The Blue Ridge Parkway, managed by the National Park Service, runs 469 miles along crests of the Southern Appalachians. It links two national parks: Shenandoah NP on the northern end in Virginia and Great Smoky Mountains NP which is located in both North Carolina and Tennessee.
Located south of the Great Smoky Mountain NP is a place called the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. It is a must see as it is the only old growth forest left in the Appalachian Mountain Range.
The Blue Ridge Mountains are the southern part of the Appalachian Mountain chain extending from southern Georgia up to Pennsylvania. The Blue Ridge contains the highest mountains in eastern North America. About 125 peaks exceed 5,000 feet in elevation and most of the peaks, in the entire Appalachian Range, higher than 6,000 feet are there. Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina, at 6,684 feet, is the highest peak in the Blue Ridge and in the entire Appalachian chain.
These are old mountains covered over eons by an incredibly diverse ecosystem. Hardwood deciduous broad-leaf trees and evergreen needle-leaf conifers of many different types inhabit the varied environments dictated by geology, latitude, elevation and moisture availability.