Grandfather Mountain's primary ridge runs roughly north to south and rises to four named summits: Calloway Peak at 5,964 feet, Attic Window Peak at 5,949 feet, MacRae Peak at 5,844 feet, and Linville Peak at 5,295 feet. At 5,946 feet on its eastern escarpment, it stands as the highest peak on that face of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two rivers are born on its slopes: the Linville flowing east, the Watauga flowing west. The elevation gain from base to summit creates 16 distinct ecological communities stacked one upon another. At the top, an island of Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest clings to the rock. The balsam woolly adelgid, a non-native insect, devastated much of this forest during the twentieth century, but a remnant persists, its fir trees permanently bent by the prevailing westerly gales. The mountain sits where three counties meet: Avery, Caldwell, and Watauga.

Hugh Morton did not just own Grandfather Mountain; he shaped its identity. He built the swinging bridge, the highest pedestrian suspension bridge in America, linking two peaks so visitors could stand in the clouds and look out across a panorama that, on a clear day, stretches to the Charlotte skyline. He developed wildlife habitats for black bear, river otters, cougars, bald eagles, and elk along the road to the summit. One resident, Mildred the Bear, arrived from the Atlanta Zoo in 1968 at age two and became a local celebrity, living on the mountain until her death in 1993 at age 26. Morton photographed it all, and after his death on June 1, 2006, at age 85, his vast collection of photographs was donated to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The mountain's story, in many ways, was the story Morton told through his camera.

For decades, Grandfather Mountain operated as a privately owned nature preserve and tourist attraction. That changed on September 29, 2008, when Governor Mike Easley announced that North Carolina would purchase the undeveloped backcountry for twelve million dollars, making it the 34th state park. The Morton family established the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, a nonprofit, to continue operating the attraction side, including the swinging bridge, nature museum, and animal habitats. The arrangement was deliberate: some traditional activities at the attraction conflicted with state park management policies, so the mountain was split between public wilderness and private educational park. State rangers now patrol the backcountry, and fire is prohibited at many high-elevation campsites because of those relentless winds.

Eleven trails cross Grandfather Mountain, ranging from gentle woodland walks to some of the most rugged hiking in the eastern United States. The Grandfather Trail, traversing the ridgeline between Calloway Peak and the swinging bridge, is the mountain's crown jewel and its fiercest test. Hikers face steep elevation gains, exposure to extreme winds, contiguity with large cliffs, crossings over cracked boulders, and passages aided by fixed ladders and cables. In favorable weather, the trail is considered advanced. In winter, with ice sheets, accumulated snow, low visibility, and sub-zero wind chill, it should only be attempted by expert hikers. In early 2011, the state park service took the unusual step of closing trail access to MacRae Peak entirely. The east side trails connect at milepost 300 of the Blue Ridge Parkway, including the Tanawha Trail with its large fixed ladders traversing rock faces and the Cragway Trail offering views of the Boone Fork bowl, known to some as the medicine valley.

Every year, the sound of bagpipes fills the highland air when the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games draw visitors from around the world. The event celebrates the Scottish ancestry of pioneers who settled in these mountains, and the setting, a high Appalachian landscape reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands, gives it an authenticity that other American Highland games struggle to match. It is considered the largest gathering of clans in the world, with more family lines represented than at any other event anywhere on earth. Attendees come in kilts and full Scottish regalia. The mountain also holds an unexpected piece of film history: the curving mountain road where Forrest Gump runs his famous cross-country scene in the 1994 film was shot right here. Before that, the narrow-gauge East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad, nicknamed the Tweetsie, brought excursionists to the mountain until the flood of 1940 washed the tracks away.