There are quite a few trails near Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where we are currently house sitting, so today we ventured out and drove to the town of Kings Mountain to explore a new area with our four-legged sidekick.
We drove through Shelby to Kings Mountain, North Carolina, to check out some of the Gateway Trails. It was about a 30 minute drive to the trailhead/parking lot. The trailhead area had great parking, very nice facilities, and seemed new. It was, in fact, started as a National Park Service led effort in 2001 to connect the city of Kings Mountain with area parks. The land for these trails was provided by Martin Marietta Mining Company among others. We got to see a bit of the mining company in action.
The Gateway Trail map showed four different trails. The longer trail, Foote Trail, was nine miles round trip, which we thought we’d come back to do in the future, likely without Cooper. We opted to do the three shorter trails.
We did the Rail Trail Loop that had two out and back offshoots, one called the Plateau Loop and the other the Cardio Hill. It was a total of about three miles. The trails were very wide and well-marked, and the Rail Trail was asphalt.
literally over the hill from the park
There must have history in this area, as I’ve seen a number of headstones
with the Hamrick name in the small cemetery in Boiling Springs.
Hopefully, they don’t all get mined away.
Peckish Travels 