Pisgah National Forest - North Carolina

Enjoy beautiful and raw mountain scenery, and the best recreational opportunities in eastern North America! Pisgah National Forest is a wonderland of nature - perfect for the rugged outdoorsman or woman.

The Pisgah National Forest is named after Mt. Pisgah, a 5,000-foot-high peak located at Blue Ridge Parkway, near the Cold Mountain of book and movie fame. Consisting of over half a million acres of forest in its surrounding areas, the beginnings of the National Forest occurred when George Vanderbilt, the grandson of railroad baron, Cornelius Vanderbilt, assembled property around his growing estate at the confluence of the Swannanoa and French Broad Rivers in western North Carolina.

Today, visitors can hike over 1,000 miles of trails and wilderness areas, and in warmer weather, fish and boat its rivers and streams. The high mountain peaks and deep gorges are great for rock climbing enthusiasts and mountain bikers too. Three fish hatcheries in the National Forest raise more than a half million brook, brown and rainbow trout annually, and they are used to stock public mountain trout waters in Western North Carolina. If visiting in the winter, there's even skiing, and the region is the epicenter of the 300-year-old Appalachian folk arts and crafts tradition - fun for the whole family!

Should you care to spend the night, the Pisgah National Forest offers full-featured campgrounds as well as primitive and group campgrounds. Located at 1001 Pisgah Highway, Pisgah Forest, is a North Carolina must-see!