A Weekend in Hanging Rock

Well, this is somewhat embarrassing. I meant to use this blog as a way to make myself write more. With the ulterior motive of having to hike more so I could write about it. Whoops! Well, no time like the present...

Last May (yes, 10 months ago) we spent a nice weekend with some friends at Hanging Rock State Park. I had always heard great things about HRSP, but had never made the short trip up to visit. I've been trying to get past my mindset of "it's so close, I can go anytime" that I usually get into when thinking about local camping and hiking excursions. This was my chance.

We wanted to find a place close to home that could accommodate our medium-sized crowd and provide entertainment for the hikers and bikers in the group. After some interweb searches, we chose Hanging Rock for its proximity to the Triangle (2 hours drive time) and its multitude of trails for bipedals and pedals. It did not disappoint.

The campsite was quite nice, you know, once the drunk college kids got kicked out after the first night. It's a large campground, with some nicely secluded sites. We found two nice sites next to each other that allowed our group to easily hang out.

We took two hikes during our stay. First, we all piled into one truck with all the pups and drove over to the visitor center after Saturday breakfast. Thankfully, we did not linger too long after eating our eggs and sausage because the parking lot was jammed packed with weekend warriors.

The Hanging Rock Trail is a moderate 1.3-mile hike from the visitor center parking lot. This lot actually is the jumping off point for many trails. Some are more popular in the summer months (Upper Cascade Falls), and today was one of those days we decided to not descend with the hundreds of others to see the falls. Instead, we went to the hundreds of others upward to see the park's namesake.

View from atop the Hanging Rock

The trail is nicely groomed the entire way, it's great for families despite the last pull that will get the heart pumping and the legs burning. But the payoff is worth the pain.
360-degree views are possible if you are willing to scramble around on the rocks. Be cautious as there are many others doing the same and the drop offs can be quite abrupt. It would be wise to set some boundaries for small children.

It was partly cloudy and a light breeze quickly cooled us 

One more view from the top

You can see Pilot Mountain in the background - another great NC State Park

Our next trail was recommended by two others in our group who had hiked it while we stayed back to watch our friends' dogs while they took to the bike trails. Once the bikers returned, the O3G (Original 3 Gangstas) gathered up the dogs and took to find the Balanced Rock and the Moore's Knob tower. So. Many. Steps. The Moore's Wall Loop Trail is 4.7 miles one way (in a loop), but we had decided to just hike to the tower and back down the same way to keep it easy for the older pups. Since this was 10 months ago, I have no idea how long it took us to get up there. But I do remember that my legs were quite tired afterward.The trail map says this hike is strenuous, so it may not be the best for youngins, but we saw a few sturdy kids and even some older folks making the trek up to the tower with us. Once again, the views make for the perspiration that makes your shirt darker in the usual places.

Hey, look! A tower!

Climb up the tower to see this gorgeous view

And that was it. The weather was lovely. The people were lovely. Even the burnt dump cake from the dutch oven was lovely. It was just the weekend we wanted.

The view from my room