♪ - [Heather] I'm Heather Burgess, and for 10 years, "My Home, NC" has traveled the state, sharing the stories that make North Carolina home.

What keeps you coming back out here after really bad days?

- The feeling that I get when I accomplish, that feeling is absolutely so rewarding.

- Each one of my pieces have a certain narrative.

There's some sort of story, but I'm not so specific as like, "This is what this means."

- From the mountains to the coast, we've met the artists, makers, and voices who shape our communities.

As we celebrate a decade of storytelling, we're looking back at the people and places that inspire us.

- We choose to think about what divides us, but food more often than not, you know, brings us together, so.

- Representation matters.

If you don't see yourself reflected in something, it's hard to really imagine that there's a place for you in it.

- Every day Ramey teaches me that disability is not the same as inability.

You're amazing.

- [Heather] When we created "My Home" a decade ago, we set out to tell the stories of the people, places, and even the animals that make our community shine.

It's been an incredible journey of storytelling, and we can't wait to share even more of those stories, so join us as we honor the past, celebrate the present, and turn the page on the next chapter of "My Home, NC".

[bright music] [somber music] Step into the legends, landscapes, and untold stories that define North Carolina's wild spaces, the eerie mystique and history of Devil's Tramping Ground.

- I contacted the state, and had asked if there was any possibility if the Devil's Tramping Ground could be part of the historical sites, and it was accepted.

- [Heather] To the breathtaking trails of Grandfather Mountain, it's all on "My Home", coming up next.

[somber music] [country music] All across the state, we're uncovering the unique stories that make North Carolina my home.

♪ Come home ♪ ♪ Come home ♪ [somber music] - [Tamara] When I'm there, I feel uneasy.

It's like really kind of a sinking feeling.

Sometimes I'll stand in the middle of the circle and just look up at the trees, and think, "Gosh, this is like, I mean, who in the world would ever have come across, you know, anything like this?"

- [News Announcer 1] Well, this story is one of North Carolina's most notorious ghost stories.

- [News Announcer 2] The circular piece of land in Chatham County where nothing has grown for centuries.

- [Rich] The fact that there are written accounts going back hundreds of years makes me think there's something going on here.

- Are you a spirit?

[machine beeps] Okay.

- [Speaker 2] It's the devil himself who keeps it bare, and he tramps the ground regular times, and he tosses things off.

- Well, do you think the devil is tramping that ground?

- I certainly believe in a sense of evil.

Is that a fair answer?

[somber music] [silence] - My name is Tamara Dowd Owens.

We are on my family's farm here in Bear Creek, North Carolina.

My husband Keith and I, we have about 60 head of beef cattle, so we still continue to raise.

It's an active working cattle farm.

We have three boys, one of which, our middle son, is very interested in the farm, so that's kind of nice.

I mean, it's nice to have something, you know, that they're interested in continuing on, 'cause, you know, it's a lot to continue to maintain and manage.

Dad was very active.

He went to Chatham Central High School where I went, where my husband went, you know, and he was all around sports, and very well known for all of that, went to East Carolina, came back when my grandfather got sick, and continued to, you know, run the farm.

When dad passed, it actually rolled to my mother, so she decided to go ahead and pass that, you know, on down to me, so it really, you know, family is very strong, and I feel like, you know, with the farm, I always knew that this is where I would, you know, be.

[soft music] So the Devil's Tramping Ground is actually located in the furtherest corner of the property on the backside, and it's about 100 feet off of the main highway.

I think a lot of people think that it's much further back in the woods, and they're very surprised to see that it's really not.

I've never been up there at night by myself.

I've never stayed up there, ever [laughs].

If I go during the day, you know, once it starts to get dark, I leave.

The Tramping Grounds is actually a clearing in the woods, a circle where nothing grows.

As you can see, there is the two paths that are coming off the circle, and, as the legend goes, the devil will come up one path, and make many, many, many circles around the area, and then disappear into the other path.

Over the years, there have been soil scientists that have come out and actually taken, you know, different samples.

- When I first investigated this site over 15 years ago, I was theorizing that there was some natural cause that would've done that.

What we found out here last time is that we did have some elevated readings of certain things inside here, but none of the readings, none of the data we got showed us that plants could not live there.

- So there's really no, it doesn't give us any explanation of why it's like it is now today.

[soft music] So what's in front of me right now is actually some newspaper articles that I found in a folder that my dad had.

This really shows how long the Devil's Tramping Ground has been documented, and it even, you know, speaks to, I mean, Chatham County, you know, being a historical county, was settled in 1771, and even then there was Chatham natives that were already speaking about it, and there was documentation at that time of this cleared spot surrounded by trees and very barren area.

So this was another letter that I found in my dad's files, and I don't know, this looks like it may be my grandmother's handwriting.

"Origin of the Tramping Grounds is speculation, but in the fall, year 1746, a party of surveyors were in the area.

They made a mark of reference to a point, the center of a circle, and modern maps show it today as the Tramping Grounds."

I mean, it just is astounding that there would be such a reference dated all the way back to 1746.

