Cold Mountain

Based on Asheville-area native Charles Frazier’s best-selling Civil War-era novel "Cold Mountain," you can visit the real Cold Mountain in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Find out how to plan a daytrip to Cold Mountain.

"Cold Mountain" tells the dramatic story of a wounded Confederate soldier named Inman (played by Jude Law) who leaves his hospital bed in Raleigh, North Carolina, to make a perilous trek back to his beloved home near Cold Mountain in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina and the sweetheart he left behind (played by Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman).

Author Charles Frazier found inspiration for what he calls his "American odyssey" in the mountainous backwoods near Asheville and in the area's local history and unique culture. "Whenever I'm back in those mountains, I feel like that's home, no matter how long I've been away," says Frazier, whose family has lived in the hills of North Carolina for over 200 years. "That's the place I know the best, and the place that in my imagination sums up all those things about being rooted and knowing a place and having a place."

Despite the international success of the book and movie "Cold Mountain," few people realize that Cold Mountain is a real place that looms well above the horizon southwest of Asheville, an eclectic town nestled in the Western North Carolina mountains. During the Civil War era, the Land of Sky, as Asheville was once known, was just beginning to transform itself from a thriving hub for livestock drovers to the sophisticated resort that it would soon become. Today, Asheville is just a short scenic drive from the real Cold Mountain and many other places you can go to walk in the footsteps of Inman and Ada.

Photo of Nicole Kidman and Jude Law courtesy of Phill Bray/Miramax Films.