Hanging Rock State Park Ride

Today was a great day to ride. I took a little ride to Hanging Rock State Park near Pilot Mountain. It was a very nice day to ride. The temperature at the beginning of the ride was in the low 50’s and the sky was clear as a bell. Slick decided to stay home and dog sit. So I took advantage of the great winter weather and took off for the mountains and country side.

I decided to head out on highway 311 from Jamestown NC. I headed east to highway 52 in Winston Salem and then north to Pilot Mountain. The traffic wasn’t too bad. I did see a lot of other bikers taking advantage of the nice weather too. As I got to exit 134 on highway 52, I decided I was getting a little too low on gas. So I decided to fill up. Thankfully I did, because getting to Hanging Rock State Park was a little further off of highway 52 than I thought.

My map (not GPS) showed I needed to head on 268 East. Little did I know that I would be out in the country and it would be very remote. I actually rode east on 268 for what seemed like forever. I decided to pull over to use my GPS. Of course, that didn’t work out in the country. So I rode, and rode and rode some more. Then I found a school parking lot that I could pull into so I could check the paper map. The funny thing is I thought I was lost and was heading in the wrong direction. When I stopped to check the map I stopped at exactly the road for the Hanging Rock State Park entrance. If I would have stopped earlier; I would have probably turned around and went in the wrong direction thinking that I missed a road along the way. Actually, I wasn’t too worried about getting lost, because as my old biker buddy Craig says, if you have a full tank of gas you are never lost.

After I finally found the entrance to the park I headed to the top of mountain. I was pretty nice there. They have some very nice hiking trails, a man-made lake and the scenery was very nice. I took a few photos of some of the stuff at the top. I am planning to take another trip back there later in the year to do some hiking. It was that nice.

After taking a few pictures and a little break I headed down the mountain and toward home. The road to the park on 268 is very curvy and it was fun to ride. When I departed the park I decided to head east on route 8 east bound (no need to take the same route, right?). I had been on that part of the road before. It is a nice country route with lots of curves. I stayed on route 8 until it finally linked back up with highway 52 in Winston Salem. Below is the photo of the route I took and some photos of the park.

All-in-all the route was very nice and took about 4 hours. I could have not asked for a better day as far as the weather. Today was a nice sole trip. Tomorrow Slick will join me on a ride to Pilot Mountain State Park. It is supposed to be around 68 degrees and sunny tomorrow. Take a guess where Slick and I will be?

Until next time and remember life begin at the end of the off ramp.

Pappy