Lake Powhatan Asheville, NC

Lake Powhatan - Asheville, NC

We’ve visited several times because our friend Victoria relocated there some years ago, and also for several family events (a cousins reunion, and then a cousin’s wedding).

If you haven’t been to Asheville NC, you are really missing something. First of all, it’s nestled in a beautiful bowl with mountain edges, a short hop to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Downtown has fabulous old Art Deco-style buildings that escaped (due to serendipitous poverty in the area) the “improvements” other towns endured after WWII; new buildings are designed to fit into this style for the most part. Downtown is chock-a-block with fabulous boutiques, restaurants, and breweries, and the French Broad River area features a thriving arts community.

For this trip, Dorian and I stayed at the Powhatan Lake camping area in the Pisgah Forest, where Dorian enjoyed an afternoon of mountain biking while Victoria and I planned our trip to Gatlinburg, TN. We would have loved to camp longer at this beautiful site and hike the trails surrounding the lake, but we’d planned to stay in Asheville just briefly en route to Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains National Park.

Would We Come Back Here?

Certainly! We've been to Asheville several times and the place we stayed at Powhatan Lake turns out to be a mountain biking and hiking hotspot.

Would We Live Here?

There is mild dissension in the household about Asheville. One of us likes it despite the distance from any large body of water and forgives it its harsher winters without the benefit of good skiing nearby. The other of us is holding out for more. Both agree that it is way too early in our travels to even have these conversations, so harmony reins. But Asheville is a nice city which seems to be growing fast and it has not been crossed off any lists.

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