Overview

We LOVE Asheville, North Carolina and the surrounding area.  We have outventured here many, many times.  The city of Asheville itself is awesome with fantastic restaurants, great beer, and friendly outdoors oriented people, making it an excellent choice as a home base while exploring the surrounds.  The surrounding area offers exceptional mountain biking in famed areas such as Pisgah National Forest, DuPont State Forest, and Tsali.  As for hiking, there are literally hundreds of trails that can be accessed from Asheville.  There is also bucket list backpacking in the surrounds, such as the famed Art Loeb Trail.  If you crave outdoor adventure, there are enough outventuring opportunities to fill months, much less a one week vacation.  To help you plan your next trip, we want to share with you some of our favorite outventure opportunities in the Asheville area.  (For a full list of articles about this area, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

Asheville Area Hiking

The Asheville area has superb hiking and hundreds of miles of trail for hikers to enjoy.  Nearby, hikers can easily access the outstanding hiking of the famous Mount Mitchell, the enchanting sites of the Shining Rock Wilderness, and the beautiful waterfalls of DuPont State Forest.  (In fact, if water falls are your thing, Transylvania County, where DuPont partially sits, is known as the “Land of Waterfalls”.)  Additionally, excellent view hikes such as Looking Glass Rock and John Rock are also easily reached from Asheville.  If you are looking for family friendly, Chimney Rock State Park has great views, some interesting hiking, and a park that is designed to offer something for the whole family.

If you are willing to drive a little bit farther out from Asheville, there are many additional locations for hiking.  These include two of our favorite hiking locations east of the Mississippi – Roan Mountain and Grandfather Mountain.  At Roan Mountain, you will enjoy numerous balds with sweeping vistas and beautiful foliage.   At Grandfather Mountain, you will not only have beautiful views and forest hiking, but the adventure of navigating ladders, cables, and rock scrambles as you hike this magnificent mountain.

The hiking opportunities presented in the “Articles About Regional Outventures that May Interest You” below are outstanding, but only the tip of the iceberg.  With hundreds of miles of trail, iconic mountains, and numerous state parks nearby, Asheville has a plethora of hiking opportunities.  Whether you’ve come to Asheville to mountain bike or just to site see, make sure you treat yourself to at least one hike.

Asheville Area Mountain Biking

Mountain bikers come from around the country to ride in the famed mountain biking areas accessible from Asheville.  In the immediate Asheville area, there is the Bent Creek trail system offering sixty-six trails ranging from beginner to expert.  A short distance south of Asheville, riders can access the iconic mountain biking of Pisgah National Forest, including the Black Mountain Mountain Biking Trail, and DuPont State Forest.  If one is willing to travel a little farther yet, the famous Tsali Recreational Area trail system can be reached with only an hour and twenty minute drive.

The mountain biking in the Asheville area ranges from family friendly beginner trails to wide ranging intermediate trails to burly, highly technical expert level trails.  What they all share is beautiful scenery and the benefits of a very active ride community that works hard to open new trails and keep them open by working with local cities, counties, and land managers.  If you love mountain biking, make sure to put the Asheville area on your list.

Asheville Area Backpacking

Asheville is a great place from which to access superb backpacking.  It is the best place in the area to fly in to if arriving by plane.  It is also an awesome place to stay before and after your backpacking trip if you have a long drive to get to the area.

From Asheville you can reach innumerable backpacking areas, such as the iconic Art Loeb Trail.  With easy access to Pisgah National Forest, the Blue Ridge Mountain range, the Smokies, Nantahala National Forest, and Cherokee National Forest, opportunities to backpack abound.  If you are a backpacker and you have not taken a trip to the Asheville area, make sure to put this area on your target list.  The Art Loeb Trail alone will provide you with a hugely memorable outdoor adventure.

Conclusion

Asheville is an outdoor mecca and a darn cool city.  The city offers terrific food, beer, sites, and a perfect home base for exploring the surrounding area.  Whether you are into hiking, mountain biking, or backpacking (or, like us, all three!), you will find more than enough outventure opportunities to fill your vacation.  This is one of our favorite outventure locations and we are sure that after you visit, it will be one of yours too!

Additional Information (Click below to follow link.)

• City of Asheville Information Link