Man dies hiking at ‘Graveyard Fields’ along Blue Ridge Parkway in NC, park says

A South Carolina man died along the Blue Ridge Parkway while hiking a trail known for its “haunting skeletons of ancient trees,” according to officials in North Carolina.

It happened just before 4 p.m. Sunday, July 13, and the park has not released a cause of death for 58-year-old Muhammad Sultan, who lived in Columbia.

“Dispatchers received a report of a park visitor in medical distress within a mile of the Graveyard Fields Overlook Trailhead,” the park reported in a July 14 news release.

Park rangers and first responders arrived to find Sultan “having medical complications which led to CPR being initiated.”

“Sultan was pronounced deceased in the ambulance en route to Haywood Regional Hospital,” the park said.

He is the second hiker to die this year along the parkway, which stretches 469 miles over mountain ridges in Virginia and North Carolina.

In April, 40-year-old Jie Huang of Plymouth, North Carolina, fell into water along the Boone Fork Trail and “died as a result of injuries sustained from his fall,” the park reported in an April 19 news release.

Graveyard Fields is in the Balsam area, about a 155-mile drive northwest of Charlotte, and covers property managed by Pisgah National Forest, the parkway says.

“One theory behind its strange name. Many years ago, a windstorm uprooted the forest, leaving behind stumps that gave the area the appearance of a graveyard,” the park says.

“Other theories include that logging in the early 20th century, prior to the area being under management of the US Forest Service, left tree stumps covered in moss resembling gravestones. Later, the Graveyard Fields area burned, destroying the stumps.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2025 at 7:32 AM with the headline "Man dies hiking at ‘Graveyard Fields’ along Blue Ridge Parkway in NC, park says."