A Long Weekend in Beech Mountain, North Carolina

We spend a decent amount of time in the North Carolina High Country, but somehow we almost never make it all the way up to Beech Mountain. When we are in the area with Daniel’s parents, we usually stick closer to Boone, Blowing Rock, and Banner Elk. Beech Mountain is just far enough beyond our normal orbit that we had never really given it much consideration.

So when my parents rented a cabin there for a long weekend, it gave us a good excuse to finally explore somewhere new.

And, as it turns out, we have been missing out.

Beech Mountain is a little farther than we would normally drive for one of our High Country weekends, but we would absolutely make the trip again. What surprised us most was that it didn’t feel like a place where you needed to constantly drive back toward Boone or Banner Elk to find something to do. Between hiking, coffee shops, restaurants, recreation areas, and a cabin worth spending some time at, you could easily build an entire weekend around the mountain itself.

We didn’t exactly do that, because returning to old favorites is apparently one of our weaknesses, but it was nice knowing we could have.

I had Friday off for one of our summer Fridays, so Daniel and I drove up that morning with Viktor, who was still technically our foster dog at the time. We had been fostering him through Blazin Trails Bottle Babies for almost two months.

He is not our foster dog anymore, but more on that later.

My parents had arrived the day before and had already gotten a head start on their weekend, including a stop in West Jefferson on the drive in and a Friday outing to Linville Falls and Linville Winery.

We got to the cabin around 2:00 while they were still out exploring. Daniel had some work to finish, so I settled in with a book about national parks and started looking for inspiration for our next trip. Viktor had even fewer responsibilities and immediately claimed a sunny spot on the fenced-in deck.

The cabin itself ended up being a big part of why the weekend worked so well. There were plenty of bedrooms for four adults to spread out, plus a pool table, hot tub, fenced deck, and a firepit that we fully intended to use and never actually did.

If you are traveling with a dog, the fenced deck alone was a huge plus. Viktor could wander around outside and enjoy the mountain weather without us constantly worrying about where he was going. Add in the hot tub and enough room that nobody felt crowded, and it was the kind of place where going back to the cabin for a few hours actually felt like part of the vacation rather than dead time between activities.

Once my parents got back, we had dinner together while a seemingly endless parade of deer wandered through the backyard.

After dinner, Mom, Dad, and I took Viktor up to a park near the top of Beech Mountain and walked out to Pride Rock. Dad took over dog-walking duties, Viktor investigated everything, and we got our first real look around the mountain before heading back for a surprisingly early bedtime.

We had bigger hiking plans for Saturday.

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Coffee First, Then Buckeye Falls

Saturday morning started at First Chair Coffee Shop, which ended up being one of our favorite discoveries of the weekend.

Daniel was particularly happy with his tiramisu latte, while I went with a raspberry latte. Dad had a mocha, Mom opted for hot chocolate and a poppy seed muffin, and Daniel and I split a blueberry bagel with cream cheese.

Everything was good enough that this will not be our only visit to First Chair in this story.

From there, we drove over to the Buckeye Recreation Center to hike the Buckeye Falls Trail.

This was probably the nicest surprise of the weekend.

The hike itself is short, which makes it a great choice if you want something pretty without committing half your day to it. The trail follows the water toward the falls, and Viktor spent a good chunk of the walk splashing and playing in the stream before we ever reached our destination.

As far as he was concerned, we probably could have turned around there and called it a successful hike.

Part of the trail system was still closed from damage caused by Hurricane Helene during our visit, so we weren’t able to complete the normal loop. Even as an out-and-back, though, Buckeye Falls was absolutely worth doing.

The recreation center was another pleasant surprise. There were pickleball courts, a walking track around the grounds, and—most importantly for our group—an old baseball field that has been converted into a dog park.

After the hike, we let Viktor loose on the former diamond and ran around with him for a while.

Between the short waterfall hike, stream access, and dog park, Buckeye ended up being close to a perfect morning outing for us. If we were back on Beech Mountain with Viktor and wanted one easy hike that we already knew everyone would enjoy, this would be an obvious choice.

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A Familiar Coffee Stop and a Change of Plans

We headed back to the cabin for about an hour after the hike to relax.

One thing I increasingly appreciate about these trips is not feeling like every available minute needs to be filled. We could have immediately driven to the next trail, but sitting around the cabin for a little while before heading back out was exactly what everyone wanted.

Our next stop was Mountain Dog Coffee in Banner Elk.

Daniel and I had visited Mountain Dog during one of our previous High Country trips and liked it enough that we wanted to take my parents there this time.

We briefly considered hiking to Otter Falls nearby to continue our waterfall theme, but ultimately decided to drive toward Julian Price Memorial Park, one of our favorite places in the area.

Julian Price has a little more history for us than most of the places we visit. Daniel grew up hiking there, and it was also one of the first places I hiked with his parents when we were first dating.

This time, our destination was Hebron Falls. We chose the shorter out-and-back rather than the full loop because we still had other things we wanted to do that afternoon and spending several more hours on the trail didn’t make much sense.

That is one of the nice things about Hebron Falls: you can make it part of a larger hiking day, or you can treat it as the destination and get back to the rest of your weekend.

Assuming, of course, you do not anger the local yellow jackets.

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Hebron Falls and the Yellow Jackets

Hebron Falls was noticeably busier than Buckeye had been that morning, and we got a little rain along the way, but things were going perfectly well until we started trying to get a better view of the falls.

