Find the top rated birding trails in Hickory, whether you're looking for an easy short birding trail or a long birding trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a birding trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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This is an excellent trail for easy walking or riding. Only negative are the irresponsible pet owners who don't pick up their dog waste.
This has the potential to be a good place to ride, follows along the New River. However, it is a one lane road, and there are a lot of cars. Many cars are going fast and do not slow down. Definitely no place for kids to be riding. Be sure to get permission to park, we got permission to park and still got questioned. Virginia Creeper from Damascus is a much nicer ride, and no cars. We won’t go back to Todd or Railroad Grade Rd.
This was our second trip to this trail. We parked at the Forrest Hunt Elementary School and traveled north to Gilkey. It's an extremely well-maintained, well-marked, smooth ride. The trail takes you through small towns and wooded areas offering welcome shade. We stopped at the Bechtler Mint Park where we met and chatted with the Trail Ambassador. Will definitely be riding this trail again and again!
Love this trail! Beautiful and well lit definitely will be back! Highly recommend!
Wonderful,easy paved ride. Great for ebikes. Pavement is somewhat uneven in some spots, but still enjoyable. Encountered some vehicles, everyone was nice & considerate. Awesome food at Riverview restaurant, worth the stop
Went on a Sunday morning, very minimal traffic. Great view next to river. Flat, cool breeze and excellent views. Saturday during high season may be a bit more traffic with river tubing. All in all excellent and I will be doing it again this week.
A must do. Very nice ride. Road crossings are well marked. Need to be extra careful crossing over Business 74 in Spindale. Like another reviewer noted, Spindale has a couple opportunities to stop and eat. Could be a bit more biker friendly by adding some bike racks on the main town road.
Did the full length of the trail, 27 mi out and back, starting on the north end at Gilkey. Trail is smooth asphalt the entire way with benches and tool stations along the way. The people designing and implementing the trail have done an outstanding job. Now, the communities along the trail need to step up and recognize the benefits they have from this trail traffic. Little if any effort has been made to inform visitors of the restaurants or other establishments that are available to trail users. They need some appropriate and tasteful signage and access points so users can exit and get a bite to eat. They would do well to have some brewpubs or coffee shops right along the trail.
Stuck in town with a broken car in the shop all day, we tried almost every variation and branch of this trail and then continued on Casey Road and New River Hills Road to connect to the South Fork New River Trail (you cannot currently see the SFNRT on google maps, but it's mapped out on here) to give us quite a few miles (about 11). Scenic brooks and rivers, bridges, budding trees, a section through pine trees and a small covered bridge made this trail very enjoyable! It was busy enough that I (immuno-suppressed) needed to put on a mask for part of it and had to slow the bike down a few times. With all the twists and turns and side routes, it is a good idea to have the trail map up on your phone if you are trying to maximize your miles.
We had to put our car in the shop while on our Blue Ridge Parkway trip and there were no rental cars available in Boone, so we headed out on our bikes. We enjoyed the first part of this along a scenic brook, but the last section up a quite steep and muddy hill is better suited to mountain bikes.
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