Stone Mountain State Park
Thomas Dambo Troll in High Point, NC | Hiking in Stone Mountain State Park | August 2026
No matter how well our time in coastal North Carolina may have gone, the day we leave always comes with a sense of relief— especially as we make our way towards the Appalachians. Every time we get out of the car, it feels a little more comfortable outside. We’ve said it before and we’ll keep saying it over and over: we’re thankful for the opportunity to come here, and even more thankful that we don’t have to live here.
We left first thing on a Friday morning, heading Northwest towards the mountains. The skies were gray and threatening to the West and we were sure that at some point, we’d get rained on. But somehow, that never happened. We drove a few hours to High Point where we made our first stop for today.
Our first stop was to see one of Thomas Dambo’s trolls, one of several that are spread across North Carolina. Unfortunately for us, most are in cities which we try to avoid. But I guess now that we’re Troll Hunters, if we find ourselves going through them and want to stop, we probably will. High Point isn’t as big as some of the other North Carolinian Cities and was sort of on our way, so we made the effort to do so today. The location was sort of in an odd spot though. We parked in a dirt lot in the middle of a rather run-down industrial area and walked across the road and on a path that led to the troll hiding in the woods. Her name is Sally, and she’s pretty cute, despite the weird area where she lives. We liked how Dambo used chair or table legs to give her bangs.
After that, we drove over to an Aldi to grab just enough food for this week, then continued on our way. Starting today, we had exactly one week of being back in the van before we needed to be in Michigan for a family weekend. We planned to spend the majority of that time slowly making our way up the Appalachians, from NC to VA to WV, before sprinting across the flatter states to get to Michigan. When we were making our plans, we somehow let ourselves believe that we had so much time in the mountains (and we did, in comparison to our last few trips across Appalachia), but now that we were on the road it felt like the trip was already half done and there was no way we’d be able to accomplish all we wanted.
Our main focus for today was Stone Mountain State Park, located Southeast of Sparta, NC. At this point, it was still overcast, and our phones kept alerting us that storms were coming later. We started at the visitor center where we got stamps and chatted with the rangers about trail closures, then made a plan for how to make the most of our afternoon visit. Our original goal was to hike to the top of Stone Mountain, and we decided to do so via an out and back trail coming from the South. The trail closures prevented us from being able to do this as a loop hike, and from hiking to the tallest waterfall in the park, Stone Mountain Falls. But given the weather, it felt best to keep things short and just get the peak that Curtis wanted.
We started at the Upper Trailhead, bringing water and umbrellas with us just in case. The trail was a little confusing at first because of the ‘trail closed for construction’ signs, which were never that obvious on which one of the branching trails was closed, just that there were closed trails in the area. But thankfully Curtis was using AllTrails so we were able to figure out our way. Soon we were switchbacking up the trail, occasionally coming across openings in the trees where we could walk out on the giant stone of Stone Mountain and enjoy a break from walking with the views.
The hike was 3.5 miles round trip, with 500 feet of elevation gain. When we made it to the summit, we wandered around a bit on the giant stone summit before sitting down to take a break. Somehow it seemed that the threatening clouds had disappeared, and we were treated with great views to the West, with only the higher peaks almost out of sight engulfed by clouds. With the threat of rain seemingly removed, we felt more comfortable to sit longer and enjoy this spot.
When we were ready, we got up and descended the mountain back the way we came. Back at the van, we decided to take the long way driving through the park in order to stop and see a waterfall on our way. The waterfall is Widows Creek Falls, and is only a tenth of a mile walk from the parking area. There were people swimming here and sliding down the natural slide into the pool, so all we did was walk up close to the falls to check it out and then continue on our way.
We were having more difficulty than we thought we would with finding free camping in this general area, but I found a wildlife area about 30 minutes West from where we were that seemed to allow overnight parking, so we drove in that direction. Here we found a decent gravel road that led back to a gated dead end, with a sizable pull out that we felt comfortable enough to spend the night in. We settled in for a cozy night back in our van, thankful to be back enjoying the coolness of the mountain air and getting back into hiking!
If you’re interested, check out our trail recording for Stone Mountain on AllTrails here.
