See where the cougars and otters sleep overnight, meet black bears that are not commonly on display, learn the ins and outs of what it takes to care for the animals year-round, observe a training session and find out why the animals call Grandfather Mountain home.

Offered on weekends, April – October.

More than 700 students from across the country used canvases for an artistic expression inspired by Carl Sandburg’s poem “Night Movement,” and other poetry pieces in Sandburg’s collection “Smoke and Steel.” 71 canvases were submitted to the exhibit and each canvas reflects how the young artists chose to interpret what “movement” means to them. Visitors can see the installation in a building adjacent to the Sandburg Home when they visit. Young artists are represented from across the country and locally.

Sandburg Home: The Sandburg Home is a great place to start your visit! The ground floor of the home contains visitor information, exhibits, tour ticket sales, the park store, and you can watch the park video. The main and top level of the home are furnished with the Sandburg family belongings. Visitors may only access the furnished ares of the home on a guided tour.

Sandburg Home Guided Tour Fee: (credit card only)
$8.00 for Adults 16 and older
$5.00 for Adults age 62 and older and all interagency pass holders
Free for Children age 15 and under

• Reservations: Reserving in advance lets you pick your preferred house tour time. Tours fill up quickly. Last-minute, in-person tickets may not be available on the day you visit. Plan ahead and reserve house tour tickets at recreation.gov.

• Passes: The park sells the America the Beautiful– National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Passes.
  *These passes do not waive the house tour fee, but do provide a discount.
• 30-minute house tours are offered every day. Visit recreation.gov for the current schedule.
• Visitors may only tour the Sandburg Home on a guided tour.
• Tours are limited to 12 persons.
• Strollers are not permitted on the house tour, but there is a place to leave them for storage. Infants and small children should be carried through the house while on tour.

Mountain Gateway Museum & Heritage Center celebrated the opening of its newest traveling exhibit, “Steeped in Time: Tea and Traditions” on Saturday, January 18, 2020. The exhibit will run through the July 4th weekend at MGM, located at 24 Water Street in Old Fort. Admission is free.

Kolo Bike Park has reopened with amended attendance and safety precautions. The current operating days and hours will be Thursday to Sunday weekly with 2 riding sessions daily at 10:00-2:00 and 2:00-6:00. We have received notification from the Buncombe County Health & Human Services Department that our bike trails can operate with certain conditions.

Currently, the aerial activities are closed. May 13, we are planning to open the Asheville Treetops Adventure Park. Then we plan to open the Ziplines soon after that.

If you are interested in riding at Kolo Bike Park, please check out our current safety rules and regulations. We highly recommend reservations, payment and waivers to be completed prior to arrival.

Looking Forward or #ashevillelookingforward, we are building new Bike Trails, starting a Kolo Bike Program for younger kids, and have added a new intermediate trail on the Treetops Park. And we have a fun Halloween surprise in store for our younger guests.

As a locally owned family business, we look to the future…….

1. Keep your plans and reservations in place. We are only planning to be closed as long as we have to keep our Guests and employees safe. If your activity date happens at a time when we are closed, we will contact you.

2. If we need to cancel your upcoming activity, consider a credit vs. refund. That allows us to keep the facility and team ready to go when we do reopen. We continue to have expenses even while we are closed including preparing the gear/facility for the season and paying our leadership team. Your support will help us keep this great family facility alive and strong for the next 10 years.

3. Book reservations for May 13 or later for the Treetops Park or May 20 or later for the Zipline.

4. Buy gift certificates today for you, friends, or family. They don’t expire and they are great gifts all year long. That continuance of cashflow will help us all keep the economy going.

5. Keep planning for summer camps. We are planning a great summer with four different day camp options. We have returning camp counselors, new trails for bikes and a new aerial trail in the Treetops Park. And announcing our 2 new Kolo Advanced Shred Summer Sessions for ages 13-17 to develop their fundamental skills by advanced pro level riders. Call our office or book online (fees apply when booking online.) 828.225.2921

6. Group sales is still taking reservations for the future at [email protected]. A group adventure in the Trees (Zipping or Climbing the Treetops Park) or on the ground (team building or mountain bike riding) will be a great way to reconnect with co-workers, students, families and youth groups.

7. Check out our Blog with updated ACA information

We greatly appreciate the thousands of families, groups of friends, couples, young adults, schools, businesses, churches, camps and so many more that are part of our adventure family. We are where we were yesterday and where we will be a month from now because of you. Your support allows our team to do what we love to do while helping you do the same. We look forward to getting back to normal again. Stay safe and well!

Jeff Greiner
Adventure Center of Asheville
www.advavl.com

Every day we’ll be featuring a video recording or a live Zoom storytime or song by your favorite Buncombe County librarians!

Information to access the storytime on Zoom will be posted in the discussion section of this page. To get notifications for Zoom codes and to know when new videos are posted, follow this event page!

If you’d like to stream multiple videos in a row, visit the Buncombe County Government YouTube page and find “At Home with the Library.” All of our recorded videos are available at:
https://www.youtube.com/user/bcgovtv/search?query=at+home+with+the+library

We miss you at the libraries! We hope you’re well.

If you’re looking for a fun project to do with materials you already have at home, check out what we have planned!

Every day, Monday through Friday, we’ll post an AM and a PM activity to our Facebook page, followed with examples of what we’ve made for the activity. All of the activities are kid, adult, and family friendly.

We know how creative and talented all of you are, we want to see what you made as well, so send images of your creations back to us in the comments. When the libraries are open again, we’ll make a chapter book with all of the images we’ve gathered throughout this pandemic. The book will be on display at each of our Buncombe County Public Libraries. Creativity and community will get us through this and we’ll have a book to prove it!

Be a part of it! Remember to read, write, and create something every day! #yourstorymatters

Hopefully, social distancing and self quarantine just got a little easier. We’re in this together friends. Be safe.

VENARDOS CIRCUS IS LIVE ONLINE! We are so grateful for your past support when we visited Asheville. Our live shows are currently on hiatus due to social distancing recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we miss our audience terribly!

Once we determined we needed to pause the tour, we immediately started planning how we could continue our mission to bring joy, positivity and light, as well as some comfort and distraction, to our circus family during this uncertain time via social media.

FIRST VIDEO IS LIVE! We hope you enjoy and we’d LOVE your feedback on our social channels.

Please SHARE!

New videos will be posted weekly on Thursdays at 10:00am Pacific/1:00pm Eastern.

Content is meant to entertain the whole family, as do our shows, but a great resource for the kids to enjoy some high quality, trustworthy entertainment. Storyboard images from this week’s story which you can print at home as coloring sheets after watching the video. Content will change each week. These will be available on our Facebook page. Here is the Facebook event you can RSVP to as well for each week. We hope you will enjoy it and subscribe to our page for future content. We’d LOVE your ideas for future content – please share your feedback on email, the video comments or DM us on Facebook or Instagram.

Old Time tea party with cucumber sandwiches and other traditional ladies party foods.