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Feature article
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Beech Mountain boasts more than just ski trails
By Doug Janz
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Beech Mountain, N.C., is known for its skiing, and for being the highest town in the Eastern United States (5,506 feet). I figured it might also be a good place for hiking.
A little research showed there’s a well-maintained series of trails around the top of the mountain, 12 miles or so. The town of Beech Mountain does a great job promoting the trail system, with online information as well as maps and descriptions available at the visitors’ center, and there are good trail head signs.
There are drawbacks in that these trails, while very pretty, aren’t particularly wild or isolated. Some of the time, you’re walking close to or even through private property, often practically right under the decks of vacation homes. You cross many roads, both paved and dirt/gravel, or walk on undeveloped dirt and gravel roads. Most of the individual trails are only a mile or two in length, and because of the layout of the town it’s terribly confusing to figure out by looking at a map.
With all that said, though, Beech Mountain is still a fun place to visit and explore via the trails. It really is a pretty place, even when you walk through the developed areas, and you can connect different trails to create some longer loops and make it seem more like a traditional hike.
This is a winter sports kind of town. Ski Beech offers some of the best downhill skiing in the Southeast as well as ice skating, snowboarding, tubing and sledding. There’s some year-round fun if you want to do a little hiking or especially for bicycling, because there are some nice biking trails, and road bikers know about the challenge of conquering Beech, of riding from Banner Elk (just down at the base of the mountain about three miles away) or even from Boone all the way to the top, just as the Tour DuPont did in the 1990s.
For hikers, the trail system comprises 10 trails, the longest being 5.1 miles (Buckeye Gap Loop Trail). Most are easy or moderate, with only a few strenuous but short stretches.
You’ll find a couple of small, well-groomed lakes in Lake Coffey (actually a large, very nice pond) and Buckeye Lake, which is a little bit bigger. The Pond Creek trails (Upper and Lower) originate at Lake Coffey. At Buckeye Lake you’ll find the Falls Trail, one of the prettiest on the mountain.
You can connect some of these trails but it’s a little complicated at first glance. A map of Beech Mountain looks like a maze that’s nearly impossible to figure out. There are countless little side roads and connectors and nearly 70 miles of road to serve this tiny town that only has a few hundred full-time residents.
The mountain was first developed as a resort and only became a town in 1981, so the layout was created to facilitate lots of home sites, not as the infrastructure for a town. So there’s definitely a different feel to this place.
But it’s fun to drive around on Beech Mountain and it’s fun to hike there. You’ll find some great views, some pretty lakes, streams and waterfalls and there’s a good chance you’ll run into some kind of wildlife.
I couldn’t hike here very often because I yearn for the isolation and excitement of being miles away from anybody else, and you don’t get that on Beech. But it’s a worthwhile place to spend a day, and I’m planning on doing that again sometime soon.
--------GoTriCities--------
Doug Janz writes about outdoor adventures in the Tri-Cities and beyond. E-mail him at DouglasJanz@aol.com.
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