This Land, Your Land

The new issue of The Steward, the state parks newsletter, details the volunteer effort to construct the 1.8-mile summit trail at Elk Knob State Park near Boone.

The five-and-a-half-year project took more than 6,000 hours of labor, the article says. Most of that labor was supplied by Appalachian State University students and members of scout groups, outdoors clubs and civic organizations.

The trail, which climbs about 1,500 feet to the 5,520-foot peak, replaces "a barely navigable, steep and exhausting vehicle trail as the only route to the summit."

Elk Knob is the tallest mountain wholly in Watauga County, the article says. The park was designated a natural area in 2003 and became a state park in 2007. Since then, development has been slow, with a ranger station, picnic grounds and parking areas completed in 2008 as "interim facilities."

The November issue of The Steward also has articles about the dedication of the Neuse River Trail in Raleigh as a 6.5-mile segment of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, about Hanging Rock State Park's 75th anniversary, and the opening of an interim office for Grandfather Mountain State Park on N.C. 105 in Banner Elk.