I did this trail on July 20th, 2019 by myself.

I spent the weekend in Roanoke after seeing a musician perform at Roanoke's historic Jefferson Center and looked around for a few extra things to do. After spending the morning at Roanoke's famous farmer's market, I decided to drive to nearby Carvins Cove, the second largest municipal park in the nation. I pulled into the park's boat landing parking lot, where I parked and visited the information desk. For almost the first time ever, I paid a hiking fee, but it was only $2, which was pretty bearable in the scheme of things.

After talking with the attendant, I came to the realization that there were really only two trails I could go on if I wanted to hike McAfee Knob later that day: Happy Valley Trail, which was over 6.5 miles long and led to a longer system of trails which would eventually connect to the Appalachian Trail, or Tinker Creek Trail, which was 4.5 miles round-trip. While I considered hiking directly from Carvins Cove to McAfee's Knob, that would have been about 16 miles of hiking in a day. Having started a little before noon, I quickly realized that Tinker Creek was my only real option.

After following closely along the cove for a maybe half a mile or so, the trail curved eastward towards the edge of the park. There, you enter a forested area with a somewhat sandy trail. It's been a while since I hiked it, but I don't recall any sections being particularly strenuous, though the park service does rate the trail as "more difficult."

After about a mile and a half of total hiking, you enter a section of the trail that is on private property. A section of this private property has high voltage power lines running through, and interestingly, the trail makers chose to make the trail go right underneath one of the lines. While I was there, one of the lines had an audible buzzing noise which I've since learned is called corona discharge.

Eventually, the trail reaches Hollins Parking, a parking lot just off I-81. Simply double back and turn around.

There were a few sections where the trail got poorly marked or hard to navigate. One of these sections had a few overgrown side trails, one of which led to a picnic table deep in an overgrown thicket. While I believe this was around the straight section of the trail near the edge of Botetourt County, it's hard to be sure.

For a map of the trail, click here and look for the trail marked number 32.

For additional pictures from my hike, click here.