Length: 2.3-mile loop
Time: 1.5 hours
Difficulty: Easy
You can begin a hike on the Price Lake Trail from either the Price Lake Overlook, the Lakeview Overlook, or the Price Park Campground, though the campground isn’t a viable option unless you are camping there. The trail is a loop, so you can start off in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. For the record, I hiked in a counterclockwise direction starting at the overlook.
From the Price Lake Overlook parking lot, head to the right. You will have an excellent view of the lake from here, so there is no need to hike the trail if all you are looking for is a photo, for this is as good as it gets. However, this trail is family and kid friendly, and it’s a great way to spend an hour or so.
Upon departing from the parking lot you will find that the Price Lake Trail goes nowhere near the lake. It passes through a rhododendron thicket and then through the unlikeliest of all places, Loop A of the campground. However, this is just temporary, and soon you will be back along the lake, first by following a sidewalk until you come to the Lakeview Overlook, which was formerly called Boone Fork Overlook. There is a parking area here as well, and this serves as the northern trailhead for the 13.5-mile Tanawha Trail.
At the end of the parking area is a canoe and kayak rental stand (Price Lake Boat Rentals). Price Lake is the only lake on the Blue Ridge Parkway—to my knowledge—that allows any type of boating. You can take canoes and kayaks on the lake, but no sailboats, fishing boats, or motorboats.
That’s it for civilization for the next hour. After passing the rental shop you will find yourself on a wide, well groomed trail. Rhododendrons line the path here and much of the trail for the entire way around. Some patches are so thick that they almost block out the sunlight. These small trees bloom anywhere from May to July, depending on which type of rhododendrons they are.
Though the trail circles the lake, it does not run right along the shore with an unobstructed view of the water for the entire time. There may have been continuous views of the lake when the trail was made many years ago, but now rhododendrons have grown up between the trail and the water. You can see blue through the leaves, and you know you are walking along the lake, but you can’t see it. However, there are plenty of clear stretches where you can get excellent photos, and even where the vegetation blocks the view, you’ll find all sort of trails that people have beat down to the shore.
At the opposite end of Price Lake from where the parking area is, you’ll cross Laurel Creek, the source of water for the lake. Like all lakes and ponds on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Price Lake is man-made and was created by damming a creek.
By the time you get to the halfway point you’ll have taken just about all the lake photos you care to take, and from this point on you will be walking without much interruption as you make your way back to the car. There are no confusing intersections or unmarked side trails, and even if there were, just follow the shoreline and you can’t get lost.
Though the trail is not completely flat, it is one of the easiest along the Blue Ridge Parkway. You do have to pay attention to the terrain, for the trail is rather “rooty” and there are plenty of mud holes that you need to step around, so don’t wear your Sunday-best shoes for this hike. People have laid logs and sticks over the worst of the mud holes, but it would be hard to come away from the hike unscathed.
Once you get back to the Blue Ridge Parkway, follow the paved path over the bridge that nobody is supposed to be fishing from but which is more than likely lined with anglers. You aren’t supposed to swim in Price Lake either, but I doubt anyone will stop you unless you start pitching blankets and putting up sun umbrellas along the shore. All in all, it’s a memorable hike and the one in which I got some of my best photographs.
Back to the Top | Julian Price Park Hiking Trails
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Last updated on December 5, 2023