Today we departed Green Mountain Park Resort in Lenore/Lenoir and wandered off towards Elkin, NC using single-lane (in each direction) highways going mostly northeast. We started on Hwy 18 to Hwy 421 to Hwy 21 to County Road 1002 into Stone Mountain State Park which is bordering the Blue Ridge Parkway on one side and Hwy 21 to the north. The entire distance from Lenoir to this place near Roaring Gap is a wonderful drive through small rural farming operations, areas of hardwood forest, wandering up creek-side ledges and having straight, flat runs through emerald green pastures. This might be the first time since we started on this mission from God (The mission assigned to us was to wander about aimlessly without concerns regarding schedule) that the drive equaled the scenery at the destination.
After maybe the least informal check-in operation yet, we pulled into an enormous, paved, mostly level site in a small pasture. The 50 amp system was funny but the 30 amp electrical system worked fine. The water is good. We’ll find out about the dump station when we check out.
Despite driving way below the speed limit all the way here, the distance traveled was short and Peg & I had the Invader set up in record time. First we drove over to the closest picnic area and found a trail that was initially intended to take us to Stone Mountain which we have not seen yet. After walking .3 mile, we hit a trail intersection indicating there was a 4.5 mile trail to Stone Mountain and a .3 mile trail to Stone Waterfall. We opted for the waterfall and I’m glad we did.
The trail leads you to the top of the waterfall with a big viewing area and the trail continues down quite a few steps to an intermediate platform and finally to the bottom of the fall. It isn’t what you would normally consider a waterfall because the water never passes through air but instead runs down an increasingly steeper rock dome. It is still spectacular. It is an easy hike of about a mile and a bit, round trip.
From the picnic area, we drove the 600 yards back to the Invader where we gathered up some snacks and piled back into Charlotte for a spin on the only road going through the park. It is a great drive down a series of creeks with abundant sprouting and flowering vegetation everywhere. There was almost no traffic, so we were able to putt along at about 10 mph on the paved section and maybe even slower than that on the last short gravel section. We were still unable to actually see Stone Mountain except little glimpses from the road, through trees. We really didn’t care much since the drive through the park is wonderous.