2008 Blowing Rock WinterFest Polar Plunge

Blowing Rock Polar Plunge near Boone North Carolina

January 26, 2008

All photos and illustrations by Pat Johns©2008
All Rights Reserved

The lake at Chetola was covered with ice just before the 2008 Polar Plunge. Local Fire and Rescue personnel made a hole in the ice for the jumpers and the activities began. Hundreds of locals and visitors attended the event on a cold but blue-sky January morning.
See photos below . . .

"Images of America: Blowing Rock North Carolina" by Donna Akers Warmuth

Click on image at right to learn more . . .

"The beautiful and mountainous area of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, has a rich history dating back to the days when the Native Americans passed through on the Nickajack Trail, which led into Tennessee. The town derives its unique name from a rock outcropping near the town, where the winds defy gravity and have the ability to blow light objects thrown from the rock back to the rock. During the 1790s, several families settled the area, and by the mid-1850s, inhabitants of Blowing Rock along with summer visitors from Lenoir enjoyed the beauty and comfort of the mountainous area. The construction of the Lenoir-Blowing Rock Turnpike after 1845 provided easier access to “America’s Switzerland,” and visitors or “cottagers,” as they were called, soon began building second homes in the area."
- Book Description from Amazon.com