Agile Trekker: Mountains to Sea Trail Section 5, Cone Manor House Parking to Watkin Rd./Black Bottom Rd intersection, miles 21.3 to 24.1

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
6/25/2024	7 miles	3 hours 16 minutes	573'	2.3 mph	449 miles

Parking:

Moses Cone Memorial Park, Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock

Map:

Map available at the park
Gaia app

Directions:

From the parking lot, walk downhill and pick up the trail to the right. Shortly after that turn left and continue to go downhill. Turn left onto Entrance Road. At the hairpin turn, turn right onto Deer Park Road. Turn left onto Black Bottom Road and walk to the Apple Barn. Turn around and return back to Deer Park Road. Turn left onto Deer Park Road to Bass Lake. Walk in a clockwise loop around Bass Lake, returning to Deer Park Road. Take Deer Park Road and then turn right onto Black Bottom Road and walk to the Apple Barn again. Turn left onto Black Bottom Road where the trail splits (right is to the maze). Turn left onto Watkins Road. Yield right onto Entrance Road. Near the carriage barn, turn right to go uphill, right again, left to the carriage barn and parking lot.

I wanted another easy terrain hike today, so off we went back to Moses Cone Memorial Park. The park has 25 miles of carriage roads and I've only been to the lookout tower there. As we started our hike, we came across 2 groups of horses, one a little afraid of Krumm, even though Krumm is so well behaved. We had no route planned, so we made up our route as we went along. We passed several signs about lead and arsenic in the soil, related to pesticide buildup from the apple orchard that used to be on the property. Yikes. It warned against going off trail and letting kids play in the dirt. We headed down to Bass Lake. On the way, we decided to take a detour to see an apple barn on the property. Apparently, there were 5 of them. We then continued down to Bass Lake. Fishing is allowed in the lake, but there were lots of signs about no swimming, no wading, dogs must be on leash. Krumm was very excited to see the lake, so he was disappointed about the no swimming part. We did let him stick his feet in. We ended up walking around the lake, then rather than backtracking all the way, we hiked back to the apple barn and took Watkins Glen Road. We didn't see anyone else on Watkins Glen Road. It's a longer section, and just is a longer way to get back to the manor. As a bonus, Watkins Glen Road coincides with the MST, so we got a few MST miles in.