Roan Mountain: Grassy Balds and the World's Largest Rhododendron Garden

Southwest of Banner Elk rises Roan Mountain, a broad six-thousand-foot ridge straddling the North Carolina and Tennessee line. It holds two of the most extraordinary landscapes in the eastern mountains. The first is its grassy balds.

For reasons scientists still debate, the highest crests here are covered not in forest but in open, sun-drenched meadow, forming the longest stretch of grassy bald in the entire Appalachian range, running nearly a thousand acres across peaks called Round Bald, Jane Bald, and Grassy Ridge. The second wonder is the rhododendron. Roan is home to the world's largest natural garden of Catawba rhododendron, which each June erupts into a sea of purple and crimson bloom.

A Catawba legend holds that a great battle was once fought with the Cherokee atop the mountain, and that the rhododendron took its crimson color from the blood spilled, while the grassy openings mark ground the fighting left bare. In eighteen eighty-five a grand resort called the Cloudland Hotel was built right on the state line, drawing politicians and travelers to the cool heights. It was abandoned by nineteen ten, and today the balds have returned to wind, wildflowers, and long three-state views.