Most recently updated October 15th, 2024
Estimated Reading Time: 11.5 minutes
The Mountains to Sea Trail (MST) runs through or very near areas of North Carolina that were hardest hit by Hurricane Helene.
The Falls Lake section of the MST is open, along with many other NC State Parks and trails in the Eastern part of the State. That said, Parks and the MST on the Western side of the State have been damaged and may be inaccessible.
Go to my Hurricane Helene page to get the latest updates on the latest area Park, Trail and road repairs before you travel.
The Mountains-to-Sea-Trail (MST) is a simple hiking trail that spans almost 1200 miles across North Carolina, from the Great Smoky Mountains in the West to the Outer Banks on the East Coast.
Even though I’ve known about the MST for a good while, I didn’t really start hiking it on purpose until this past year.
Lately more and more people have been moving to my local area, and the easy-to-get-to hiking trails have become really crowded – especially on the weekends.
So I’ve had to look a little bit farther away for new trails – and that’s how I started paying more attention to the MST.
As of January 2019, 669 miles of the trail were completed, and even more have been done since then.
That’s just over half of the planned MST miles that are now completed in multiple segments across the state!
With temporary routes (for the unfinished parts of the MST) on backroads and bicycle paths, hikers can now follow the MST all the way across North Carolina.
One of the longest finished segments goes ~60 miles along the Southern shore of Falls Lake, just to the North of Raleigh near Wake Forest.
Even 60 miles (out of 1200) is an epic hike to most of us – but never fear!
You can hike smaller sections of the MST to make it an overnight backpacking trip, a day trip, or even just a few hours on the trail.
Today, I’ll tell you about the MST, and how you can hike my favorite local MST section (so far): MST Day Hike #22 at Rolling View in Falls Lake Recreation Area.
Continue reading Hike the Mountains to Sea Trail at Rolling View in Falls Lake