As y’all know by now, we’re not really tourist trap kind of girls, but there are many landmarks that are popular for a reason and often worth a stop.
Grandfather Mountain is a super popular North Carolina landmark and visiting Grandfather Mountain with kids is a gorgeous way to spend part of a day in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Entering the Park
In our weekend in Blowing Rock post, we mentioned the differences between Grandfather Mountain State Park & Grandfather Mountain Nature Park. Grandfather Mountain State Park is a free park with plenty of incredible hiking trails that you can access from NC 105 or the Blue Ridge Parkway.
To actually visit the Mile High Swinging Bridge, animals, and other hiking trails (as seen here), you must pay admission to get into Grandfather Mountain.
Admission varies slightly by day, but is between $25-$35/adult and $13/child. You can purchase tickets in advance, but we honestly weren’t sure of our day-to-day plans so ended up just driving up and purchasing on site, which worked great! I’m sure this can get trickier at busy times of year, but we didn’t have a problem even during spring break week.
Start with the Mile High Swinging Bridge
We drove all the way to the top to start with the Mile High Swinging Bridge, just because everyone was so excited to see it. The kids loved walking over the bridge, climbing on the rocks, and looking out at the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains.
As Chelsea mentioned before, definitely keep kids close at hand when walking around up here. We had 6 kids ages 3-12 with us and had absolutely zero issues, but we did ask the younger ones to hold hands on the far side of the bridge.
Of course we had to stop in the gift shop for a bathroom break (*don’t miss this if you need it!) and a few small souvies.
Walk the Bridge Trail
The Bridge Trail is a 0.4 mile trail between the upper most parking lot and the Black Rock Parking Area below. This trail is PERFECT for kids. Short and sweet, with plenty of rocks to scramble over (or a path to walk on if you prefer) and really fun views of the bridge from underneath.
If you start in the Black Rock Parking Area, you could walk up the Bridge Trail to the entrance of the mile high bridge and then back down to your car. Because of the smallest members of our group, we had started at the top and had two adults drive the cars back down while the other two walked this trail with the kids.
Definitely don’t skip this as we all loved this just as much as we loved the top of the mountain!
Visit the animals
Next, drive down to the Wilson Center for Nature Discovery and walk around the animal habitats outside. Our kids absolutely loved seeing each of the animals! The bears & otters were particularly engaging, and we couldn’t get over the size of the elk!
You can adventure around the botanical garden and in the Wilson Center as well, but the outdoor animals were the highlight for our group.
Time for Lunch!
If your crew gets as hungry as ours, it’s time to head to the Woods Walk & picnic area down towards the bottom of the mountain. Picnics do not get more perfect than this! We chose a table right beside a giant rock, obviously so the kids could eat on the giant rock instead of at a boring table. They LOVED it.
After lunch we did the very short but pretty Woods Walk. This is definitely more of a walk than a hike, but our kids enjoyed this being a part of the picnic and we loved seeing more of the area.
A few tips:
It’s definitely colder on the top of the mountain than it is hiking below, so make sure to bring jackets with you for that part (another bonus to having your car parked at the top!).
Depending on the season, bathrooms throughout the park may or may not be open, so plan accordingly and don’t miss the stop at the Top Shop gift shop or Wilson Center!
You can take as much or as little time as you’d like to enjoy the park. Tickets are good all day once you enter, so you can always come and go if needed, too. We spent around 3 hours in the park and it was perfect for us.
Looking for other fun NC landmarks?! Be sure to check out these posts for some of our faves:
Best North Carolina State Parks near RDU
