I visited this trail on February 27th, 2021 with my parents, brother, and two dogs.

Drive up from Bryson City NC down Everett Street. Eventually, the road will become Lakeview Drive. After about 8 miles of driving, you reach The Tunnel To Nowhere.

After walking through the tunnel, you can turn down the Goldmine Loop Trail. Unfortunately, the marking and signage is not great, though the trails are always clear enough.

Though the start is pretty smooth, after a bit of time you take a fairly steep downhill descent; then, you follow a small mountain stream through a nice section of forest. Plenty of mountain laurel, as you can see in this picture.

Unfortunately, several sections of the trail were also in a semi-permanent bog state. Thankfully someone had placed some wood over most of them, but it wasn't always quite enough.

After about a mile and a half of hiking, you reach a cove which holds Fontana Lake. You can see pictures online of what the cove looks like when the water is up, but when we were there the water was pretty low.

See a map of the trail here.

Browse through other pictures from the trail by clicking here.