2 Best Sights in The North Carolina Mountains, North Carolina

Between Hendersonville and Brevard you'll find this 10,400-acre state forest with four major waterfalls, five lakes, and 80 miles of dirt roads to explore. It's ideal for biking, hiking, or horseback riding. Fishing and hunting are permitted in season.

One of the last remaining sections of old-growth forests in Appalachia has incredible 400-year-old yellow poplars that measure as large as 20 feet in circumference, along with huge hemlocks, oaks, and sycamores. Don't expect sequoias, but you're still likely to turn a corner on the trail and gasp with amazement at the scale of these behemoths. If you haven't seen a true virgin forest, you can only imagine what America must have looked like in the early days of settlement. A two-mile trail, moderately strenuous, takes you through wildflower- and moss-carpeted areas. During June, the parking lot is an excellent spot to see the light shows of the synchronous fireflies, which blink off and on in unison.