Trails: Charlotte provides route details, maps, elevation profiles, and photographs for 32 of the best hikes in this city and the surrounding region. Charlotte offers urban hikes in the heart of downtown as well as a variety of paved and unpaved greenways that spread out around the greater metro area. Those routes connect neighborhoods, parks, business districts, and green spaces for residents and visitors alike. Surrounding Charlotte is a variety of terrain ranging from mountains and Piedmont foothills to flatlands and small natural prairies.
While none of the hikes in this book get five stars in every ratings category, each will have one, two, three, or four stars in one or more of them. A hike might merit inclusion in this book because its scenery is spectacular, while another hike with two-star scenery is selected because it’s considered five-star when it comes to taking children along. The star-rating system offers a simple and quick way to find the type of trail that’s right for you.
Greater Charlotte’s Geographic Divisions
The hikes in this book encompass five geographic regions. Each region has its own particular attraction, and they include star destinations such as urban greenways, South Mountains State Park, Crowders Mountain State Park, Uwharrie National Forest, McDowell Nature Preserve, the Latta Plantation, and much more.
Center City covers the urban core. Most of the hikes here utilize Charlotte’s greenway system—one of the longest and most developed in the United States. Downtown and much of the metro area offer level topography, compared with the land around it, offering easy strolls through the city, parks, and leafy neighborhoods. These routes are best for short strolls and for nature trails through urban areas and small parks.
North encompasses the most diverse landscapes in the book. Many of the trails in this region are centered near or on Lake Norman. Or take an easy day hike on a mostly level greenway through University Research Park. An hour to the northwest, as you get closer to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you find dramatic mountain terrain, rocky creeks, and waterfalls in South Mountains State Park.
East includes the University of North Carolina at Charlotte area, where you’ll find an easy stroll through the university’s botanical gardens. Within the Charlotte Beltway, Reedy Creek Nature Preserve is just far enough north of the city to have hilly terrain. As you head farther west in this eastern section, the terrain becomes more mountainous, and you will find great hiking in Morrow Mountain State Park and in the 50,640-acre Uwharrie National Forest.
South stretches down to Waxhaw, North Carolina, and includes trails around the towns of Fort Mill, North Carolina, and Lake Wylie, South Carolina, in the entries for Cane Creek Park, McAlpine Creek Park, and McDowell Nature Preserve. The terrain is less challenging in this region than in many others. But these trails are especially good for light hiking, running, and after-work or short day excursions.
West covers the area from Mount Holly, North Carolina, just beyond the Charlotte Beltway, to Blacksburg, South Carolina. Similar to the North region covered in this book, the West region becomes increasingly more mountainous as you get closer to the main ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. Here more than any region herein, you can experience a variety of trails, including the historic and fascinating monuments and farms in Kings Mountain National Military Park and State Park and the outdoor-adventure complex of the U.S. Whitewater Center, where you can not only hike and bike the hilly trails but also raft down rapids on a man-made river and fly down high-elevation zip lines through a beautiful forest. All the way to the west, Crowders Mountain State Park has mountain terrain and challenging trails in a park bordering the Yadkin River.
How to Use This Guidebook
The following information walks you through this guidebook’s organization to make it easy and convenient for planning great hikes.
Overview Map, Map Key, & Map Legend
The overview map on the inside front cover shows the primary trailheads for all 32 hikes described in this book. The numbers shown on the overview map pair with the map key. Each hike’s number remains with that hike throughout the book. Thus, if you spot an appealing hiking area on the overview map, you can flip through the book and find that area’s hikes easily by their sequential numbers on the first page of each hike profile.
Trail Maps
In addition to the overview map on the inside cover, a detailed map of each hike’s route appears with its profile. On each of these maps, symbols indicate the trailhead, the complete route, significant features, facilities, and topographic landmarks such as creeks, overlooks, and peaks. A legend identifying the map symbols used throughout the book appears on the inside back cover.
To produce the highly accurate maps in this book, I used a handheld GPS unit to gather data while hiking each route and then sent that data to the expert cartographers at Menasha Ridge. Of course, your GPS is really no substitute for sound, sensible navigation that takes into account the conditions that you observe while hiking.
Further, despite the high quality of the maps in this guidebook, the publisher and myself strongly recommend that you always carry an additional map, such as the ones noted in each profile opener’s “Maps” listing.
Elevation Profile (Diagram)
For trails with significant elevation changes, the hike description will include this graphical element. Entries for fairly flat routes, such as a lake loop, will not display an elevation profile. Also, each hike description’s opener lists the elevation range from the start of that specific route to the hike’s highest point.
For hike descriptions that include an elevation profile, this diagram represents the rises and falls of the trail as viewed from the side, over the complete distance (in miles) of that trail. On the diagram’s vertical axis, or height scale, the number of feet indicated between each tick mark lets you visualize the climb. To avoid making flat hikes look steep and steep hikes appear flat, varying height scales provide an accurate image of each hike’s climbing challenge. For example, one hike’s scale might rise 800 feet from the trail’s start, while another might rise 160 feet from that start.
The Hike Profile
Each profile opens with the hike’s star ratings, GPS trailhead coordinates, and other key at-a-glance information—from distance and configuration to contacts for local information. Each profile also includes a map (see “Trail Maps”). The main text for each profile includes the Overview, Route Details, Nearby Attractions, and Directions (for driving to the trailhead area). Explanations of each of these elements follow.
STAR RATINGS
Five-Star Trails is the title of a Menasha Ridge Press guidebook series geared to specific cities across the United States, such as this one for Charlotte. Following is the explanation for the rating system of one to five stars in each of the five categories for each hike.
FOR SCENERY:
FOR TRAIL CONDITION:
FOR CHILDREN:
FOR DIFFICULTY:
FOR
