The Legend of The Blowing Rock

It is said that a Chickasaw chieftain, fearful of a white man's admiration for his lovely daughter, journeyed far from the plains to bring her to The Blowing Rock and the care of a squaw mother. One day the maiden, daydreaming of the cliff, spied a Cherokee brave wandering in the wilderness far below and playfully shot an arrow in his direction. The flirtation worked because soon he appeared before her wigwam, courted her with songs of his land. They became lovers, wandering the pathless woodlands and along the crystal streams.

One day a strange reddening of the sky brought the brave and maiden to The Blowing Rock. To him it was a sign of trouble commanding his return to his tribe in the plains. With the maiden's entreaties not to leave her, the brave, torn by conflict of duty and heart, leaped from The Blowing Rock into the wilderness far below. The grief-stricken maiden prayed daily to the Great Spirit until, one evening with a reddening sky, a gust of wind blew her lover back onto the Rock and into her arms. From that day a perpetual wind has blown up onto the Rock from the valley below.

This is the explanation of The Blowing Rock's mysterious winds which cause even snow to fall upside down.