Our goal for this weekend was to do 8 miles with fully loaded packs, so we decided to check out some new trails at South Mountains State Park in North Carolina.
We started off our journey with a stop at the visitor center, where I decided it was a good idea to ask the lady running the desk for a recommend trail around a mile to help us meet our mileage goal. The only reason I say that sarcastically is because I FORGOT to ask what the name of the trail was…
We were trying to take a connector trail to a second parking lot, which would have helped us get in the mile we were going to be short. Instead, we hiked up a horse trail to the top of the mountain overlooking the waterfall.
Our original plan had been to climb the 400 and something stairs to the top of the waterfall so we could practice for the AT Approach Trail, but nope we just hiked straight up the backside of the mountain.
Everything worked out in the end, we just hiked down the stairs instead of up them. It was still really great practice for going down steep terrain.
After we got our bearings and finished descending the falls, we hiked up the Chestnut Knob Trail and stopped at both overlooks. Sadly, it was a really cloudy day so we couldn’t see a lot of the distant mountain range, but we still really enjoyed getting a lot of ups and downs in for practice.
Overall, we had an awesome time and got in 8.1 miles. We will probably be coming back to do our 10 mile practice hike soon. The park offers over 40 miles of hiking trails, so if you are ever in the area, definitely check it out!
Side Note: We had planned a really fun video to go with our post, but unfortunately, some of the videos did not shoot correctly. We are not sure how it happened or how to keep it from happening next time, but we are glad we are working out the kinks before our AT hike starts.
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