NORTH CAROLINA

There are 27 states in the Union larger than North Carolina but that does not mean it is not a BIG state. It is almost 600 driving miles between Duck, the ultimate tail-friendly beach town where dogs can run off-leash all year round, and the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest where your dog can hike through one of America’s most magnificent old-growth forests. For canine accessibility and quality the North Carolina beaches are America’s gold standard - a solid 10, even offering both sunrises and sunsets on tap at Emerald Isle or Oak Island. Cape Hatteras was America’s first protected national seashore, for people and dogs. In Western North Carolina the Pisgah National Forest and Nantahalla National Forest and Blue Ridge Parkway are all stuffed with bucket-list canine hiking destinations - Black Balsam Knob, the Roan Highlands, Grandfather Mountain, Max Patch on the Appalachian Trail, the Linville Wilderness. William Vanderbilt built America’s largest home here that included 100,000 acres of backyard. The Biltmore estate is tail-friendly so dogs can hike in the paw prints of Cedric, the Vanderbilt dog. The problem for canine adventurers is the hundreds of miles between coastal North Carolina and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Save for the Uwharrie National Forest, Duke Gardens in Durham, the Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve and one or two others the highlights are few in the vast central part of the Old North State.

The Best Day Hike You Can Take With Your Dog In North Carolina

Art Loeb Trail
Pisgah National Forest - Black Balsam Knob • Blue Ridge Parkway MM 420.2

“Balds” - where trees fail to grow - are found primarily in the Southern Appa- lachians, where the climate is too warm to support an alpine zone. Why some summits are bald and some are not is a mystery to scientists. There are two types of balds - heath balds with blankets of evergreen shrubs and grassy balds covered with dense swards of native grasses. Black Balsam Knob, at 6,214 feet, is the highest grassy bald inthe Blue Ridge Mountain.

How good is the canine hiking here? There are some who will tell you the three miles of unobstructed views on the Art Loeb Trail across Black Balsam Knob and neighboring Tennant Mountain comprise the best hike they have ever taken with their dog. A short and scenic fifteen-minute climb brings you to the ridgeline and wide open high country is on the canine hiking menu for the next hour. Parkway poster child Looking Glass Rock is in near-constant view from the trail.

Dropping off the ridgeline the loop closes with the Investor Gap Trail, an old logging road with springs pouring across it for refreshment; backpackers can continue on to the Art Loeb terminus at Cold Mountain of literary and Hollywood fame that is admired in the distance to the north.

Matching canine hiking on Black Balsam Knob stride for stride in “wow” moments is the moderate climb to the Sam Knob summit, a heath bald found on the opposite side of the trailhead.

HIKING TIME: 3-4 hours

(from the book 300 Day Hikes To Take With Your Dog Before He Tires You Out: Trails where you won’t be able to wipe the wag off your dog’s tail)