Grandfather's Keeper

In North Carolina’s High Country, 5,945-foot Grandfather Mountain attracts travelers from around the world, especially to join the kilt-wearing masses at the annual Highland Games or to take in the 360-degree views from its Mile High Swinging Bridge (America’s highest suspension footbridge).

But few people know the distinctive peak as well as Randy Johnson. He launched Grandfather Mountain’s modern trail system in 1978 and served as backcountry manager until 1990. The Boone hiker and author has four hiking guides to Southern Appalachia under his belt.

Now Johnson has written the definitive guide to the mountain and its history through the ages—from its geological formation and early exploration to its 20th-century development as a tourist attraction. Published this summer by the University of North Carolina Press, the nearly 300-page book also offers a practical guide to hiking and photographing the mountain, complete with maps, details on views, and difficulty ratings.

Here, Johnson shares a few highlights of the book and his favorite mountain. 

What makes Grandfather the “quintessential Appalachian summit,” as you call it?

Grandfather has uniquely epitomized or experienced just about every natural distinction or form of human-induced destruction that any other Appalachian summit can claim. It’s the most ecologically significant peak in the East, bar none, a tiny spot relative to Great Smoky Mountains National Park but with more rare and endangered species. 

Its peak-to-base relief is one of the East’s most Rocky Mountain-like elevation changes, from Canadian zone to piney woods piedmont. With an almost alpine, craggy character akin to New England, it’s the southernmost summit of the north and the northernmost peak in the south. 

It was logged, but more lightly (and less industrially) than most, so its niche ecosystems survived. It’s protected by a national forest (the East’s first, Pisgah), the North Carolina state park system, The Nature Conservancy, even a private stewardship foundation. It may be the world’s only privately owned, UNESCO-designated International Biosphere Reserve. And the Blue Ridge Parkway drapes a national park’s protection across its flank—home to the Linn Cove Viaduct, a spectacular span that helps make the parkway the country’s most visited unit of the national park system. I could go on and on. 

What characters in Grandfather’s history are most interesting to you?

Certainly the people who had the biggest impact on the mountain were the MacRae family who bought the mountain in the late 1800s, launched Linville, and logged the mountain. After them, the Mortons had tremendous impact. From 1945 or so, photographer and developer Hugh MacRae Morton built the Swinging Bridge travel attraction, and after Morton’s death in 2006, his grandson, Hugh MacRae “Crae” Morton III led the family’s transfer of the bulk of the backcountry to state park status. That’s a fascinating tourism tale of private ownership where the pendulum swung from commercialism and development to eventually settle on the side of public ownership for most of the mountain. 

Those are important characters in the book, and I tell that modern history in greater depth than it’s been told—but frankly, to me, the most interesting stories are the dozens of other people, explorers and scientists, conservationists, so many folks who weren’t born into a relationship with the mountain, but loved the mountain so much they chose to devote their lives to experiencing, exploring, and preserving it over centuries. You’ll meet some fascinating folks in the book. It’s a nonfiction work, but I think former Our State editor Vicky Jarrett captured the storytelling side of this book when she said it “reads like a James Michener novel.”

In your opinion, what are the best and worst parts of Grandfather Mountain’s tourism success?

Best side of tourism success: Between all the tourists who drove to the Swinging Bridge and loved the view, and all the hikers who fell in love with the wilderness on trails that I helped preserve, the mountain developed such a passionate public constituency by the 1990s that proposing further development of this Appalachian icon just wasn’t possible. That’s when the future of conservation finally reached critical mass. 

Worst side of tourism success: the Swinging Bridge travel attraction. I don’t mean this to sound like an indictment of Hugh Morton; times were different back then. However, the road that was built to the top could have been executed far more sensitively. Most importantly, the pristine gap where the parking lot was gouged out was very likely the most spectacular spot on the entire mountain, a setting of nationally significant scenery that might have been preserved if a dozen “what if” scenarios had worked out to make the mountain public land in the 1930s and 1940s. Before then, motorists drove to a lower vista point and loved it. Then they hiked higher, into that gorgeous gap. I have dreams that it stayed that way. My book has awesome images of that earlier time. The architect who designed the newest, 2010 summit visitor center was there when the old visitor was torn down. He sensed what was lost when the bulldozers arrived in 1952. He told me, “The fact is, if the road to the top of Grandfather Mountain and the Swinging Bridge weren’t already there, it could never be built today.”

What do you hope readers take away from your book?

I’ve explored the Appalachians from the Deep South through New England to the Gaspe in Canada and even on to Scotland. I set out to write more than a book about one North Carolina peak. I’ve packed a lot of what I know about the entire Appalachian range into a portrait of a summit that I argue is the most iconic mountain in Eastern America. Whenever I discuss the natural and human history of Grandfather, I try to contextualize it and connect it to some other significant place or feature of the Appalachians elsewhere. How else would you see how Grandfather stands apart? That said, Grandfather is also a symbol of the North Carolina High Country, one of the Appalachians’ choice resort regions. My book explores how the mountain has shaped and unified the history of the Boone, Blowing Rock, and Linville area.

What would you call the best-kept secrets of Grandfather Mountain? 

The answer to this question could be a book itself—which is why I wrote the book! Some high points come to mind. Worth Weller was a brilliant, 18-year-old herpetologist who died discovering a new species of salamander on the mountain in 1931—but so little is known about him. A lot more is known now—I found his 100-year-old high school sweetheart. Grandfather’s Attic Window Peak has a secret window in its attic—an adventurous crawl through a fissure cave that exits on the face of a cliff. I tell you how to find it. Did Native Americans ever perform rituals in a summit overhang called Indian House Cave? That mystery too may have just been solved.

What hike or activity do you consider the most revealing experience of Grandfather? 

If you are fit enough, the mountain’s single indispensable experience is to hike the Grandfather Trail over the entire loftiest ridge. The path leaves the Swinging Bridge area and crosses the three highest summits of MacRae, Attic Window, and Calloway peaks, all just below 6,000 feet. The majority of the hike traverses wind-flagged evergreen forest where ladders climb the faces of rocky cliffs and crags. It’s a view-packed experience, a real adventure, but not for the never-ever hiker or anyone afraid of heights. Hike to Calloway and back, or continue down the Daniel Boone Scout Trail to the Blue Ridge Parkway. 

What are the biggest risks facing Grandfather? The biggest opportunities?

The biggest risk is that budget cutting for parks and preservation will limit the funds needed to buy still private land along NC 105 where development could compromise the future integrity of the park. If you care, join a conservation trust like the Blue Ridge Conservancy. For me personally, having started the mountain’s backcountry trail program in the 1970s, the biggest opportunity may be new trails and facilities. I’d like to see the old Shanty Spring Trail return, and that could happen if the state park and Nature Conservancy cooperate. A new parking area for the Profile Trail should be built by 2017, and I hope a visitor center is in the works.