“It used to be that you handed the woman the spa brochure and the man the fishing and shooting brochure when couples came to the lodge,” says Morgan Tarbutton, Chetola Resort’s outdoor director. But those stereotypes just don’t fit anymore—especially at Chetola, a seventy-eight-acre resort surrounded by the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains in Blowing Rock. Tarbutton, a shooting instructor, began managing Chetola’s outdoor programs in 2014 (she was also one of only a handful of female fly-fishing guides at the time). Today she and her fly-fishing-guide husband, Dustin Coffey, lead river excursions that meander into Tennessee from the first of only two Orvis-endorsed lodges in North Carolina, and the preserve offers a twenty-acre sporting clays course, a five-stand clay station, and an archery range surrounded by regal oaks. chetola.com
Southern Agenda