Stone Mountain Loop Trail - November 10, 2012

Stone Mountain Loop Trail

4.5 miles

Strenuous and Hazardous

This is a great trail in a beautiful state park just off the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The day was a warm 70° November blessing.  This report will be mostly made up of comments on the pictures.

Stone Mountain is located about an hour and a half north of Charlotte on I-77.  We parked at the Upper Parking Lot.  There is obviously a Lower Parking Lot.  More on that later.

We hiked in a counter-clockwise direction.  This made for an easier ascent to the top of Stone Mountain and put the 200' waterfall at the very end of the hike.

Grey Wolf took this picture.  Need I say more?

This one too.

He wanted to take a picture of Bear Bryson (new trail name) and myself.

At the split where you have to choose which was to hike the loop, there is an old chimney.  The boys thought this was really cool.  Bear Bryson wanted to climb it (I wouldn't let him) and Elijah wanted to take a nap inside it.

Of course, both boys wanted to climb everything in sight.  I had to eventually tell them to stop so we could make some progress.

Bear Bryson gets excited being in the wild...

Grey Wolf… not so much!

This is the first bald section we came to.  It was moderately steep, but not dangerous at all.  It was HUGE and full of interesting water ways and pot  holes.  The boys wandered all over the rock.  I couldn't help think of how much fun it would be to ride a bike down the hill with no brakes.  The stop at the bottom (large trees) would provide plenty of breaks, without a doubt.  But the ride would be a blast up to that point.

Does this make anyone else think of the Beatles walking across the road?

It was a picture perfect scene of the quintessential Blue Ridge Mountains.

Finally moving on down the trail, but the trees are just simply irresistible to two little boys!

This is a little higher up on the Stone Mountain dome.  There are at least five or six distinct sections of the mountain.

The main portion of the mountain is in the background.

We found this little section of rock to climb up (off trail).  It was pretty steep and I wouldn't want to be on any of this stuff when it's wet.

The pictures don't do justice to the steepness of the terrain up there.

Bear learned to use his shirt as a hat by watching Bear Grylls on Man vs Wild.  He talked about peeing on it to keep his head cool, but decided not to... Thank God!

Steep slopes, sudden cliffs, slippery rocks... COOL!!!

Finally on top of the mountain...

There were at least eight hawks floating on the up drafts created by the wind blowing over the mountain.  I was a bit jealous.  What fun it would be to sail though the air like that...

Near the top, the boys found a fallen tree to climb on.

Grey Wolf wouldn't climb as high.

But he was up to trying again at the next tree.

Views from the top.

It's easy to see how a person could get too far down the slope and no longer be able to climb back up.  Or stumble and roll right off the side of the mountain.  Recently, a 12 year old Boy Scout fell to his death after wandering too far down the mountain.  According to a ranger, there was also a college student who fell to his death there this year.  We were very careful and cautious, but this is definitely a dangerous place.  I did not allow any horse play at all and NO RUNNING!

"YES!  Dangerously steep slopes leading to 200' cliff faces!"

Both boys enjoyed climbing this steep portion of rock.  I stayed between them and the cliff so if they tumbled down the slope, I could tackle them as they went by.

They main, and most popular, section of Stone Mountain.  There were quite a few people up here.

The rock is flaking apart from water getting in the cracks and freezing.  Usually, this is followed by a slide off the side of the mountain but these were on mostly level ground.

Back to the trail...

And down the stairs.... lots of stairs.... SO MANY STAIRS!!!!

This is where my camera batteries died, so no more pictures.  We visited the homestead at the base of the mountain.  It was cool and I could have SO lived there back in the day.  After that, we made our way to the Stone Mountain Falls... a 200' waterfall.  The boys played in the water for a bit, but it was too cold to stay in very long.

The trail ascends stairs (yes, more stairs) up the side of the falls. From there, it was a short half mile back to the car.