How We Found It: We hiked here last March in similarly chilly but pleasant weather. The Carolina Mountains Land Conservancy website offers a lot of good information on this hike (see the link under Map).
Date and Distance Hiked: 2/10/13, 5.5-6ish miles
Find the Trailhead: On 74A past Bat Cave…and by having faith that it exists. Drive through Lake Lure, Chimney Rock and Bat Cave, and keep going until you see this chimney standing alone on the right side of the road. This is the parking area, the one and only parking area for this trail system.
Here’s a map:
Map: This trail system has been greatly improved in the last couple years, but the map we printed from the CMLC website still looks like a work in progress.
Bathroom Situation: Nope. Make a pitstop midway through the tiny town of Chimney Rock along 74A for a public restroom (or to grab a sandwich, ice cream or cup of coffee).
Fees (Where/How Much): Free.
Our Route: On the map downloaded from the link above, we walked up the yellow dotted line from the parking area, took a right on the aqua-colored dotted line, all the way [steadily up] to the dirt road.
Then we backtracked down to the red dotted line and walked all the way [steadily down] to the [flat] dirt road to the aqua dotted line, up to the yellow dotted line, where we took a right and walked back down to the parking area.
This took < 2.5 hours, including a stop for lunch in the meadow at the intersection of the aqua and red dotted lines.
What Nobody Told Us: The trails have no names, and no distances are posted. However, the trails are well blazed.
The aqua-dotted-line trail is a little prettier than the red-dotted-line because it’s creek adjacent. In the winter, both red and aqua trails have nice vistas through the bare trees.
Also good for a vista: the orange-dotted-line spur that’s 3/4 of the way to the top of the aqua dotted line.
On the route we took, you basically walk up the mountain and back down again, with no surprise, sawtooth-style elevation gains and losses. Trail angle is consistent and reasonable.
Per the map, there are waterfalls, but none of them are grand. Most feature water sliding over flat rocks with 2-3′ drops at most. They do make great gurgling sounds.
The meadow at the red and aqua intersection is lovely but more of a clearing – not a large, flat space.
Hike Highlights:
• Nice leg workout from the good, steady elevation gain up the aqua-colored-dotted-line-trail.
• Tunnels through dense rhododendron hells, especially along the aqua dotted line.
• The bridge over the creek at the intersection of red and aqua dotted lines is a nice place to stop for a snack.
• Coffee on the Rocks in the town of Chimney Rock, right along the way back to Charlotte, was open on a Sunday afternoon, serving up hot, well made, post-hike coffee with a great view of Chimney Rock nearly overhead. You can have old-timey pictures made here, too!
Blue Ridge Dayhiking 
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