Hiking in Blowing Rock, NC

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We took the kids hiking to Julian Price Park. After stopping at an Overlook and hiking a little path (which went to a small stream and was quite pretty), we went to the main parking area (follow signs to ampitheater).

We had a picnic lunch packed in our backpack and I had our picnic quilt in a bag. We also brought the dog along on this hike.

We decided to do the 2.3 mile moderately easy hike around Price Lake, a man-made lake in the park. From the parking area, we went to the right past the canoe rental.

The trail began as a level and wide path. As we walked, the trail was less maintained. We had several areas where we had to walk single file, some places with an incline where we were climbing either tree roots or wooden boards, and some cooler areas where we were walking under an arbor of plants (which the kids called tunnels and loved!)

There was one point where we had to actually walk on a large plank that was underwater to ford a small stream, but on the other side was a beaver dam we could see close-up so it was worth the trek (even though our sneakers got wet.)

After about two hours in the kids were hungry. There really weren't any good picnic areas along the trail, but we kept looking and happened upon the perfect spot-a very large group of flat rocks along the lake that had been warmed by the sun. We put our blanket down and ate there.

The best part of the trail was that as you wound around you'd always come back to the lake, which the kids were always happy to see and walk out to where they could. It probably took us 3 hours to complete, and we were happy to see the public restrooms when we got back to the parking area.

We met several people on the hike, and all were friendly (to us, the kids and the dog). It seemed to be a very family-friendly site to hike.

I'm glad we went to the right, because we ended at a close view of the dam and the bathrooms.

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