commanding his return to his tribe in the plains. With the maiden’s entreaties not to leave her, the brave, torn by conflict of duty and heart, leaped from The Rock into the wilderness far below. The grief-stricken maiden prayed daily to the Great Spirit until one evening with a reddening sky, a gust of wind blew her lover back onto The Rock and into her arms. From that day a perpetual wind has blown up onto The Rock from the valley below. For people of other days, at least, this was explanation enough for The Blowing Rock’s mysterious winds causing even the snow to fall upside down.

Describe - Highway or Road number: Off of US 321 Closest town or city: Blowing Rock, North Carolina Number of parking spots available: 40 Name if a website describes this location.: [Web Link] Winter View: no Summer View: no Year around access ?: yes Comfort station on site: no Is a photo of an "Information Sign"included?: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/23/2010 stevenmc visited it 06/27/2008 macleod1 visited it 08/16/2006 cameltrophy3 visited it 05/18/2006 WindChaser visited it 07/14/2004 Ga. Cracker visited it 06/29/1997 WalksfarTX visited it

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