(peaceful choral vocals) - Roan Mountain is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places in all of North Carolina.

I mean, just look at this.

It's got such an interesting ecosystem.

This is a grassy bald ecosystem.

It's one of the few in the United States, and it's the longest contiguous grassy bald on the entire Appalachian Trail.

This is what most people think about whenever they think about Roan Mountain.

It's no secret why people love coming up here.

You can see way into North Carolina over here.

You can see way into Tennessee just over there, and we're surrounded on all sides by the world's largest naturally occurring rhododendron garden.

Amazing, but what if I was to tell you that there's a spot up over the mountain that I like just a little bit more?

So I am gonna take you there.

I've got my camping gear.

I've got my camera gear.

We're gonna hike over the ridges, down through Carver's Gap, up to the top of Roan High Knob, the highest shelter on the entire Appalachian Trail, and then we're gonna camp out at the site of the old Cloudland Hotel.

It's an old hotel that's no longer here anymore, full of incredible history, and just shows how long people have been coming up here and enjoying this incredible view for.

So come with me, and let's go check out the Cloudland Hotel.

(gentle acoustic guitar music) If you're wanting to come to Roan Mountain, your best bet is to park at Carver's Gap about an hour west of Boone and a few minutes walk from these amazing views, and we'll be headed two miles in the opposite direction following the Appalachian Trail.

This is nice, but this, this is where we're heading.

To get to the Cloudland Hotel site, we'll be hiking two miles through a southern Appalachian spruce fir forest, considered to be one of the most endangered forests in the United States.

These are sometimes referred to as Sky Island ecosystems, a higher altitude ecosystem that stands in stark contrast to the surrounding lowlands.

I can't tell you how many times I've been up here.

This is just one of my favorite places.

It's hard to believe that just a few feet away, you've got these incredible wide open expanses, and now you step into some of the densest forest you've ever seen.

A forest like this has an almost mythical quality to it, doesn't it?

You're surrounded on all sides by nothing but green, with only occasional shafts of light making it through the tree cover.

As the tree cover above starts to thin, I know that I'm nearing my destination at the top.

(sighs) (soft music) So I'm standing right where the Cloudland Hotel once stood.

It was billed as a luxury getaway for the wealthy and the elite, and also as kind of a holistic cure for people suffering from hay fever.

I'm not sure if that actually worked, but they tried.

It was a massive three-story luxury hotel built right on top of the Tennessee-North Carolina border, which runs right through here.

So you had this dining hall that had a white line going through it, marking which side was the Tennessee side and which side was the North Carolina side.

So at the time, it was illegal to have alcoholic beverages in North Carolina, and legend has it, there was a police officer that would often stand right there on that white line and make sure that nobody from the Tennessee side crossed into the North Carolina side with a drink in their hand.

It's gone now, but for a while, I'm sure, it was one of the most beautiful places you could possibly stay.

And it just goes to show you that people have been enjoying this land for a long time.

They enjoyed it then, I'm enjoying it now, and I hope people in the far, far distant future get to enjoy it too.

(gentle music) (wind blowing) (gentle music) (wind blowing) (serene music) ♪ As I made my way down the mountain to finish the trip, I ran into a group of artists, a testament to the fact that these mountains continue to inspire the best out of us, just as they've done for centuries.

(gentle music) - The Carver's Gap Trailhead sits right on the North Carolina, Tennessee border with parking on the Tennessee side.

To learn more and plan your own trip to Roan Mountain and the surrounding area, visit roanhighlands.org.