Rocktop Trail and Crowder's Trail Loop, Crowders Mountain State Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
3/5/2022	5.8 miles	4 hours 1 minute	788'	2 mph	140.3

Parking: Crowders Mountain Visitor Center, off of Sparrow Springs Road

Maps:

• Crowders Mountain State Park
• GaiaGps app

Directions:

• There are multiple parking areas. Head to the parking lot next to the visitor center building. Walk by the visitor center to find the trailhead. Take the white blazed Crowders Trail and turn right where the trail splits. Cross Sparrow Springs Road. At the split, turn right onto the red blazed Rocktop Trail. At the next split, stay left on the Rocktop Trail, not taking the blue blazed Tower Trail. At the next intersection turn sharply left onto the white blazed Crowders Mountain Trail. Stay on this white blazed trail back to the parking area.
• Also see AllTrails though we did the loop in reverse Crowder's Trail to Rocktop Trail Loop - North Carolina | AllTrails

I joined my friend Sharon for a hike outside of Charlotte, NC. We were attending a talk by hiker extraordinaire, Heather Anderson (Anish), in Charlotte later in the day. Crowders Mountain State Park has multiple parking areas. My car directed me to the wrong one at first, so it would be good to check the actual address when looking for the parking area. We eventually found it, and wow, this park has tons of parking. The park is extremely popular and does fill up on weekends sometimes from what I read.

The hike was busy with lots of people and dogs on the trail. Luckily, I decided to leave Krumm at home. On AllTrails, some people rate this hike as hard, but it really wasn't. The elevation gain was moderate, at least the way we went. Yes, there is some rock scrambling at the top, but it easy as far as rock scrambling goes. We stopped at a lookout at the top and had some lunch while enjoying the view. 

After hiking down, we headed to Blue Blaze Brewery for a talk and book signing by Heather Anderson. She is an extremely accomplished hiker and gave an inspiring talk and book reading. The brewery is a hiker focused brewery - how very cool. They organize weekly hikes, weekly hiker hangouts, and hiker presentations. I think Asheville needs something like this!

On the way out of the brewery, we saw an Amazon truck driver staring at a tree. We wondered why. Turns out there was a racoon with its head stuck in a hole in the tree. It kept twisting its body around, trying to get it out - very sad. One of the people who attended Heather's talk ended up getting the fire department and animal control out there. Animal control was able to climb up a ladder and tranquilize the racoon, and then the firemen were able to somehow get the animal's head unstuck. I've told this story to Krummholz, because one of his hobbies when hiking is to stick his head in holes in trees! I think he's safe though, as he does this at ground level as opposed to 15 feet up the tree!