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High Country North Carolina

June 27, 2007

By: Christine Tibbetts

Grandfather invited me play with his animals and hike in his hills a few weeks ago and the invitation is open to you too: All year long if you like.

That’s how friendly the folks are in North Carolina’s northwestern corner; they refer to their 5,964-foot-high mountain as a favorite relative instead of using the more formal title: Grandfather’s Mountain.

“Let’s go to grandfather this afternoon,” locals suggest. “The lady slippers are blooming.” They really flock there when the native pink azalea called vaseyi is in bloom because they know it’s more abundant at grandfather than any other place in the world.

Six mountain counties banded together to celebrate the good fortune of their fresh air and high vistas. Those county names are unfamiliar and hard for me to remember, but they gave themselves a friendly nickname too — High Country.

The town names are easier to remember — Banner Elk, Boone, Blowing Rock, West Jefferson, Beech, Linville and one hard one, Valle Crucis.

Invite yourself over. I did twice and it turned out great. Year-round the seasons change, with snow for skiing in the winter, sunshine for playing outside in the summer, and lush colors in the spring and fall.

Twenty years ago my family went to Chetola Lodge in Blowing Rock in February so the children could experience snow and take a ski lesson. This June just the parents returned to explore Blowing Rock, Boone, Banner Elk and nearby small towns and big views.

For once, a great place was still so, not diminished by development. High Country seems to have a handle on progressive thinking matched with hometown mountain values.

Dinner, for instance. In Boone, we stayed in the two-story, no-elevator Broyhill Inn at the end of a steep road winding through the campus of Appalachian State University (ASU). Serviceable rooms, modest and clean. Acceptable but not the kind of furnishings which build big expectations for the dining room, except to enjoy the glorious mountain view through the walls of windows. I should be so lucky as to dine there again. And again. Executive Chef Bill Morris knows how to turn a Boston bib lettuce salad into a wonder of breast of duck with balsamic caramelized apples and feta cheese, how to glaze the pork with pomegranate, to top tuna with fresh pineapple salsa and marinate a rack of lamb with fresh rosemary and olive oil. He also knows how to confer with High Country vintners to pair the perfect local wine with each course. Suggestions are on his menu, and if you ask, he’ll come out of the Broyhill Inn kitchen to talk about your dinner. Chef Morris and chemical engineer Richard Wolfe, Ph.D., like to discuss the melding of the finest foods with fine wine. Wolfe, vintner of Banner Elk Winery, believes the making of fine wines is “75 percent science and 25 percent art.”

he son of a West Virginia coal miner, Wolfe learned the secret of measuring a developing wine’s sugar content when he was 14 from Italian immigrants working the mines with his dad. He retired in 2003 as the director of the program of Applied Science and Research at ASU, and in 2005 from Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk — maintaining his zeal for excellence and university leadership. Would-be vintners can now major in viticulture and enology (grape growing and winemaking) in these High Country mountains.

Jobs are likely after graduation, along with on-the-farm and in-the-winery cutting-edge assistance thanks to the ASU mobile lab which goes to the countryside to provide grape farmers and winemakers with chemical analysis and hands-on advice to help them learn new skills.

“Grapes can replace tobacco and contribute to a healthy economy,” Wolfe says. “This region is very close, temperature-wise, to the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions of France. We know with assurance, since the grant for our first test vineyard in 2002, that we have the right climate for growing top-notch French-American hybrid grapes.”

Climate’s right for growing Christmas trees too. The 30-minute drive from Boone to West Jefferson on the Doc and Merle Watson Highway displayed more Christmas trees of varying heights, all on rolling hills, than I’ve ever imagined. They were a bonus and I’m daydreaming about a chance to be there in the snow.

chose West Jefferson to hunt up the frescoes at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, a dozen murals in downtown and I didn’t know how many quilts painted on barns throughout the countryside.Found ‘em all, and some remarkable stories of creation. Built in 1905, St. Mary’s is a tiny church with big ideas. They invited artist North Carolina artist Ben Long, apprenticed in Florence, Italy for seven years, to create frescoes for the church. You can go in most any time to see John the Baptist, Mary Great with Child and The Mystery of Faith. In the summer you’ll most likely find a docent to explain it all. Fresco making is complicated, with serious time restrictions.

The quilt artists are painting traditional patterns on eight-by-eight foot wood panels and hanging them on barns. Astonishing to round one of those High Country curves and see the look of grandmother’s bed on a barn.

Stop by the Ashe County Arts Council and ask Executive Director Jane Lonon for maps. She says more wooden quilts are in the works, beyond the 17 hanging today.

Frescoes and quilts are just the start for art in these mountains.

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