Tanawha Trail: From Rough Ridge to Boone Fork

Rough Ridge Boardwalk

This past week, while my family and I were on vacation in Boone, I felt the urge to go hiking in the area. I was deliberating between the Tanawha Trail and the Boone Fork Trail in Julian Price Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway. After seeing pictures of the overlook at Rough Ridge, my father and I decided the Tanawha Trail was a must see.

The Tanawha Trail (here is a map by the NPS, even though it is not too great) is a 13.5 mile hike from Beacon Heights in the south, paralleling the Blue Ridge Parkway as it goes around Grandfather Mountain, and ending at Julian Price Park in the north. We ended up creating our own little mini-hike(we were on a tight schedule) of 4.1 miles from the Rough Ridge parking lot to the Boone Fork Parking lot.

Boone Fork Creek

We started at the Rough Ridge parking lit and ascended a short distance until we reached the Tanawha Trail. We turned left and climbed for two or three tenths of a mile to the actual Rough Ridge boardwalk where one has an awesome vista of the surrounding mountains. If you wanted to, you could continue hiking on the boardwalk and go that way on the Tanahwa Trail. However, since we were short on time we doubled back and continued on.

One stop along the way, about one mile from Rough Ridge, is the Raven Rock overlook; however, we did not take this figuring we would not want to descend and reascend and had no idea of the distance down to the overlook on the Parkway. As we hiked through the forest we were amazed at the almost New England style forest and at the amazing rhododendron growth.

View of the Linn Cove Viaduct from Rough Ridge

At about the 2.5-3 mile mark from the start of this hike, we encountered Green Mountain Creek which had a nice little bridge over it and it also served as a good place to rest for a couple minutes. Then we continued on through the woods until near the end, we ran into Boone Fork Creek which also had a nice wooden bridge over it. Then we hiked another .5 to .75 miles to the parking lot.

Overall, this was a nice little hike, but we would have liked to see more mountain views. This is a hike through the woods other than the detour to Rough Ridge. Also, the trail map is not accurate, even the park rangers told us this fact, and some of the distances marked on the trail were misleading.

My Rating(out of 5):

Distance: 4.1 miles(from a GPS, might not be exact)

Difficulty: moderate overall, with a few strenuous sections

Helpful Links:
Trail Map by NPS listed above
Great description along with an interactive map
Good information of Rough Ridge and also great pictures

Typical forest along this section of the Tanawha Trail