The Blue Ridge Mountains, stretching over 550 miles from Georgia to Pennsylvania as part of the wider Appalachian range, are among the oldest mountains on Earth, their rock formed over a billion years ago and long since worn down by erosion into the softer, rounded peaks that distinguish them from younger ranges like the Rockies. Rather than being protected as a single designated national park, the Blue Ridge is safeguarded through several separate, connected units, most significantly Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic 469-mile national parkway connecting Shenandoah to North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The mountains take their name from the distinctive blue-grey haze that often hangs over them, produced by isoprene, a natural hydrocarbon released by the region’s dense deciduous forests, the same atmospheric effect that gives the neighbouring Great Smoky Mountains their own name.
A Parkway Built as a Depression-Era Public Works Project
The Blue Ridge Parkway was constructed beginning in 1935 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal public works programmes, employing thousands of workers during the Great Depression to build what remains one of the most visited units in the entire US National Park System, its slow, scenic route deliberately designed for leisurely driving rather than efficient travel. Construction continued in stages for over 50 years, with the final section not completed until 1987, making it one of the longest-running public works projects in American history.
The Blue Ridge is home to some of the most biodiverse temperate forest in North America, its varied elevation supporting distinct ecological zones that shift dramatically within relatively short distances up each mountainside.
Painting Ancient Peaks Beneath a Blue Haze
The Blue Ridge’s layered, mist-covered peaks give a watercolourist naturally soft, atmospheric colour to work with. We’ve captured that character in our own Blue Ridge Mountains Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of the USA for a wall at home.
Protected in connected pieces rather than as a single park, the Blue Ridge Mountains remain a range whose age has always outlasted any one designation meant to preserve it.