Elk Knob State Park is a relatively new state park in the amphibolite range of western North Carolina. situated between Boone, North Carolina, and Todd along Meat Camp Road and literally across the way from the famed Snake Mountain.
Elk Knob State Park’s nearly 2-mile trail to the 5,520-foot summit of Elk Knob is the main attraction, but there’s plenty else there to make it worth your trip–including trails for young kids, cross-country skiing trails, and a backcountry trail and camping area near the headwaters of the North Fork of the New River.
Up and Back. 3.8 miles
DIFFICULTY. Moderate
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS. The ecology of Elk Knob is something to behold and enjoy, so take your time. Gray’s Lilly, Flame Azaleas, and other rare blooms on the mountain reward patient endurance.
RELATED POST: Among the Amphibolites
Online Guides. ALL TRAILS | HIKING PROJECT | ROOTS RATED
Magic Everywhere
Just a few miles outside of town down highway 194 you pass the Golden Cockerall Russian Nesting Doll shop and then by that quaint shop called Goober Peas, an eclectic general store packed to the hilt with personality and sundries.
And just as you’re about to round the corner and enter into that deep farm country of the Green Valley you begin to ask yourself “Did I really just pass by a Russian Nesting Doll Shop?” to which the answer is, of course, yes.
On an especially interesting day, after the highway straightens and you navigate toward Meat Camp Road, just off to your left you might see sheep coming down off a hillside guided by large white sheep dogs and a couple–the wife French and the husband a D.C. bureaucrat–who will tell you of the magic they’ve experienced during their COVID-19 quarantine in the High Country.
Across from sheep dog corner is a shop called Plan B, where in the springtime a group of locals might sit outside enjoying the weather. They might mention something like “One of the reasons we like Meat Camp is because we do what we want and nobody bothers us.”
One of the men might be wearing overalls and offering his boisterous laughter that you just had to abandon your car at Elk Knob State Park and hitch a ride with the Russian couple–he an App State Professor and she a recent immigrant from Siberia with a job at Heavenly Mountain working in the spa there.
Once you’ve meandered a ways down Meat Camp Road the thought begins to re-emerge about the Russian Doll shop and why anyone would put it out in these parts and why a totally unrelated Russian couple happened to give you a ride last time you were out here. Then you remember your friend Ken who bought chickens out in West Jefferson from a Russian man who perpetually kept a cigarette between his lips.
These thoughts have you so transfixed that you pass blindly by the trailer compound on the right with their many confederate flags and cars in the yard. You round a sharp curve, climb the hill a bit further and look behind you for the mountain range vista shortly before you arrive at Elk Knob State Park.
The ground is covered in snow on this particular day and you’ve realized that the French lady was right–everywhere you look it’s magic.