Venture into wildlife when you take a walk through Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve. The longleaf pine forest in Southern Pines spans 900 acres and provides a window into the forests that once covered millions of acres. In 2007, the oldest longleaf pine tree in the preserve was found to be the oldest in the world.

With a 60-foot trip down a natural rock waterslide to reach the 7-foot-deep pool at the bottom, Sliding Rock isn’t your average swimming hole. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, visitors can enjoy the thrill of being whisked down the slide by 11,000 gallons of mountain stream water under the watchful eye of Forest Service lifeguards.

Carved deep into the Blue Ridge Mountains by the Linville River, the Linville Gorge is one of Eastern America’s most scenic and inviting gorges, commonly called the "Grand Canyon of the East." For 12 miles, the river descends more than 2,000 feet through the Gorge, including via Linville Falls, to level at Lake James. Part of the Pisgah National Forest, this is also home to Linville Falls, a spectacular three-tiered waterfall right off the Blue Ridge Parkway.