High Knob Lake Trail

1.3-mile trail leads to High Knob Lake at the recreation area. 3500 ft. at High Knob Lake in Recreation Area

Located atop Powell Mountain, High Knob is perhaps what most birders would call a local neotropical songbird paradise. At elevations over 3500 feet, birders can find some of the same migrant species that typically breed in spruce-fir forests in the Blue Ridge. 

High Knob boasts a 4-acre lake surrounded by a lakeshore trail. The lake is located at the headwaters of the Mountain Fork drainage. Enjoy hardwoods such as American beech, sugar maple, black birch, and northern red oak forest the adjacent woodlands. Creekside areas are dominated by eastern hemlock interspersed with dense rhododendron thickets. In addition to the great birding, other wildlife abounds. White-tailed deer are plentiful, while the red fox remains secretive. Both ravine and mountain dusky salamanders can be found in seepages and other wet areas. Red efts, terrestrial form of the red-spotted newt, crawl along dampened woodland floors.