Chimney Rock State Park

Sources disagree slightly on early dates. The state historical marker says Jerome B. "Rome" Freeman built a stairway to the summit around 1890 and began charging visitors to climb, while other accounts give 1885. Freeman reportedly bought the Chimney and about 400 acres for $25. In 1902 Dr. Lucius B. Morse, a physician who had come to the area for relief from tuberculosis, bought 64 acres including the Chimney and cliffs, backed by his brothers, for $5,000.

The Morse family developed the attraction over the following decades. The park's own timeline notes a bridge dedicated on July 4, 1916, a Jeep trail to the base of Hickory Nut Falls added in 1963, and plans for an elevator drawn up in 1946. The elevator, carved through the rock, opened to the public in 1949, and the Sky Lounge was later built at its top; a new one opened in 1982 after the earlier lounge burned in 1981. The family operated Chimney Rock as a private park from 1902 to 2007.

Parts of the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans were shot at the park, including the climactic fight at Hickory Nut Falls.

In 2005 the General Assembly authorized Hickory Nut Gorge State Park, and in 2005 the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy bought the 1,568-acre World's Edge tract south of Lake Lure, later transferred to the state. In 2007 North Carolina State Parks purchased the 996-acre Chimney Rock property from the Morse family for $24 million, and the legislature renamed the park Chimney Rock State Park. The North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation manages it.

The bedrock is mainly Henderson Gneiss, an Ordovician rock that began as granite to quartz monzonite. Erosion along joints in the gneiss formed Chimney Rock, and rounded exfoliation surfaces, known locally as balds, rim the valleys of Hickory Nut Gorge. The park's Hickory Nut Falls drops 404 feet according to the attraction's timeline and Wikipedia.

The park centers on Chimney Rock itself, with views over the gorge and Lake Lure, and on Hickory Nut Falls, reached by a hike from the attraction area. The state park lists about 3.5 miles of trails around the attraction, along with interpretive exhibits and picnic areas. Named trails include Exclamation Point, Four Seasons, Outcroppings and Skyline. The park also includes the Rumbling Bald access, a separate free day-use area with about 1.5 miles of hiking and rock climbing and views of Lake Lure. Another feature in the park is Devil's Head, a balancing rock with views.

The attraction area and Rumbling Bald run on different schedules, and the attraction sets its own prices and entry system, so check the state park and the attraction for current hours, reservations and trail access before you go. Pets are allowed on a short leash outdoors but not in buildings or the elevator, and the park has no camping.

A private tour from Asheville is a straightforward fit: with a private vehicle and driver and door-to-door pickup, your group can combine Chimney Rock with a drive through Hickory Nut Gorge and Lake Lure without handling the mountain road yourselves.