Agile Trekker: Lake Imaging Loop, Dupont State Recreational Forest

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
12/1/2025	3.7 miles	1 hour 47 minutes	323'	2.1 mph	361.8

Parking:

Lake Imaging Parking Area

Map:

Gaia GPS app
Pisgah Map Co. Dupont State Recreational Forest (copyright 2019)
N.C. Forest Service: DuPont State Recretional Forest Map -- 2025

Directions:

Take Lake Imaging Road from the parking area. Keep straight where the Ridgeline Trail leaves to the left. Pass Lake Imaging on the right. Turn left onto Jim Branch Trail. At the intersection of the Jim Branch Trail and Isaac Heath Trail, stay straight on the Jim Branch Trail until it dead ends at Buck Forest Road. Turn around and hike back to the Isaac Heath Trail. Turn left onto the Isaac Heath Trail. This appears to turn into the Locus Trail. Follow the Locust Trail until it ends at Lake Imaging Road. Turn right (twice) to take Lake Imaging Road back to the parking area.

Although it feels like we've done a lot of hiking at Dupont, there really are so many areas we haven't explored. We've never done a hike from the Lake Imaging parking lot. We came up with a short loop hike. Navigation was easy, but there were several discrepancies between Gaia, Pisgah Map Co, and the actual trail. I was intending to do a hike with no lake (Pisgah Map Co. doesn't show a lake), but yes, Lake Imaging does exist, and our trail passes right by it. Poor Krumm - no swimming for him. Taking notes on it though as a future place to swim him.

The parking lot wasn't very crowded. This area seems to mostly be used by mountain bikers. Many passed us on the trail. All were polite except for one young girl who didn't slow down for us - I struggled to get Krumm off the trail before she zoomed by. We only ran into one trail runner and one family of hikers. Lake Imaging is a tiny 1-acre lake with signs of fishing activity. It has a picnic shelter as well as a bench on one side of the lake. We headed up Jim Branch Trail. It's an easy trail with gentle undulations - it feels very much like a mountain biking trail. The terrain was good, and I thought the trail was very pretty with lots of pine trees and the occasional distant mountain view. We hiked to the end of the trail, then turned around and hiked back to the intersection with the Isaac Heath Trail. So, Gaia shows that the Isaac Heath Trail also goes to the northeast of the Jim Branch Trail. It doesn't. Pisgah Map Co. doesn't show it, and at the location, you could see the remnants of a trail, but obviously not maintained (down trees all over it).

Continuing southwest on the Isaac Heath Trail, Pisgah Map Co shows a trail heading south at the intersection of the Locust Trail and the Isaac Heath Trail. Gaia shows it too as a 0.2-mile spur trail. Again, this looks like an old, abandoned trail. We could see it, but logs crossed its path - definitely not maintained. Also, Pisgah Map Co. shows that the Isaac Heath Trail turns into the Locust Trail at that point. Gaia (and the NC Forest Service map) still calls it the Isaac Heath Trail, and we didn't see a sign saying it was called the Locust Trail.

Continuing on to Lake Imaging Road - we thought about adding on the Hilltop Loop Trail, but the Grassy Creek Bridge is out, and we weren't 100% positive we could hike the whole loop. Pisgah Map Co. doesn't show the location of the bridge. A sign at the trailhead said it's at the intersection of Lake Imaging Road and Buck Forest Road. I feel like it's not just the bridge that is closed, but areas around the bridge as well. I've read that work on the bridge will start in early 2026.

Hiking back on Lake Imaging Road - it's actually a trail, not a gravel road. There are some sections with erosion from mountain bikes presumably - closer to the trailhead. But otherwise, a nice trail too.

We really enjoyed this hike. Less busy than the trails to waterfalls but be warned there is a lot of mountain bike traffic.