Blue Ridge Parkway- Tanawha Trail

Traveling North on the Blue Ridge Parkway the Tanawha Trail begins at the Beacon Heights Parking Area. The parking area is at the 305 mileposts

.

The Tanawha Trail is everything I expected from mountain hiking. Gypsy and I climb, up, down, and between rocks. We were inches from steep drop-offs!

Where there are streams, there's going to be bridges. We walked on large and small bridges, some rather dull and others more elaborate in designed. 

 Like the bridges, the streams came in all sizes. Many were large swift cascading creeks, and some were little tributaries that could be stepped over.

The most spectacular mountain views were on Rough Ridge.  From the Parking area, it is a 1/3-mile hike to the observation platform. Here at 4773-feet you can see Grandfather Mountain and the Linn Cove Viaduct.

870-feet North of Linn Cove we were crossing under the Linn Cove Viaduct.  The viaduct is an innovative bridge that skirts around a mountain ridge.

I am driving over the Linn Cove Viaduct on my way back to the motel. A storm was beginning to roll in, and the viaduct was just starting to be engulfed in the fog.