Mount Mitchell State Park reopens after post-Helene repairs to Blue Ridge Parkway
As the fall leaf-peeping season approaches, the Blue Ridge Parkway reopened Monday between Asheville and Mount Mitchell State Park, allowing the park to open for the first time since the remnants of Hurricane Helene hit the region nearly a year ago.
All 13 state parks west of Interstate 77 were closed after the storm. Mount Mitchell was the last to reopen because the parkway, which provides public access, remained closed because of landslides.
The National Park Service has completed repairs to the parkway south of the park all the way to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The parkway remains closed north of the park to Little Switzerland because of repairs that are expected to take another year.
The state announced the reopening of Mount Mitchell on Monday.
“We are very excited all of our state parks have now reopened for visitors to enjoy before the one-year milestone marking Helene,” said Pamela Cashwell, Secretary of Natural and Cultural Resources. “We are grateful to our partners at the National Park Service for their hard work in repairing the Blue Ridge Parkway, and we are very proud of our staff at the state park for ensuring the park was ready to reopen as soon as access through the parkway was restored.”
Most trails within the park have reopened, but several that connect to the park through surrounding Pisgah National Forest remain closed. The restaurant atop Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the eastern U.S., also remains closed, though a concession stand will be open on weekends.
After Helene, the park service closed all 469 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway from the Great Smoky Mountains to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The Virginia section was soon reopened, but the wind and rain damage was much more severe in North Carolina, where the road has reopened in stages.
In dozens of places, landslides covered the road with earth and mud from above or caused the pavement to fall down the mountain, said Tim Grant, acting parkway superintendent.
“At least 57 landslides, as well as other roadway and facilities damage, was like nothing anyone could imagine,” Grant said last month. “We all recognized it would take time to recover.”
Monday’s reopening leaves just under 29 miles still fully closed in two sections north of Mount Mitchell. Those areas aren’t expected to be rebuilt until sometime in the fall of 2026, according to the park service.
Another 19.7 miles of the parkway are also close for an unrelated reconstruction project farther north, between U.S. 221/421 and N.C. 16.
For more information about parkway road and trail conditions, go to www.nps.gov/blri/planyourvisit/index.htm.
This story was originally published September 15, 2025 at 1:21 PM with the headline "Mount Mitchell State Park reopens after post-Helene repairs to Blue Ridge Parkway."
