5 Lesser-Recognized Distance Trails within the Southeast 

The Lengthy Approach

Certain, everybody’s heard of the Appalachian Path—the well-known footpath that attracts nearly three million hikers a yr. But it surely’s not the one long-distance path in our neck of the woods. The Southeast is crisscrossed with loads of different prolonged paths, and most of them don’t see many thru-hikers. Listed here are 5 choices for lengthy hikes with little foot site visitors. 

Winding by means of northwestern South Carolina and western North Carolina, the Foothills Path is an prolonged spotlight reel, full of a number of the most spectacular pure wonders within the Carolinas. Bookended by state parks, the 77-mile route stretches from Oconee State Park to Desk Rock State Park, tracing a stretch of the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River, skirting the northern reaches of Lake Jocassee, and perforating the Jim Timmerman Pure Assets Space at Jocassee Gorges. 

The route is particularly wealthy in wildlife, significantly the Jocassee Gorges area, a botanical wonderland famend for wildflower shows, headlined by seasonally blooming trout lilies, girl slippers, and endemic Oconee bells. The principle Foothills Path can also be splintered with greater than 35 miles of aspect trails and spurs, together with the 14-mile offshoot linking Sassafras Mountain and Caesar’s Head State Park.

Massanutten Path, Virginia 

Situated simply 75 miles from Washington, D.C., within the George Washington Nationwide Forest, Virginia’s Massanutten Path is a straightforward weekend getaway—however the 70-mile circuit will also be performed as an prolonged tour. Created in 2002, by means of a partnership between the USA Forest Service (USFS), the nonprofit Potomac Appalachian Path Membership, and a handful of native path organizations, the path kinds a loop across the northern part of Massanutten Mountain, a 50-mile lengthy massif that bisects the Shenandoah Valley and splits the Shenandoah River into its north and south forks. 

The majority of the route traces Massanutten’s ridgelines, notched with panoramic promontories providing views of Fort Valley, Nice Mountain, and the silhouetted peaks of the Blue Ridge. The loop additionally gives a snapshot of the area’s historical past. A lot of the leisure infrastructure on the japanese aspect of Massanutten Mountain was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps throughout the Nice Melancholy, together with stretches of what’s now the Massanutten Path. However parts of the route are hewn from colonial roads used throughout the American Revolution, and Sign Knob, one of many path’s overlooks, was additionally a vantage level utilized by each Union and Accomplice troops throughout the Civil Warfare. 

Whereas highway entry to the route is proscribed, there are three seasonal USFS campsites alongside the route, together with the Little Fort Campground, the Elizabeth Furnace Household Campground, and the Camp Roosevelt Campground, the placement of the nation’s first Civilian Conservation Corps camp, established within the spring of 1933. Throughout warm-weather hikes, attempt to seize a campsite at Elizabeth Furnace to take full benefit of Passage Creek’s pure swimming holes. 

North Fork Mountain Path, West Virginia 

The North Fork Mountain Path traverses one of many highest ridgelines in West Virginia, tracing the backbone of eponymous North Fork Mountain within the Monongahela Nationwide Forest. The 25-mile route extends north from Judy Hole to Chimney Prime, navigating a patchwork of worldwide uncommon plant communities. The mountain is likely one of the driest peaks within the japanese United States, thanks largely to the summits and ridges of the Alleghenies, which protect North Fork Mountain from climate programs arriving from the West. The dry situations foster the height’s floral range, which incorporates crimson oak forests and historic barrens studded with pitch and desk pines, warped by the winds whipping the excessive elevation ridge.

To protect the height’s wealthy biodiversity, The Nature Conservancy began shopping for parcels of land on North Fork Mountain within the early Eighties and now manages greater than 4,500 acres on the height, together with the Panther Knob Protect and the Pike Knob Protect. Past the biodiversity, the North Fork Mountain Path additionally dishes up a number of the most spectacular views within the Mountain State. The western fringe of the Nice North Mountain is buttressed by a vertiginous wall of Tuscarora quartzite, reaching heights of greater than 200 ft and providing expansive views of Seneca Rocks, Germany Valley, and Spruce Knob, West Virginia’s highest peak. 

Pine Mountain Path, Kentucky and Virginia

Traversing some of the biodiverse peaks within the central Appalachians, the Pine Mountain Path is slated to change into a 120-mile climbing route, linking Breaks Interstate Park and Cumberland Hole Nationwide Historic Park. Up to now, the roughly 80-mile stretch from Breaks Interstate Park to Kingdom Come State Park is full, and it consists of 4 shelters and 5 backcountry campsites for thru-hikers. 

Forming a portion of the 1,800-mile Nice Japanese Path, the footpath follows the crest of Pine Mountain, weaving by means of a patchwork of wildlands, together with parks, wildlife administration areas, and nature preserves. In the present day, nearly half of Pine Mountain is protected, the results of an effort to create a contiguous conservation hall extending your complete size of the whaleback ridge, spearheaded by the nonprofit Kentucky Pure Lands Belief. And due to this ongoing conservation effort, most of Pine Mountain remains to be blanketed with contiguous forest, offering important habitat for native wildlife. Eradicated from Kentucky by the early 1900s, American black bears used the patchwork of habitat on Pine Mountain to recolonize the state, arriving from Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. In the present day, Pine Mountain can also be a important summer time stopover for migratory birds and Rocky Mountain elk, reintroduced to Kentucky from 1997 by means of 2002. 

The 26-mile stretch from Breaks Interstate Park, appropriately nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the South, to Pound Hole tops out at 3,144 ft on Birch Knob, a promontory studded with an commentary deck offering expansive views extending into 4 totally different states. 

Sheltowee Hint, Kentucky and Tennessee 

Conceived as a approach for backpackers to trek your complete size of the Daniel Boone Nationwide Forest, the Sheltowee Hint was dreamed up by Verne Orndorff, a panorama architect for the US Forest Service tasked with establishing trails and overlooks. The path was named for pioneer and long-hunter Daniel Boone, who was given the nickname Sheltowee, or Massive Turtle, by the Chillicothe department of the Shawnee. Formally acknowledged as a Nationwide Recreation Path in 1979, the 343-mile footpath now kinds the backbone of Daniel Boone Nationwide Forest, extending from the protected space’s northern edge to the southern boundary of the Massive South Fork Nationwide River and Recreation Space. 

Alongside the best way, the interstate path hyperlinks a handful of state parks, skirts two huge lakes, and showcases rock arches and secluded backcountry waterfalls. If attainable, plan to camp close to 68-foot Cumberland Falls in southern Kentucky, a little bit greater than 200 miles from the Sheltowee Hint’s northern terminus. The boxy cascade is about 125 ft large, and beneath a full moon, the amount of water creates a moonbow, a uncommon optical phenomenon solely observable in a handful of locations around the globe. 

Cowl picture: Foothills Path. Photograph by Malee Oot