Haywood County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Haywood County

Two hundred and one elk (Cervus canadensis) released between February 2001 and 2002 by the National Park Service into the remote Cataloochee Valley of Great Smoky Mountains National Park have grown into a self-sustaining herd of roughly 250 animals — the largest reintroduced elk population in the southeastern United States per NPS Cataloochee Elk Project monitoring reports, and a deliberate ecological restoration of a species that the Eastern Woodlands subspecies had not seen in North Carolina since the 1700s when overhunting eliminated the original native population. The unpaved 11-mile Cataloochee Valley Road (accessed via the unmarked Cove Creek Gap turnoff from I-40 exit 20, then a 16-mile gravel approach with hairpin switchbacks unsuitable for any rig over 25 ft) is the canonical dawn-and-dusk wildlife-viewing drive, with bull elk bugling during the September-October rut audible across the valley.

Haywood County's 554 sq mi wrap the eastern Smokies entrance approach at Maggie Valley, the Blue Ridge Parkway's milepost 410-445 section (the highest sustained elevation segment of the entire 469-mile parkway, with several pullouts above 6,000 ft), and Cold Mountain at 6,030 ft (immortalized in Charles Frazier's 1997 National Book Award-winning Civil War novel of the same name, with the actual peak inside the Shining Rock Wilderness of Pisgah National Forest and accessible only by a strenuous 10.6-mile out-and-back trail from the Daniel Boone Boy Scout Camp trailhead). Waynesville (population 10,054, the county seat at the US-23 / US-74 interchange) is the practical resupply hub. Big Creek Campground inside GSMNP accepts rigs to 25 ft only on 12 first-come no-hookup sites. Lake Logan and Sunburst USFS campgrounds in the Pisgah National Forest's Pisgah Ranger District accept rigs to 30 ft. Pisgah National Forest permits 14-day dispersed camping along Big Creek and the Mt. Mitchell access road under standard USFS regulations. The Blue Ridge Parkway itself prohibits overnight roadside parking and enforces designated-campground-only RV use; Mt. Pisgah Campground at MP 408 accepts rigs to 30 ft on the parkway's only mid-NC campground.