Mount Jefferson State Natural Area

6 Trails 14 POIs 1 Peak 1 Picnic Site 4 Viewpoints
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Description

Mount Jefferson State Natural Area is a 1,086-acre (4.39 km2) North Carolina state park in Ashe County, North Carolina in the United States. Located near Jefferson, North Carolina, it includes the peak of Mount Jefferson, named for Thomas Jefferson and his father Peter, who owned land nearby and surveyed the North Carolina-Virginia border in 1749. The park has one main road that leads to the peak of Mount Jefferson. On the way up are three overlooks, the Sunset Overlook, the Sunrise Overlook, and the Jefferson Overlook, as well as five hiking trails and a picnic shelter at the top. From the picnic shelter begins the Summit Trail, a 0.3 miles (0.48 km) that leads to the 1.1 miles (1.8 km) Rhodedendron Trail loop. At the end of the loop lies a short trail to the scenic Luther Rock, as well as the entrances to the 0.75 miles (1.21 km) Lost Province Trail loop. The mountain itself rises to more than 1,600 feet (490 m) above the surrounding landscape and provides a bird's-eye view of both Jefferson and West Jefferson. Park hours are limited by inclement weather, but otherwise open every day until sunset during the year with the exception of Christmas Day. The 2 miles (3.2 km), one-way Mountain Ridge Trail, which ascends to the peak of the mountain and through each overlook, may be accessed at the first park gate across from the park office during inclement weather, though caution is advised.

Trails in the Hikepack map

  • Lost Province Trail
  • Mountain Ridge Trail
  • Rhododendron Trail
  • Summit Trail

Attractions in the Hikepack map

  • Jefferson Overlook
  • Luther Rock
  • Mount Jefferson
  • Mount Jefferson Picnic Area
  • Mt. Jefferson State Natural Area Visitor Center
  • Sunrise Overlook
  • Sunset Overlook

Copyright

The PDF and JPG maps are released by Hikepack under the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Contains data ©OpenStreetMap contributors (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) under the Open Database License (https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/). Topographic map based on elevation data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Aerial imagery available from the U.S. Geological Survey. Description text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License). Cover image ©Ken Thomas - KenThomas.us https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Jefferson-27527-2.jpg Public Domain.