Daniel and Viktor climbed over a log to reach another vantage point.

Apparently, the yellow jackets living around that log did not appreciate it.

Daniel ended up getting stung five times. Mom, who had stayed nearby, got stung once. Viktor yelped when one got him, and Daniel saw several dead yellow jackets around him afterward, so we have no idea exactly how many times he may have been stung.

Dad and I, having wandered toward a different viewpoint, somehow escaped completely unscathed.

Thankfully, Viktor seemed completely fine afterward. Daniel also muscled through the pain and continued showing my parents around the falls, complete with stories from all of the time he had spent hiking there growing up.

Hebron Falls is one of those waterfalls where getting the best views involves climbing around on the rocks. After the yellow-jacket incident, absolutely nobody in our group was interested in doing much additional scrambling.

So our view of the falls this time was a little underwhelming.

That isn’t really a knock against Hebron Falls as much as an acknowledgment that we did not experience the best version of it.

We have actually done the full loop here before with Daniel’s parents and got much better views of the falls on that trip. If you want to see what Hebron Falls looks like when your visit does not involve being attacked by yellow jackets, you can check out that trip here.

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Beer, Pizza, and Viktor Makes a Friend

After our hiking adventure, we decided we had earned beer and pizza.

So we drove into Boone and stopped at Appalachian Mountain Brewery, one of our longtime favorites in the High Country.

Daniel and Mom both went with ciders, Dad found a dark beer on tap, and I ordered a honeysuckle beer that I absolutely loved. We also split two pizzas from the Farm to Flame food truck on site. The margherita was the clear favorite, but the veggie held its own.

Appalachian Mountain Brewery is the kind of place that works especially well for us after a hiking day: casual food, good drinks, and no problem bringing Viktor along.

He had an even better time than we did because he met another dog named Cubby. Cubby’s humans were visiting from the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area, and the two dogs spent a good portion of our stop playing together.

After pizza and drinks, we headed back up to Beech Mountain.

The rest of Saturday night was considerably less eventful than the afternoon, though arguably much more relaxing. We got in the hot tub, Viktor played with a new toy Mom had bought him from Mast General Store on Thursday, and we ate Drumsticks while watching The Bear.

Not every good mountain day needs a dramatic ending.

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One More First Chair

Sunday morning, we went directly back to First Chair Coffee.

There are plenty of ways to say that you recommend a coffee shop. Going back the very next morning is probably the most convincing.

After coffee, we packed up and drove down to Banner Elk for Art on the Green.

We wandered through the vendors for a while, and one noticed my WVU hoodie and immediately started singing what I assume was the fight song at me.

I did not go to WVU, so I was not particularly useful in this interaction.

I called Dad over instead since he went to West Virginia University for undergrad. He and the vendor chatted long enough to determine that there were quite a few years between their respective college experiences.

Eventually, we took Viktor over to the dog park to burn off some energy before the drive home. He happily played fetch with all of us, met a few humans and dogs through the fence, and joined us for one loop around the park before it was time to split up.

My parents headed back toward West Jefferson because they wanted one more burger from Black Jack’s Pub & Grill before going home.

They had already stopped there on Thursday on their way to Beech Mountain and once again declared that Black Jack’s serves the best burger they have ever eaten. This is not even a new claim. They first made it after visiting last year around the time Daniel proposed, which we wrote about here.

Apparently one Black Jack’s visit during this trip was not sufficient, so they went back once more before making the five-hour drive home.

Daniel, Viktor, and I headed toward Raleigh.

Viktor was an excellent passenger both going up to the mountains and coming home. At the time, we were still figuring out what traveling with him might look like if we decided to adopt him, and this weekend made a mountain trip with a dog feel remarkably easy.

Apparently that experiment went pretty well.

After almost two months of fostering Viktor through Blazin Trails Bottle Babies, we finally admitted what had become increasingly obvious and adopted him.

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Is Beech Mountain Worth the Extra Drive?

For us, definitely.

We have spent years visiting Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and the surrounding area, but Beech Mountain had always been just a little farther than we usually ventured.

This weekend changed that.

If we were planning the same trip again, I would happily stay on Beech Mountain and build most of the weekend around it. Get a cabin where spending an afternoon actually sounds appealing. Start a morning at First Chair. Hike Buckeye Falls and let the dog run around afterward. Pick another trail or activity on the mountain for the afternoon, then head back to the cabin without feeling like you somehow failed to maximize your vacation.

Banner Elk, Boone, Julian Price, and the rest of the High Country are all close enough to expand the weekend when you want to, which is exactly what we did. But they feel like bonuses rather than places you have to drive to because there is nothing happening where you are staying.

That distinction is probably what changed my opinion of Beech Mountain the most.

It also worked particularly well with Viktor. Between the fenced deck at the cabin, streams along the Buckeye Falls Trail, the dog park at the recreation center, brewery patios, and another dog park in Banner Elk, he was able to be part of almost everything we did.

Now that Viktor is officially part of the family, that may end up being one of my favorite things about this weekend. It was our first real chance to see whether he could fit into the kind of trips we already love taking.

Turns out, he fits pretty well.

We will absolutely still spend plenty of weekends in Boone, Blowing Rock, and Banner Elk.

But Beech Mountain has officially made the rotation.

And next time, Viktor will be coming with us as our dog, not our foster.