The Blue Ridge Parkway is a beautiful All-American Road and National Parkway located in the United States. It spans for 755 kilometers or 469 miles, along the Blue Ridge, a chain of mountains that is associated with the Appalachian Mountains. It connects the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the Shenandoah National Park.
Although the Blue Ridge Parkway is not a National Park, it is one of the most frequented places of the United States National Park System. The National Park Service maintains land on both sides of the road. The United States Forest Service, on the other hand, protects some land bordering the parkway.
The Blue Ridge Parkway, originally named the Appalachian Scenic Highway, was started during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The groundbreaking started at September 11, 1935, near
North Carolina's Cumberland Knob. The construction at the Virginia end started the next February. Congress put the Blue Ridge Parkway under National Park Service in June 30, 1936. It took 52 years to finish this scenic parkway, with the last construction done near the Linn Cove Viaduct in 1987.
The Parkway tunnels are done through one rock in Virginia and 25 rocks in North Carolina. These tunnels are closed during winter because of the accumulation of slippery ice.
Blue Ridge's peak is at Milepost 431, or the Richland Balsam Mountain, located near North Carolina's Mount Pisgah. It stands 6053 feet or 1845 meters above the sea level. A total of 168 bridges and 6 viaducts complete the Blue Ridge Parkway, which traverses through cross roads, ravines, and streams.