I contacted the state historical group over in Raleigh and had asked if there was any possibility if the Devil's Tramping Ground could be part of the historical sites in North Carolina, and she said that I should contact this Legends & Lore Society, and it was accepted, so this is just really exciting.

The really sad part of this is that I have not been able to actually install it at the Tramping Grounds just because of concern that somebody would actually steal it, so here, unfortunately, it continues to sit.

Preservation to me is key to try to maintain it, you know, the best that we can.

We've had so many people visiting it, and, you know, people trashing the place, so here's some examples.

You can see this brown is actually where I painted.

There's still some remnants of some of the blue spray paint, but there was 666 on this tree, and there was also a tree right there that had the all seeing eye on it that was facing the circle.

We developed a website for The Devil's Tramping Ground to educate people on the fact that it is private property, things that we want people to do when they do visit, things not to do when they visit, and have people know that, you know, it's very important.

It's a very special place, and you know, we just don't want you to go out there and trash it.

[basketball bounces] My boys know that it's there.

The two youngest ones enjoy, you know, visiting especially when the paranormal groups, you know, come up, but I feel like I'm gonna be the one that needs to really establish the direction that we go.

Who knows where it'll be in 100 years, you know, from now, but I think if we can, you know, lay some groundwork and, you know, continue to make sure that we're sending like the right information out there, that hopefully they'll be able to kind of build on that.

So I think Dad would be pretty proud [laughs].

I think he would be like, "Wow, you know, I never knew that we could, you know, develop this logo, have this trademark, have a website."

He loved the farm, and he loved having, you know, anything that would continue to keep the farm going for generations to come.

As far as where The Devil's Tramping Ground is today, I feel like I'm more ingrained in it, probably because of social media.

You know, I've seen all these podcasts and YouTubers.

- Are you trapped here?

- Okay, step away.

[group screams] No way, no way.

- I mean, it's very astonishing that it would have that much of a far reach.

[soft music] It's like the mystery I feel like will continue on.

[soft music] [silence] [soft music] - I think it's hard for anybody to go up on Grandfather Mountain and not come away realizing just how inspiring that Vista is.

I've crawled all over that mountain, and I found myself inspired by those kind of views every day.

Man, [laughs] over the years, you know, that first impressive glimpse would lead onto immersion into the history of the mountain, and I became inspired by the mission to convince people that it was much more than they thought it was.

I am Randy Johnson, a North Carolina writer, a conservationist, and I live in the North Carolina high country for, at this point, the vast majority of my life.

Yeah, I think a love affair with the mountain kind of talks to why I'm here, and what a lot of my writing has been about.

Well, there is The Grandfather.

I've been looking at that face for 50 years, and I never get tired of it.

I guess the first time I met Grandfather Mountain was very, very late high school or early college on a drive of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Wow, can't take your eyes off it.

It's just out there.

I kept seeing billboards for the Swinging Bridge and Mildred the Bear, and I said, "Oh, what we have here is a tourist attraction."

And then I discovered the wilderness out there, and I realized, "Wait a minute, the Swinging Bridge is really not the top."

We're on Linville Peak and there's the Swinging Bridge, but look in the distance, that's Macrae Peak.

That's one of the three peaks on the mountain that are almost 800 feet higher than we are here, and I said, "Wow, that is amazing.

That is where I need to go."

Sadly, one time I came back to Grandfather, and there were no trespassing signs on the trail.

A hiker had died of hypothermia on the mountain, and the owner, a famous North Carolinian named Hugh Morton, had closed Grandfather.

That shocked me.

I was stricken by that, and just decided I had to come meet the man and I had to persuade him somebody needed to do something to keep those trails open.

Neat photo of him.

I thought I could devise a system that backpackers and hikers would register to use the trails, that they would pay a small fee to fund it, and Hugh Morton gave me the opportunity to prove that I could make that work.

I moved to Grandfather Mountain to start the trail program in 1978 when I was 27.

That was one of the most difficult times in my life.

I mean, at that time, Grandfather Mountain's back country trails were free for all, unmarked.

People were getting lost.

We literally had to crawl hands and knees to find where the original trail was.

That kind of liability is what closes many private land areas around the country, so I talked my brother into helping me, and then I started talking volunteers into helping me like the North Carolina Outward Bound School.

You know, you've never had fun till you hike up to the very top of a mountain, and then start work building a log cabin, basically.

That just took years.

I mean, it took years, but, you know, looking back on that time, those years really helped me tap in more to the mystical side of nature that I was so fascinated by, and it gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in that, which led to wanting to capture that.

At the time, the mountain's preservation seemed pretty stable to me, but, you know, it began to dawn on me that, you know, Hugh Morton had also developed a large country club in the valley below the mountain, - [TV Announcer] And the golf course is one of the nation's best.

- And that truly did begin to worry me.

This is one of my favorite stories with a picture of Grandfather Mountain here.

So basically my plan was to popularize the wilderness of Grandfather Mountain so much as a wild, beautiful, natural area, a backpacking spot, a place where nature lovers could really revel in that.

Here's a historic piece I did, and then all the botanists and explorers who came there.

