Ashe County Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 429 square miles, of which 426 square miles is land and 3.1 square miles (0.7%) is water.

Ashe County is located in extreme northwestern North Carolina. The county is bordered by two states: Virginia on the north; and Tennessee to the west. The county is located entirely within the Appalachian Mountains region of North Carolina.

Most of the county is located atop a rolling plateau that ranges from 2,500 feet to 3,000 feet above sea level. On the county's southeastern border the land drops sharply to about 1,500 feet in neighboring Wilkes County, North Carolina. Numerous mountains and hills dot the plateau. In total, five mountains in the county rise to over 5,000 feet.

A prominent landmark is Mount Jefferson, which is a State Natural Area and rises to 4,665 feet, and towers more than 1,600 feet above the towns of Jefferson and West Jefferson.

The county's main river is the New River, one of the oldest rivers in the world, and one of the few major rivers in the southeastern United States to flow primarily north instead of south, east, or west. There are 34 recorded creeks and streams that flow into the New River in Ashe County.

In 1998 the river was designated an "American Heritage River" by President Bill Clinton, and it is famed for its beautiful rural scenery, clear water, fly fishing, and kayaking and canoeing.

Isolated by mountainous terrain from the remainder of North Carolina to the east, Ashe County was described in the 19th and early 20th centuries as one of the Lost Provinces of North Carolina.

Ashe County generally is known for its mountain scenery, and the tourism industry is an important mainstay of the county's economy. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs along the county's southeastern border. Ashe County has historically consisted of rural farmland, with numerous cattle and poultry farms.

However, cattle farming in recent decades has given way to the industry of raising Christmas trees. Many cattle farmers have switched to growing Christmas trees, and in 1997, 2007, 2008, and 2012, an Ashe County Christmas tree was selected as the official White House Christmas Tree by the National Christmas Tree Association.[6] The tree was put on display in the Blue Room (White House). As of 2014 Ashe County grows more Christmas trees than any other county in the Eastern United States.

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The Climate of Ashe County, North Carolina

Ashe County, North Carolina has a considerably different climate than most of the Southeastern United States. Summers typically average around 80 °F. Temperatures rarely exceed 90 °F, but on rare occasions can reach the mid-90s as they did in 2012 – the most recent that 90+ was observed. 100 °F + has never been observed.

Summer nights are cool, and temperatures often dip to near 60 °F even in July. In winter there is snow, averaging about 30 inches or 0.76 for the towns of Jefferson and West Jefferson during the past thirty years. There has been only about 66 percent of normal snowfall observed over the past four winter seasons (2013-2017).

Considerably more snow falls on the peaks and the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. During the 2009–2010 snow season Jefferson received some 60 inches of snow. Snow has been observed as early as around October 1 and as late as around May 1.

Ashe County is also a very windy location especially in winter when several times per year the Jefferson Airport sees the wind gusting 60 to 85 miles per hour. In addition it does get very cold in Ashe County. In January 2014 the low temperature dipped below 0 °F several times, the coldest being −8 °F on January. Single digit temperatures, often just above zero Fahrenheit, are observed most winter seasons on occasion.

The average winter high is in the 40s with an average low near 20 °F. Ashe County often feels more like the northeastern United States when wind chill factors are also observed.

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National Protected Areas Within Ashe County, North Carolina

The Blue Ridge Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, which is America's longest linear park,[3] runs for 469 miles (755 km) through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It runs mostly along the spine of the Blue Ridge, a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Its southern terminus is at U.S. 441 on the boundary between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, from which it travels north to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The roadway continues through Shenandoah as Skyline Drive, a similar scenic road which is managed by a different National Park Service unit. Both Skyline Drive and the Virginia portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway are part of Virginia State Route 48, though this designation is not signed.

The parkway has been the most visited unit of the National Park System every year since 1946 except four (1949, 2013, 2016 and 2019).[4] Land on either side of the road is owned and maintained by the National Park Service, and in many places parkway land is bordered by United States Forest Service property. The parkway was on North Carolina's version of the America the Beautiful quarter in 2015.[

The Cherokee National Forest

The Cherokee National Forest is a large National Forest created on June 14, 1920 and managed by the U.S. Forest Service and encompassing some 655,598 acres

The Cherokee National Forest headquarters are located in Cleveland, Tennessee.

The Cherokee National Forest mostly lies within eastern Tennessee, along the border with North Carolina, and comprises nearly the entire border area except for sections within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Copper Basin. The Cherokee National Forest has two separate sections: a northern region to the northeast of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and a southern section to the southwest of the Smokies.

The Cherokee National Forest contains such notable sites as the Ocoee River (site of the 1996 Olympic whitewater events); 150 miles of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail; Citico Creek Wilderness; Big Frog Mountain within Big Frog Wilderness, and surrounds both the Tennessee Valley Authority Watauga Reservoir and Wilbur Reservoir.

The forest is located in parts of ten counties in Tennessee and one county in North Carolina. In descending order of forestland area they are Polk, Monroe, Carter, Unicoi, Cocke, Johnson, Greene, Sullivan, Washington and McMinn counties in Tennessee and Ashe County in North Carolina.