Sunday, August 29, 2010

Hiking The Green Knob Loop

This afternoon I headed back up the mountains to hike the Green Knob Loop trail:


View Green Knob Loop in a larger map

As one would expect from its name, this trail loops around Green Knob, and actually has two trail heads at Sims Pond Overlook and Sims Creek Overlook. I started my journey at the Sims Creek Overlook. By my standards this was a fairly strenuous trail. My GPS receiver shows the trail being 2.23 miles, which is shorter than my last hike around Price Lake, however where that trail was mostly flat Green Knob Loop has a total elevation difference of over 500ft.

This trail also has a much wider variety of terrain as it switches from walking in the woods close to trees and large rhododendrons, walking up creek beds, and over pastures and open fields. It also provides a rather spectacular view of Grandfather Mountain.



If you are every in the area I highly recommend you check out this trail. If you are short on time you can catch the trail going north from the Sims Pond overlook (across the highway from the pond itself) and catch the views of Grandfather Mountain without too much effort.