Moses H. Cone Memorial Park / Blue Ridge Parkway

Road Trip to Wilmington, NC | Blue Ridge Parkway | Hiking in the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park | Francis Marion National Forest | September 2023

We awoke at the trailhead for Beauty Spot early, hoping to see a colorful sunrise…but found the area completely socked in with clouds. At least we didn’t put any real effort into getting up and going somewhere scenic for nothing! Instead we rested for a bit longer before going about our morning routine, then got back on the road.

In an effort to get another county in Tennessee and three in North Carolina, we drove West back into Tennessee, then North to US-19E where we re-entered NC. For our first stop of the morning, we pulled over at Waterfalls Park in Newland, NC to go for a short walk to see several waterfalls. While not considerably large, they at least had flowing water unlike the ones in Illinois and Kentucky.

After some letterboxing, we continued heading East through Linville, then got on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We enjoyed the glimpses we had of both Roan Mountain in TN and Grandfather Mountain in NC, two peaks we would love to hike but didn’t have time for and knew they would be too much for Charlotte. But while driving through, we enjoyed the sights and felt like we could easily spend a week in this area and find plenty to do, so someday we might just do that.

We were happy to be back on the Blue Ridge Parkway, though it was considerably busier than it had been a month prior. We’re not sure if that had to do with the location, the season, or because it was a weekend — probably a combination of all 3. We made our first stop at the Linn Cove Visitor Center, where we walked the short trail underneath the Linn Cove Viaduct. This section was the last part of the entire Blue Ridge Parkway to be constructed, because of how complicated it was to build around Grandfather Mountain. It’s hard to get a good view of it all, but we still enjoyed the walk and seeing what we could of the viaduct and view to the East.

For our next stop, we drove to Moses H. Cone Memorial Park. Curtis had another peak that he was hoping to hike, so I let him do that while Charlotte and I wandered around the mansion and grounds of the park before Char decided to take a nap right at the foot of the stairs to the mansion. Curtis texted me to let me know that the trail, while long, was easy and paved so it could have been doable for her, but since we spend so much time doing what we want, I was fine with letting her choose what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go instead. She seemed very satisfied with her idea to nap in the sun, and was very excited when Curtis finally returned.

Curtis: Like I had texted Jess, the trail up to the summit of Flat Top mountain was very easy. It followed an old carriage road up to the summit and firetower and because of this, the grade was very gentle and the trail wide. The NPS allows horse rides up the mountain, of which I passed several. The five miles round trip went by incredibly fast and the view from the top of the tower was excellent, though low clouds to the West obstructed views of the higher peaks like Grandfather Mountain. On the way back down, I stopped at the gravesite of Moses Cone (the merchant/tycoon who owned this land and area).

Jess: Once we were finished here, it was time to leave the Parkway and continue driving East, into new counties and closing the gap between us and Wilmington. Our plan was to head South on US-321 to Lenoir, Southeast to Bethlehem, then South on 321 to Gastonia. Our plan for the evening was to sleep at a rest area off of I-85 which was listed in our sources as a place to boondock. However, when we arrived we found the dreaded “no overnight parking” signs, and went in to the rest stop to ask about it. The attendant there said we probably wouldn’t be bothered, but that there was also a 4 hour parking limit. Maybe we would have been fine, but we didn’t feel totally sure so we decided to explore other options. We drove over to Kings Mountain State Park in South Carolina, but were turned off by the $42 fee for a tiny, cramped spot in a crowded campground. Ultimately we decided to drive another hour South to Sumter National Forest where we found a site for much less and with much more space. Despite the extra driving, we felt this was worth it, especially with how happy Charlotte seemed to get to sniff around a larger site, and to get a nice long walk before bed.

The next morning started out raining, so we skipped our normal routine and just got on the road to finish our drive. We had two more counties in North Carolina that we wanted to grab on the way that were just East of Charlotte, which we weren’t too eager to drive through. Luckily our campground in SC was perfectly positioned to be far enough from the city, but not too out of the way for our drive through SC to Monroe, NC, where we got on US-74 and followed that all the way to Wilmington.