Agile Trekker: Fawn Lake, Dupont State Recreational Forest

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
11/23/2025	4.3 miles	2 hours 5 minutes	275'	2.3 mph	344.7

Parking:

Fawn Lake Access Area

Map:

Gaia GPS app
Pisgah Map Co. Dupont State Recreational Forest

Directions:

From the parking area, go through the gate and turn left onto Fawn Lake Road. Pass Mine Mountain Trail on the left. Turn left onto Fawn Lake Loop and hike above Fawn Lake. At the end, turn left onto Fawn Lake Road. Take the first left onto Mine Mountain Trail (Gai shows this as Laurel Ridge Trail). Turn right onto Laurel Ridge Trail. Hike to the intersection with Cart Trail. Turn back and hike back on the Laurel Ridge Trail. Turn right onto the Mine Mountain Trail and hike until the intersection with the Cart Trail. Turn around and hike back on the Mine Mountain Trail, passing the Laurel Ridge Trail on your left. Turn right onto Fawn Lake Road. Pass Fawn Lake. Continue on Fawn Lake Road back to the parking area.

We haven't been to Dupont for a while, and we had just enough time to get a 4-mile hike in. We really had no plan of which trails we would take. We just knew that we'd want to hike by Fawn Lake and we had about 2 hours before sunset. We made up a hike as we went. I suppose we should have checked which trails are still closed. We were thinking of creating a loop with the Cart Trail, but that trail is closed and almost looks abandoned. We have hiked on the Cart Trail a couple of times before, so I assume the closure is due to Helene. Our hike was a mixture of gravel roads and trails. We aimed to hike a couple trail sections we hadn't hiked on before. Maybe we'll work on redlining the trails of Dupont. We saw few people on the trails, which is surprising for a weekend. In the summer, parking lots in Dupont fill up. At the end of our hike, we stopped at Fawn Lake and let Krumm have a swim. He was so happy. We were happy that he got a chance to do some lake swimming. He can swim a lot further than he can at our local creek hike. Fawn Lake can be very busy with people in the summer, but today we only had to share it with a woman and a dog, who were just finishing up with some paddleboarding.