Roundtop Trail

The trailhead is just after you enter the park at the Wear's Cove Gap entrance (point A).  This is an unmarked and little used entrance to the park out of Wear's Valley.  As an alternative, enter the park at the Townsend Y.  The end of the trail is just across the river.  Ford the river at point B.  Or you can treat point B as the trailhead, and point A as the end of the trail.

It is 2.4 miles from the trailhead (point A) to the highest point on the trail at Joint Ridge (point C).  It's another 5.1 miles from Joint Ridge to the Y.  Between point A and point C, you will occasionally see boundary markers as the trail goes in and out of the park.

It was a cold day in February, and there was still some snow on the ground.  I only went about a mile down the trail and then back because it was late in the day and dark came very early.

Download an mp4 version of the video.

It was a warm, cloudy March day with an occasional roaring wind that was very cold when it blew.  It could go back and forth between being too warm and too hot in seconds as the wind rose up and died down.  It was not a Goldilocks day where the temperature was "just right".  Even when the wind wasn't blowing where I was, I could hear it roaring down the valley or up above me on the ridge.  It was very impressive how loud the wind was.  There were no wildflowers out yet.

I hiked from the Wear's Cove Gap trailhead to Joint Ridge and back.  Joint Ridge is 2.4 miles from the trailhead.  There were a few sprinkles of rain while I was on the trail, but I didn't get wet.  A ferocious thunder storm hit about five minutes after I got back to the car.

This was the same basic hike I had done twice earlier in the year.  The only difference is that I went a little further down the trail this time than before - 3.2 miles down the trail for a total round trip of 6.4 miles.

At the present time, I cannot locate my pictures from this day.

I still need to do this hike as a one way hike from Wear's Cove Gap to the Y, but to do so I will need logistical help to be dropped off and picked up.  I will also need warm weather and a period of little or no rainfall so that the Little River will be running low enough at the Y to ford safely.

This was the first (and so far only) time that I did the entire 7.5 miles of the trail.  It was a one way trip, so I had a friend drop me off at the Wear's Valley entrance to the park and pick me up at the Y.  It was a very nice day and an easy hike.  The only two challenges were one very steep section about halfway through the hike, and getting across the Little River at the end of the hike.  On the steep section, I just sat down and scooted myself down.  On the river crossing, the Little River was not running especially high so fording the river was not too bad.  There are reports that the river can be uncrossable after a heavy rain.