Stone Mountain State Park, Roaring Gap, NC

Well we made it to Stone Mountain in Roaring Gap, NC, and because of the government shut down and the National Forests being closed they were pretty booked up, but we were able to secure a spot in the non electric area of the campground, and honestly these were the best sites.  They were big, and had a nice little creek running behind our site, with a little path that led down to it.

 

We really liked this park, it was huge and again, lots of trails.  The first day there we took a little drive to see what all we could see, and found a nice short trail to widows creek falls, I didn't have my camera on me but it was a nice little waterfall that many kids were using as a water slide.

 

The next day we headed out to the trail that takes you to the other falls, the first one we came to was the Stone Mountain falls, and this was a sight

I could totally see how fatalities could occur, as you walk out onto the top of the smooth rock, and some areas were wet, and I bet people have tried to use it as a water slide in the past, but it is way steeper than it looks from the top.

You start at the top and work your way down to the bottom via 380 stairs :/ but it was worth it

We took a little brake at the bottom, let Jemma get into the water and sat there taking in the scenery, and listening to the falls, it was serene!  Then we decided to get a few shots of us

 

We continued on to the Middle falls, and the lower falls.  The trail followed along the creek with many small water falls along the way as the water flows over large rocks.

 

This was a very interesting trail, there were a couple of spots that we had to cross over the creek, most of them had rocks for easy crossing.

As we continued on, we came to the Middle falls, this was just OK, you couldn't see much of it

And then there were some rock statues that were interesting, I guess someone decided it would be cool to climb out there and arrange them, kind of cool, but also kind of creepy I thought.


There was however one last crossing right before we got to the last falls, that did not have rocks for easy crossing, so we had to take our shoes and socks off, cross the creek, and continue on to the lower falls, which was our last stop on this hike.  It was not as big as the first one but still very cool

 

We sat and hung out here awhile, just taking a breather and enjoying the views

Then we headed back to camp, we were getting pretty tired as this hike ended up being 4.5 miles round trip, it was a blast though, and just plain beautiful here!!  Cant wait to hit the Mountain trail tomorrow!!



The next day we headed out to the Mountain loop trail, we knew that there were many stairs on the side that we had already been to, so we decided to head to the backside and hit the trail head from there, thinking that if we had to do stairs its easier to go down them than go up them.  HOLY CRAP WERE WE WRONG!!!  There were also stairs on this side, I think more of them than the other side, and they were big steps, it was exhausting!!!

And these were the nice stairs!!  After a few breaks to catch our breath and rest our legs, we finally made it to the top of the mountain, and then had to take a long break!  So I took this opportunity to get some pictures.  We sat at the top and just could not believe how awesome it was!!

 

After we felt like we were rested up, we headed back to the trail, we figured we better keep at it as this was a 4.5 mile trail also.  A little further up the trail we came the actual top of Stone Mountain

So we went out to check out the views here also

It was beautiful!!  The rest of the trail was nice but nothing I felt was worth taking pictures, then we came to our half way point

I know this because we saw it the previous day, then we had allot of down hill trail and finally made it to the bottom and the trail leads into this open field, and I look to my right and I see this

It shocked me as I was not expecting it, it was grand!!

And then we were done, 5.2 miles later, pheew... what a day, and we were tired!!
Tomorrow we will be heading out to Rutherfordton NC to Four Paws Kingdom, the dog park campground!!