North Carolina Highway 128 (NC 128) is a primary

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

in the U.S. state of

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. It runs from the

Blue Ridge Parkway The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, which is America's longest linear park, runs for through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenand ...

(

mile marker A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...

355) to

Mount Mitchell State Park Mount Mitchell State Park is a North Carolina state park in Yancey County, North Carolina in the United States. Established in 1915 by the state legislature, it became the first state park of North Carolina. By doing so, it also established the ...

. Reaching an elevation of over , it is the highest (of any) road or highway east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

Route description

The route serves as a spur from the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mount Mitchell. The highway begins at mile marker 355 on the Blue Ridge Parkway (on the border of Yancey and Buncombe counties); once past the gates, drivers are greeted by the only NC 128 shield on the whole route, its only indication (other than on a map) that it is a state highway. The two-lane road has mild curves as it enters Mount Mitchell State Park. It continues its ascent till it ends at the state park's parking lot, just below the summit of

Mount Mitchell Mount Mitchell, known in Cherokee as Attakulla, is the highest peak of the Appalachian Mountains and the highest peak in mainland eastern North America. It is located near Burnsville in Yancey County, North Carolina in the Black Mountain subra ...

, the highest point in eastern

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. The highway does not cross any primary or secondary routes. Only one service road (Radio Station Road) connects, making it the most isolated route in the state. If the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed due to inclement weather, access to NC 128 is cut-off. NC 128 is also part of one scenic byway in the state (indicated by a Scenic Byways sign). Mount Mitchell Scenic Drive is an byway from the I-26 exit 9 to the top of Mount Mitchell, via US 19, US 19E, NC 80, Blue Ridge Parkway and NC 128. This designation became official in 2011.

History

In 1922, the first NC 128 existed briefly, originally running from Scotland Neck to Rich Square. It was quickly renumbered to NC 125 (now US 258). The current route was numbered NC 128, on or around 1947, as a new primary route and has remained unchanged since. The road itself existed earlier as a

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented ...

on a 1936 county map.

Junction list

References

External links

*{{commons category-inline
NCRoads.com: N.C. 128
128 Transportation in Yancey County, North Carolina