This Old River Cabin

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Banner Elk, NC
This Old River Cabin

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A 2 bedroom 2 bath 1,200 sq foot 1800s log cabin located in a private and idyllic setting overlooking the Elk River.

Just 2 miles to downtown Banner Elk and 1 mile to Sugar Mountain.

10/31/2026

Halloween in the mountains means the dark comes early.

By 6pm the ridge above the cabin is already fading, the creek sounds louder once the leaves start dropping, and the porch light does more work than it does any other night of the year. It's the closest this cabin gets to spooky, and we mean that as a compliment.

Happy Halloween from This Old River Cabin.

10/13/2026

December before Christmas is the most underrated week in the High Country. The slopes are empty because everyone's shopping, the rates are the lowest they'll be until March, and the cabin at night in December is the thing the photographs never quite manage.

09/29/2026

An 1800s log cabin is a strange place to cook Thanksgiving dinner, and that's precisely why people do it here. Hand-hewn beams overhead, a wood fire you build yourself, a farmhouse table that seats everyone, and a kitchen behind all of it that actually works, so nobody suffers for the aesthetic.

09/28/2026

The welcome note in the kitchen says two things: peace and rest.

A guest quoted it back to us in her review. "That's exactly what we received." Four years and 190 reviews later, it's still the best description of this place anybody's written, and we didn't write it. She did.

09/18/2026

We lay the first fire before you get here.

It takes about ten minutes and it's the thing guests mention most in reviews. One of them had been renting cabins in these mountains for a decade and said it was what made this one his favorite.

Fair warning: a 140-year-old cabin with a wood-burning fireplace smells like a wood-burning fireplace. Most people tell us that's the best part.

09/16/2026

About one in five of our guests comes alone.

They tend to book midweek, stay two or three nights, and leave saying some version of the same thing. They didn't realize how loud everything else had gotten.

09/15/2026

The cabin sits less than two miles from Sugar Mountain, and two miles matters more than it sounds — the difference between a forty-minute drive in wet gear and coming back at lunchtime because you forgot your gloves. A guest put it better than we can: "Excellent location to do it all over a 4 day weekend."

09/14/2026

Peak color is four weeks out and the middle of October is still open.

After that the leaves are down and you're waiting on snow.

09/07/2026

There's a stretch between the last of the leaves and the first of the skiers when almost nobody comes up here.

It's the best the cabin gets. Fire going, river loud, nothing on the calendar, nobody around. If you've been meaning to take a few days that aren't about anything, this is the window.

09/07/2026

Happy Labor Day from the cabin.

Up here at 3,700 feet, the first weekend of September already feels like the start of fall. Cooler mornings, the creek running loud after summer rain, and just enough warmth left in the afternoons to get in the water one more time.

Hope your long weekend has a little of both.

Address

Banner Elk, NC

Website

https://thisoldrivercabin.hospitable.rentals/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=page_link

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