The Devil's Stairs—Wicked Fun in North Carolina

There won’t be a stairway to heaven over where we’re going. You’ll still have a great ride, though. North Carolina has a deservedly great reputation as a motorcycling destination, and the Devil’s Stairs takes you on some of the most sinfully fun of them all.

All that said, I should probably be talking more about a classic ride instead of a classic road in this case. The Devil’s Stairs is a roughly 120-mile loop out of the town of West Jefferson, NC. Its diabolical name stems from a spot just east of Warrensville, where workers dynamited a rock section in 1914, leaving it looking like a set of stairs. Sadly, the botched detonation claimed the lives of several workers, and thus the new formation was given its hellish moniker. The name has naturally led to many folk stories about Old Nick playing his tricks in the area, but the verifiable history of the Devil’s Stairs leads to workplace mismanagement.

It snakes and slithers its way through the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains, passing farms and forests and crossing multiple streams and rivers. You’ll hit excellent paved roads along the ride, including SR 88 with its open farmland views, CR 1552/Shulls Mill Rd with its twists and curves, and—of course—the Blue Ridge Parkway.