Hiking and Traveling the Blue Ridge Parkway, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Only Guide You Will Ever Need, Including GPS, Detailed Maps, and More

by Leonard M. Adkins, J. Richard Wells (Foreword by)

Overview

This comprehensive guidebook provides a detailed description of every official National Park Service trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway. But that's just the beginning: veteran hiker Leonard M. Adkins includes information on every trail that touches the parkway, including the Appalachian Trail and other public pathways on national park, state park, national forest, municipal, and private lands, along with citations for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Far more than a guide to the trails, this book will help you plan your whole trip. It's the perfect companion for your next parkway adventure.
 
Includes:
- every public trail along the parkway
- GPS coordinates and 72 maps
- 255 total trails, including 12 new trails since the last edition
- trail length and difficulty
- points of interest
- wheelchair accessibility
- a short history of the parkway and region
- campgrounds and lodges
- public restroom locations
- elevation change charts for cyclists
- tunnel heights for RVs
- wildflower bloom calendar
- selected sightseeing information on nearby towns

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469646978
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/10/2018
Series:	Southern Gateways Guides
Edition description:	Revised and Expanded Edition
Pages:	424
Sales rank:	1,007,415
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Leonard M. Adkins is the author of more than twenty books on travel and the outdoors, including Walking the Blue Ridge, Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains, and The Appalachian Trail: A Visitor's Companion.

Table of Contents

Foreword J. Richard Wells ix

Acknowledgments xi

Abbreviations xiii

Map of the Blue Ridge Parkway xiv

1 Introduction 1

A Short History of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Parkway 4

How to Use This Book 7

The Mountains-to-Sea Trail 11

Advice and Precautions 12

Blue Ridge Parkway Regulations 16

2 Rockfish Gap to the Roanoke River: Blue Ridge Parkway Miles 0-114.8 19

3 The Appalachian Trail 93

4 The Roanoke River to Julian Price Memorial Park: Blue Ridge Parkway Miles 114.9-296.9 121

5 The Tanawha Trail 223

6 Julian Price Memorial Park to Us Route 441: Blue Ridge Parkway Miles 297-469.1 237

Appendixes

A Blue Ridge Parkway Offices 365

B Inns, Lodges, and Cabins on the Blue Ridge Parkway 367

C Campgrounds on the Blue Ridge Parkway 368

D Blue Ridge Parkway Roadside Bloom Calendar 369

E Forest Service Maps 376

F Bicycling the Blue Ridge Parkway 378

G Become a Blue Ridge Trail Master 382

Suggested Readings and Field Guides 383

Index 385

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Adkins justifiably claims that this book is 'the only guide you will ever need' when hiking, driving, or biking along the Blue Ridge Parkway. . . . An excellent resource for walkers, hikers, or anyone planning a trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway."—Library Journal

Adkins is the perfect guide to take you on the Blue Ridge Parkway."—NationalParksTraveler.com

Editorial Reviews

[Adkins is] the perfect guide to take you on the Blue Ridge Parkway. . . . I've referred back to the last edition of this book, entitled Walking the Blue Ridge, for years. The pages are dog-eared, underlined, and highlighted. Now there's a new book that I will soon love to death as well.—NationalParksTraveler.com

Information and inspiration for trip-planning.—Associated Press

From the Publisher

Adkins (Along the Appalachian Trail: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee) justifiably claims that his book is “the only guide you will ever need” when hiking, driving, or biking along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The guide begins at the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway and proceeds mile by mile, listing not only trails but attractions, overlooks, access to state roads, visitors’ centers, parking lots, picnic areas, and restrooms. Adkins has walked all of these trails and provides detailed descriptions of every trail that abuts the road: official Blue Ridge Parkway trails as well as Forest Service, state park, and private property (but open to the public) trails, including the sections of the Appalachian Trail and the Mountain-To-Sea Trail that parallel the parkway. The descriptions of each route include latitude and longitude, length, difficulty, handicapped accessibility, and locations of turns, ascents and descents, landmarks, geological details, plants, and streams down to the hundredth of a mile. Adkins even includes historical information along the way (“Yankee Horse Ridge: A Union soldier’s horse fell along the ridge and had to be shot.”)

Verdict An excellent resource for walkers, hikers, or anyone planning a trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway.—Rachel Owens, Daytona State Coll. Lib., FL
(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Library Journal