Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1VoBM3JikwrWSrgk8Friday September 20th – Friday September 27th
Explore Park, Roanoke, Virginia
Next we headed northeast along the Appalachian Mountain range to Roanoke, Virginia. We chose this location as we had read articles regarding the great mountain biking trails in the area. Explore Park campground was very new and nice. The shower house was the best we’ve ever seen! Very clean and modern, top quality shower/toilet rooms. Explore Park had advertised as having several miles of mountain biking and hiking trails within the park. After arriving, Kurt rode one of the trails and found them to be unusable! Apparently, this park was closed for a couple of years, then reopened as this new Explore Park. The trails were overgrown and not yet maintained. There was also a historic tavern on the property. The website advertised that the restaurant and tap room were in the building. Soon we discovered that the Tavern would not be open until October… The park has an “Adventure Plan” for future development. How disappointing! Nevertheless, there were two other mountain biking trail systems in the area. Mill Mountain Trails were just okay, very rough, rooty and rocky. There is an iconic lighted star at the top of the mountain. We did ride there, but decided to next go to Carvin’s Cove Recreation area, 23 miles from the campground. Here’s where the awesome trails were. We did ride there a couple of days and really enjoyed the well designed and maintained trails.
Our
friends from Virginia, Chris and Bruce, visited us and stayed in a cabin at the
campground. We had a great time hanging out, cooking out and driving the Blue
Ridge Parkway. It was nice to see them again.
We did
enjoy the camping here for eight days, but was disappointed that the Park was
not fully developed. Unfortunately, this is not on our “go back” list. Next, heading back south to N. Carolina to
stay at Stone Mountain S.P. in north-central area.
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