Blowing Rock Guide

Blowing Rock is what people picture when they imagine a mountain resort town: a walkable main street of galleries, boutiques, and old-money cottages at 3,500 feet, wrapped in the Blue Ridge and cooled by it all summer. It’s named for the cliff at the edge of town where the wind blows so consistently up the gorge that light objects thrown off come back to you — the only place in the world, local legend claims, where snow falls upside down. This has been the High Country’s genteel getaway since the 1800s, and it still runs on porches, ice cream, and mountain air. Don’t be the one who only walks Main Street — the actual Blowing Rock, the cliff, is the thing the town is named for.