We’ve spent a lot of 2020 in the great outdoors and visiting more Charlotte area parks. When my youngest son and I found ourselves flying solo on a recent Saturday, we decided to check out another of Mecklenburg County’s parks. About 5 years ago, we had visited McDowell Nature Preserve for their Nature at Night program, which is a cool nighttime festival where you get to learn all about the critters that lurk about after the sun goes down, but we had yet to explore there during the day. With its beautiful lakeside location, we thought it would be a good spot for a quick fall hike.
McDowell Nature Preserve covers 1132 acres along the shore of Lake Wylie. With a nature center, hiking trails, campgrounds, fishing docks, and boat ramps, the park has a lot to offer. The trail system is just over 7 miles long in total and is made up of a variety of different trails that loop together. There are plenty of options for different distances and fitness levels. Wanting to take advantage of the lake views, we chose to start on the Cove Trail.
The Cove Trail is .8 miles long, mostly running next to the lake. I found the trail system a little confusing, as trails were mostly one way instead of a loop and ended in random places like the road or a different parking lot. You had to piece together your own path over multiple trails to make it a cohesive hike that got you back to your starting point. We followed the Cove Trail to its end on McDowell Park Drive, crossed the street to pick up the Shady Hollow Trail, and then took a little connector trail to get us back down to the water from the Kingfisher Trail.
The Cove trail headed into the woods before meeting up with the lake. As soon as we saw the lake, we immediately spotted an egret across the water and a family of ducks swimming around. The trees were just starting to change colors and the sky was a beautiful blue. We stayed within sight of the water for the majority of the trail, but it had a surprising amount of hills that made the trail more challenging than we had expected.
The Cove Trail ended somewhat unceremoniously on the main road running through the park. Our options were to turn around and go back the same way, walk back on the road (not a good choice because there was no shoulder or sidewalk) or go down a bit and cross the street to catch the Shady Hollow Trail. We chose the latter.
The preserve is on a peninsula, with several sections jutting out further into the water, making more mini-peninsulas. Towards the end of the Cove Trail, it cuts inland, and after crossing the street and joining the Shady Hollow Trail, we eventually crossed the midline and were headed back towards the water again. The Shady Hollow Trail just circles back through the center of the preserve, but there is a small connector trail that you can take to get to trails along the water again. We followed the connector trail to the Kingfisher Trail, which ultimately led us to an open view of the lake.
Once you cross the connector trail and get to the Kingfisher Trail, you can follow the trail to the right or the left, each leading you down a different finger of the peninsula. We went to the right and passed the Red Fox Shelter and a picnic area on the way to a wooden dock you could fish from. Across the way we could see a long wooden waterfront deck that we would have come upon if we had chosen to go to the left on the path. The long deck to the left was part of the trail that went along the water and seemed to be the more scenic option for hikers, while the deck we walked to was a small offshoot in the water primarily used for fishing.
After enjoying the views, we headed back but went a little off-road for a while and climbed along the bank of the water before meeting back up with the trail.
We backtracked to the connector trail and then continued along the interior route of the Shady Hollow Trail. And my eagle-eye son spotted this tree frog in the leaves!
The Shady Hollow Trail dumped us back onto the main road. I think if we had headed down the road to the right a bit, we would have found a place to cross the street and pick up the trail again. But we opted for the direct route back to the parking lot and walked carefully along the side of the road. (This is not recommended with strollers or small children, as there is no sidewalk or shoulder.) On the way back we walked past the parking lot leading to the McDowell Pavilion and my son was suddenly struck with a memory of being there on a school field trip last year. Turns out they had come to the Nature Center and had lunch in the pavilion.
Although the trail system was slightly confusing, the park itself is beautiful and well worth a visit to explore its woods and enjoy its waterfront location. I think it is one of the more scenic parks in the Mecklenburg County park system and the nature center is a nice bonus. It was not crowded at all when we were there on a gorgeous fall day. McDowell Nature Preserve is definitely a park we will visit again.
