Bean Shoals Access- Pilot Mountain State Park

"LOVED this trail! Don’t recommend if it’s like your first time hiking because the trails are somewhat easy to get lost on, but other than that it’s great! Very quiet, i was the only one in the park for hours. River is beautiful:)"

"these trails are absolutely beautiful, bugs are very prevelant though so just be careful, wear bug spray because it's not just mosquitos."

"The trails aren't that well marked. We had to backtrack a few times trying to figure out where the paths went and which path was which. Even having 2 versions of the trail map didn't help much. We had to use our phone's GPS with the maps to guess at which trail to take. The shortest route to the water was fairly easy, even on my bad knees, and most of it was shaded, but about half of it was just along the gravel road, and the river wasn't that cool (although it was a lot wider than I expected)."

"It's a beautiful place to come visit. The road does have three creek crossings so having a vehicle with high clearance such as the SUV or truck is ideal. However I was able to cross the first crossing in a sedan with no issues. There are trails in this area that take you down to the yadkin River and the canal trail. There's also a bathroom at the grassy parking lot after crossing the creek twice. The park opens at 7:30 a.m. and closes at 8:00 p.m. This is a great hidden gem!"

"Nice place for hiking, not too many people to compete with. You can drive into the Bean Shoals area but have to cross water three times to drive to the end. If you don't have 4WD I recommend not chancing it after heavy rains. There's a nice 3 mile round trip hike/ walk to the river. This time the river was really high and muddy due to heavy rains, but it's worth the effort no matter what the conditions."