And the more people who came to Grandfather for that, the less likely it would be that any kind of development would really be possible.

And there is Hugh Morton actually gazing out at the Grandfather profile, and that's when I really started writing with a vengeance and trying to become a freelance photojournalist.

I was a photographer.

I loved to take pictures.

I was taking pictures in the back country already, and then I began to really focus on writing and photography.

You know, I was traveling a lot.

I was writing about a lot of things about The Smokies, the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, but I was on Grandfather all the time, and the mountain was in the center of my being.

I mean, it was in my heart.

It's amazing how many different types of articles that Grandfather Mountain can show up in.

I ended up chronicling the beauty of Grandfather Mountain season to season, year to year.

These three backpackers were hanging around up top, and I asked them to go out there and sit on that rock.

You know, I would always come home to Grandfather, and I would always come home to trying to popularize the mountain.

"The Other Side of The Mountain" where hiking trails lead to spectacular peaks.

That entire process started years ago for me, and it still continues.

Boy oh boy.

Times have changed.

You know, the 1980s and the early 1990s, there was increasing evidence that the mountain was special.

It really wasn't even five years after I started work here that I realized there actually were development plans for the backcountry part of the mountain.

A development program on the lower flags of the mountain had come into focus.

They wanted to build a condominium development in that area, and there was such a public outcry among hikers who had spent years loving those trails.

They knew what was there, they knew how beautiful it was.

One more time, taking the pruners to the trail.

What happened ultimately is that controversy led to the Nature Conservancy stepping in.

The development never happened.

As you know, the Blue Ridge Parkway has been really hit hard by Hurricane Helene, and I think, at that point, Hugh Morton started growing more as a conservationist.

Follow me.

Started seeing his legacy.

You know, this trail was built in 1943, and some of the scouts who built this trail were from your troop.

And that's when he and his family, not that many years later, sold Grandfather Mountain's back country as a North Carolina State Park.

There you go.

And not long after that, all that research that we'd been doing on Grandfather Mountain led to parts of the southern Appalachians being designated as a United Nations International Biosphere Reserve, and Grandfather Mountain was the first part of that, the only private biosphere reserve of the world.

- [Visitor 1] Thank you.

- [Visitor 2] Sorry it took so long.

- Okay, no problem.

You know, those, those years slogging up and down that mountain, they worked out pretty well I guess.

Today was a very nostalgic day for me.

The trails originally here were built by boy scouts.

I was a boy scout in my youth, and to be on these trails with a boy scout troop, they'll be here throughout their lives, and they'll be showing other kids, other young people how to keep that tradition alive.

[calming music] [calming music continues] [calming music continues] I still live in Grandfather's shadow, and I still hike the mountain, and I'm sure the future holds a time when I will be hiking much slower than I do now, but I don't think I'm gonna stop trying to get up there.

This place, and that mountain has really made the substance of my life.

A lot of years.

I never set out to get anything from Grandfather, but I'll tell you what, I've gotten a lifetime of meaning, stories, and gratification outta my relationship with Grandfather.

Grandfather Mountain has provided me with the place that my life has made the most meaning, and I feel extremely lucky to be able to say that, and I also think that that Grandfather Mountain face up there looking west is gonna be gazing at that sunset for millions and millions more years, and that says a lot to the people of North Carolina.

I mean that is the Grandfather Mountain of the entire Appalachians.

We have it, and I think more and more North Carolinians realize how special that is.

[soft music] [soft music continues] - [Heather] Join us as we celebrate 10 years of "My Home", as we look back at some of our most iconic stories and where they are now.

[cheerful music] Back in 2016, we shared the story of Joe Kwon, the rockstar cellist of the Avett Brothers, and followed his journey from growing up in Archdale, North Carolina to performing on stages around the world.

♪ My heart like a kick drum ♪ ♪ My heart like a kick drum ♪ - [Heather] But Joe's talents go far beyond music.

He's also passionate about food and the way it brings people together.

One of my favorite memories was watching Joe cook his favorite childhood dishes with his mom and aunt, a beautiful dinner party filled with friends, family, and flavor.

- So this is a Korean dish called Japchae.

It's sweet potato vermicelli noodles with blanched spinach and stir-fried beef, wood ear mushrooms, carrots, and onion.

- You love getting people together to celebrate food and friendship, why is that important to you?

- I don't know why it wouldn't be important to everyone really.

Your family doesn't have to be blood, just as much as AC and Kate are family, as the Avett Brothers are my family, they're just as close as family as my mom and my aunt.

- [Heather] These days, Joe's still lighting up the stage with the Avetts and he shares glimpses of life on the road, moments at home with his wife, Emily, and their new baby on social media.

- Hello "My Home".

Congratulations on 10 years.

I'm actually sitting here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina right now.

I'm visiting my sister in between some shows here on tour with the Avett Brothers, and I just wanted to give you a glimpse into some of our backstage shenanigans.

- [Heather] One thing's for sure, no matter where the music takes him, Joe always carries a little piece of North Carolina with him.

[country music] [country music continues] [country music continues] [country music continues] [country music continues]