Regional Jet CL65; Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors
We were cleared for the visual approach Runway 17 into Asheville. We were at 6000 feet coming in from the southeast and we had the GPS runway 17 loaded in the FMS. The Captain set 4000 ft in the Altitude Selector and we looked at the GPS plate confirmed 4000 ft at FAF and saw the highest obstacle of 4368 ft to our right in the distance.  We were VMC at night and we saw the higher terrain to the right of us and we saw [lower] terrain in front of us. We both thought we could get through with the [lower] terrain ahead. As we crossed over the [lower] terrain we got the GPWS 'terrain' and pull up. The Captain quickly clicked off the autopilot and arrested the descent at 4700 ft MSL. No limitations were exceeded as we were at Flap 8.  We continued on the approach and landed without further incident. We saw the higher terrain to our left which I pointed out and we both agreed we could set the FAF altitude and descend. The Captain even slowed his descent to 0.9 from 1.5 as we crossed the terrain. We may have been too focused on the highest obstacle and higher terrain. We clicked off the autopilot and I called out the altitude we were at cleared his FD. We continued since we arrested the descent and no further incident took place. Next time I will suggest to wait until we cross over the terrain before descending from 6000 feet.
CRJ First Officer reported receiving a GPWS Terrain warning on a night visual approach to AVL.