Jones Lake State Park

Trees growing in Jones Lake

I had originally hoped to head west and hike in the Appalachian Mountains this weekend, but I wasn't exactly feeling up for the long four-hour drive to western North Carolina. Instead, I opted to make use of the cool weather locally and hike in Jones Lake State Park, a park just 40-miles (65 km) south of Fayetteville. As the name would suggest, the main feature of this park is Jones Lake - and the majority of people visiting this park only make use of the picnic and beach areas near the parking lot.

Bay Loop Trail

I, however, chose to forgo the beach and hike the 4-mile (6.5 km) Bay Loop Trail that passes through the forest surrounding the small lake. The first segment of trail is by far the most beautiful. Passing through the lush forest, the trail occasionally breaks with paths leading to the waters edge for spectacular views of the lake.

Dirty Road along Bay Trail

Unfortunately, after about a mile of walking, the trail works away from the lake and passes deeper into the forest. Eventually, the trail leaves the forest entirely and begins following a small dirt road that is composed entirely of sand (which will find its way into shoes and socks.) The one interesting aspect of this segment is the division of the forest; towards the lake, the forest is a thick massive of wilderness...on the opposite side, the forest is little more than thinly-spaced pines (I'm not sure if this is the result of a past forest fire or logging.) Sadly, the openness of the road and the reflective quality of the light-colored sand made this an incredibly hot walk (even on a rather cool day.)

Fortunately, the trail does occasionally skip away from the road and pass through the treed area to the right (though the road is always within sight.) After the second mile, the Bay Trail connects with the Salters Lake Trail, a smaller 1-mile trail leading further into the woods to the more remote Salters Lake. Since this trail is even less traveled, it provides a much closer experience with nature. Although there were many more insects along this trail, I also witnessed two white tailed deer right along the trail's path. Sadly, the end destination at Salters Lake was less than ideal; it was simply a small clearing next to the lake that provided a narrow view of the lake (in general, all the outlook points around the lakes would have been greatly improved with the clearing of a view more trees to provide more of a panoramic view.

Swampland along the trail

After returning along the same trail, I rejoined the Bay Trail, and completed the final two-miles around the Jones Lake. Fortunately, this segment was slightly more interesting than the first portion of dirt road. The final two-miles showed how much of a boggy swamp this area really is. The park's department has definitely built the trail here, which becomes extremely obviously every time the man-made path is flooded and requires you to step off the trail; several times, I stepped in what looked to be dry, solid ground - only to discover that it was a thin layer of dead leaves covering a much messier layer of decomposing swamp muck!

When I finally emerged at the park's picnic area, I was actually surprised to see the manicured lawn and sandy beach so close to a "wild" swamp. I almost considered renting a canoe at paddling across the lake, but I didn't exactly want to risk tipping myself into the swampy waters. Instead, I had to happily return with just a 6-miles (10 km) walk completed.

Pilot Mountain State Park

Pilot Mountain

Lately, I have been fantasizing about the Appalachian Trail (a hiking trail that stretches over 2,150 miles (3,400 km) through the mountains from Georgia to Maine. I have been trying to convince my co-worker that she should join me for this excursion; however, she's never even gone hiking before! Since I've been talking endlessly about the Appalachian Trail, we decided to head towards the mountains of western North Carolina and try a quick day-hike (just to give her an idea of what hiking is really like.)

Although we had originally hoped to walk part of the true Appalachian Trail, we thought a 4-5 hour drive each way would be a bit much for a single day-hike. Instead, we opted for the much closer Pilot Mountain, which was only 2.5 hours north near the city of Winston-Salem.

View over the Cliffs of Pilot Mountain

Our hike on Pilot Mountain was a 7 miles (11 km) loop that took us both around and atop the mountain. I first learned of this loop hike in the book 50 Hikes in the Mountains of North Carolina, which described this trail as strenuous (in fact, it listed the required hiking time as 6.5 hours - something that scared me considering the trail was only 7 miles!) Fortunately, the trail proved much easier than I was led to believe (and took nowhere near 6.5 hours.)

Cliffs along the Ledge Spring Trail

The loop began with 3 miles (5km) of Grindstone Trail, which circled around the north side of the mountain. Although the majority of this trail was an incline, it was actually a fairly mild slope that presented no real challenge. Unfortunately, the Grindstone Trail soon joined the Ledge Spring Trail, and the real climbing began!

Although the Ledge Spring Trail was a steep climb upwards, most of it was made (slightly) easier by the endless series of stairs leading towards the mountaintop. When you are about 3/4 of the way up this trail, the tree-line starts to open up to give magnificent views of the surrounding countryside. (You also encounter endless numbers of rock climbers scaling the mountains jagged cliffs.)

When you arrive at the "top" of the mountain (you can't actually climb to the very top - you have to settle for a nearby plateau instead), you are greeted by dozens of park visitors. Pilot Mountain State Park maintains a road leading up the mountain, so that people can easily reach the scenic lookout points without all the work we went through actually climbing the mountain! Although it was a little disappointing having to share the mountaintop with so many "tourist", the functioning bathrooms and water fountains made up for the small crowd.

Mountain Trail as it Passes through Shaded Forest

From the upper parking area, we were able to enjoy great views from the park's outlook areas before continuing along the mile-long Jomeokee Trail (which circles the mountain's actual peak. Then, the trail continued down a different segment of the Ledge Spring Trail (which would have been just as challenging had we been going up.) At the base of the mountain, we followed two unremarkable trails (Mountain Trail and Grassy Ridge Trail) through the forest south of the mountain. The only challenge from this final segment was the difficulty I had in locating the dark red trail markers against the trees; for someone who is mildly colorblind, it was nearly impossible to find the route markers (thank goodness I had my coworker there to be the eyes for both of us!)