Boone Fork Bridge Ribbon Cutting

Date

Saturday, October 22, 2016 - 10:00am

Location

Price Park Picnic Area
Milepost 297
Blue Ridge Parkway
NC

Please join us to celebrate the completion and opening of the Boone Fork Bridge on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST). The festivities begin with remarks from Kate Dixon, Executive Director of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail; Scott Crocker, Manager of the North Carolina Trails Program; Carolyn Ward, CEO of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation; and District Facility Manager Matt Henderson with the National Park Service. 

The group is then welcome to join a 1.2-mile hike (2.4 miles roundtrip) to the bridge for a ribbon cutting ceremony. Light refreshments will be provided at the picnic area.

The 80-foot bridge allows hikers to avoid wading across the knee-deep water at Boone Fork Creek as the MST turns north from the popular Boone Fork Trail in Julian Price Memorial Park. The bridge also improves access to Price Park’s back country campsite, one of only three backpack camping areas permitted along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The $250,000 bridge was paid for with funds from the federal Recreational Trails Program, administered by the N.C. Division of State Parks, and a grant from the John Wesley and Anna Hodgin Hanes Foundation to the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. The Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail managed the project.