The Highest Roads East Of The Mississippi
North Carolina Highway 128 is the highest road east of the Mississippi, climbing to about 6,578 feet at the parking area below the summit of Mount Mitchell. It is not the only eastern road to break the 6,000-foot mark, though. Several others climb high into the Appalachians, including Kuwohi Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Mount Washington Auto Road in New Hampshire, and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The elevations here refer to the road itself, not the mountain beside it. That matters on peaks such as Kuwohi and Mount Washington, where the summit sits higher than the last point reached by car. All five roads below top 6,000 feet, with more than 500 vertical feet separating fifth place from NC 128.
5. Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina, 6,053 Feet
The Blue Ridge Parkway spends much of its 469 miles twisting along mountain ridges in Virginia and North Carolina. Its high point comes at milepost 431.4 in North Carolina, where the pavement reaches 6,053 feet at Richland Balsam Overlook. The National Park Service marks the spot with a large wooden sign beside the road. Beyond it are the mountains of Nantahala National Forest.
Red spruce and Fraser fir grow around Richland Balsam, trees associated with the cold, wet forests of the highest Southern Appalachian peaks. The name itself comes from these trees. Locally, red spruce was once called he-balsam and Fraser fir she-balsam. The overlook is also close to a short loop trail through the forest.
Construction of the Parkway began in 1935 after the Roosevelt administration approved a road connecting Shenandoah National Park with Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Private contractors worked alongside New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps. Most of the route was completed decades earlier, but the final 7.7-mile section around Grandfather Mountain remained unfinished until 1987. Engineers eventually carried the Parkway around the mountain on the 1,243-foot Linn Cove Viaduct.
4. Mount Washington Auto Road, New Hampshire, 6,100 Feet
Long before tourists drove cars up Mount Washington, they made the same climb behind horses. The Mount Washington Carriage Road opened in 1861, giving visitors a route toward the highest summit in New England. Automobiles eventually took over, and the road became the Mount Washington Auto Road.
The climb is 7.6 miles long and gains 4,535 feet. Its official finish line sits at 6,100 feet, just below Mount Washington's 6,288-foot summit. The road averages a 12% grade, and the Raymond Grade reaches 18%. Around 13% of the route is still hard-packed gravel instead of pavement.
Mount Washington's weather adds another problem. The upper road leaves the forest and crosses exposed mountain terrain before reaching the summit complex. High winds and poor conditions can shut the Auto Road even during its operating season. Drivers who make it up have to make the same steep trip back down, and overheating brakes are enough of a concern that the road provides instructions on how to descend safely.
3. Roan Mountain Road, North Carolina, About 6,200 Feet
Carvers Gap already sits at 5,512 feet on the Tennessee-North Carolina line. A road leaving the gap climbs higher still, winding into the spruce-fir forest on Roan Mountain before reaching the Rhododendron Gardens area at roughly 6,200 feet. The upper road is known as State Road 1348 on the North Carolina side and is closed during winter. At this elevation, snow and ice can remain long after conditions improve in the valleys below.
The road once served a very different destination. During the late 1800s, the Cloudland Hotel stood high on Roan Mountain near the state line. The large resort opened in the 1880s at more than 6,000 feet, with the North Carolina-Tennessee boundary passing through the property. The hotel disappeared long ago, but a parking area now sits near its former site. Nearby are the natural Catawba rhododendron gardens for which Roan Mountain is famous, along with trails crossing the high ridge.
2. Kuwohi Road, North Carolina and Tennessee, 6,311 Feet
Kuwohi itself rises to 6,643 feet, but nobody drives that high. The road ends at a parking area on Forney Ridge at roughly 6,311 feet. Visitors cover the remaining elevation on a steep, paved half-mile trail to the observation tower at the summit.
The seven-mile Kuwohi Road begins near Newfound Gap on US Route 441. Newfound Gap is already 5,046 feet above sea level, leaving the road to gain another 1,200 feet before reaching its parking lot. It runs through one of the largest areas of Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The road closes seasonally, usually around the beginning of December, because of ice and snow at the upper elevations.
For decades, drivers knew it as Clingmans Dome Road. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names restored the mountain's Cherokee name, Kuwohi, in September 2024, and the National Park Service subsequently changed the road's name as well. Kuwohi translates roughly as "mulberry place" in Cherokee. The mountain remains an important place to the Cherokee people, whose homeland included the surrounding southern Appalachian Mountains long before the national park existed.
1. North Carolina Highway 128, 6,578 Feet
NC 128 leaves the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 355.3 and heads up Mount Mitchell. It is less than five miles long. By the time it reaches the summit parking area, however, the elevation is about 6,578 feet. That puts the end of the road 267 feet above Kuwohi Road and more than 500 feet above the highest point of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Mount Mitchell continues another 106 vertical feet above the parking lot. A short paved path leads to the observation deck at 6,684 feet, the highest point in the United States east of the Mississippi River. Fraser firs surround the upper slopes, where conditions are cold enough to support a forest more typical of much farther north.
The current NC 128 was established in 1948. North Carolina had used the number once before on a road near Scotland Neck during the 1920s, but that highway was later renumbered. The modern route has only one connection with the rest of the road system. Drivers enter and leave through the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Hurricane Helene showed how vulnerable that arrangement could be. The storm crossed the southern Appalachians in September 2024 after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. Parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway received as much as 30 inches of rain. Landslides destroyed road sections, trees came down by the thousands, and the National Park Service closed the entire Parkway after the storm. Mount Mitchell State Park and NC 128 were cut off with it.
Road access to Mount Mitchell finally returned on September 15, 2025, when the National Park Service reopened the Parkway between Asheville and the NC 128 junction. Damage north of Mount Mitchell has taken longer to repair. As of September 2026, the Parkway remains closed between the Mount Mitchell area and Little Switzerland, so drivers reaching NC 128 must approach through Asheville. The National Park Service has targeted the remaining Helene repairs in this section for completion by the end of 2026.
At the end of NC 128, a sign in the parking area marks 6,578 feet. Cars stop there. Mount Mitchell's observation deck can be seen higher up the slope, with the last 106 feet of the eastern United States' highest mountain left to cover on foot.
