Brandy Metzger
Winterfest
The North Carolina Mountains offer beautiful views and a variety of exciting activities for visitors. Winter often provides chilly air and an abundance of fun sporting activities. However, you don’t need wintry weather to enjoy the NC Mountains during the winter!
Blowing Rock, NC hosts a wonderful festival known as WInterfest. This year the 14th annual festival took place from January 26-January 29 and my family and I had the opportunity to take part in this special experience.
The festival kicked off on Thursday with a special dinner known as WinterFeast. The dinner featured food prepared by Blowing Rock’s best chefs and was held at Chetola Resort. Following the dinner, there was a beer tasting event at the local eatery Foggy Rock Restaurant.
Friday’s Winterfest activities were scheduled for the afternoon, so my family and I decided to check out the winter sporting activities available at Sugar Mountain (about a 30 minute drive from Blowing Rock). The weather was quite uncooperative. It was cold, but not freezing, and there was a gentle rain falling so we were not hopeful about our participation in sporting activities. Upon arrival, we went to the tubing area so that our 3 year old daughter could experience sliding down a hill in the snow. The area was wide enough for 5 tubing lanes, but only 3 were open due to the unseasonably warm weather. We spent about an hour sliding down the hills on the tubes and had a great time despite the weather. The smile on my daughter’s face was well worth being out in the cold rain!
Skiing was next on the agenda. The slopes were quite slushy but my husband and father-in-law were up for the challenge of skiing on this less than ideal surface. After almost two hours on the slopes, they returned to the lodge and said they had a great time. So, you don’t need perfect conditions to be perfectly content participating in winter sports!
After a quick stop into the Mast General Store and Candy Barrel in Valle Crucis, we headed back to Blowing Rock. We made it back in time to enjoy free hot chocolate that was available downtown as part of the Winterfest amenities. That evening Blowing Rock School’s PTO hosted a spaghetti dinner and bingo event. We opted out of this one to sample the cuisine at the Foggy Rock Restaurant which had been highly recommended by locals. Foggy Rock proved to be a superb choice for dinner with its wide array of exceptional cuisine.
Day three of Winterfest began with the highly anticipated Polar Plunge event at Chetola Lake. This year’s event benefitted the Boone-based non-profit organization Wine to Water, which will use all proceeds to help provide clean drinking water for a village in Ethiopia. Our day, however, began with children’s activities in the American Legion Hall in downtown Blowing Rock. There were several fun crafting stations including decorating crowns, making necklaces, creating snowman bags and much more. The building was a buzz with children of all ages crafting. At 11:30, local children’s author Jonathan Graves presented a special reading of his book Isabella Propellor and the Magic Beanie to the children and adults in attendance.
While my daughter and my Mother-in-law stayed behind to enjoy more crafting fun, my husband, Father-in-law and I headed to the Blowing Rock School to experience the Chili Cook-Off. This event was my favorite! We entered the school gym and were given a spoon. Then, we set off to sample what seemed to be close to 50 different chilies prepared by local restaurants as well as individual chili lovers. Even though this event was very crowded and some cooks ran out of samples early, it was fantastic and yummy!
Later in the afternoon we visited the ice carving demonstrations done by the US Army Special Forces Ice Carving Team, had some hot chocolate downtown and participated in the Snowflake Parade. The parade was my 3 year old daughter’s favorite event because all of the children were allowed to participate by marching down Main Street with 2 special snowmen and some other characters in costume.
Shop ‘Til You Drop was an event listed everyday on the Winterfest agenda, so we checked out some boutiques in Blowing Rock and then headed to the Tanger Outlet Center. I shopped until I couldn’t carry anymore bags and had to return to the car…close enough to dropping for me!
Winterfest continued on Sunday, but for our family it was time to get in the car and take the 5 and a half hour drive home to Wilmington. I would certainly recommend making the trip to Blowing Rock with your family next year for Winterfest. The atmosphere was fun and the community was welcoming!
Resources:
We stayed in a lovely condo that was within walking distance to all of the downtown Winterfest activities. Reservations were made through Jenkins Realty. Visit them at www.jenkinsrentals.com
Blowing Rock Tourist Development Authority was very helpful in planning our trip and making recommendations for our stay. Visit them to help plan your trip at www.blowingrock.com/
The staff at Sugar Mountain was kind and courteous. Check out all of their winter sporting options at www.skisugar.com
