If you've walked the Boone Greenway this year and assumed the crews working their way toward Blowing Rock are the same ones who paved the loop near Clawson-Burnley Park, they aren't. Two different organizations are building two different trails along two different rivers, and they're nowhere close to the same stage of completion, even though local coverage sometimes makes them sound like one continuous project.
The trail that starts near Clawson-Burnley Park and follows the South Fork of the New River is a Town of Boone project, and it's largely finished. It links to a second stretch, the South Fork New River Greenway, through an underpass at Brookshire Park, which gives walkers and cyclists a continuous run of roughly seven to eight miles without having to cross a four-lane highway on foot. Tucked into the woodsiest section near the covered bridge sit the stone ruins of a hydroelectric station that supplied Boone's first electricity between 1915 and 1924, back when the power went to the Appalachian Training School, now Appalachian State University, and six houses in town.
The Middle Fork Greenway is a different project with a different mission. It's led by two nonprofits, Blue Ridge Conservancy and High Country Pathways, and its job is to eventually connect Boone to Blowing Rock along the Middle Fork of the New River, a 6.5-mile route once finished. When it links up with the existing Boone Greenway, the two systems together are projected to form more than 15 miles of contiguous trail. As of the last construction update Blue Ridge Conservancy published, from last August, two miles of the Middle Fork Greenway were open to the public. That's less than a third of the planned route, after years of fundraising, land purchases, and a well-attended ribbon cutting.
That ribbon cutting is worth pausing on, because it's easy to mistake progress on the art for progress on the trail itself. Local leaders gathered last August to celebrate a 500-foot underpass beneath U.S. 321 near Tweetsie Railroad, funded partly by the Watauga County Arts Council and an AARP grant, with murals by artist Whitney Landwehrmann covering the walls with depictions of native wildlife along the corridor. It's a real milestone, and it completed a two-mile art walk when paired with sculptures already installed. It's also a tunnel connecting existing sections rather than new mileage. The "two miles open" figure already includes it.
Behind that ribbon cutting, three more pieces of construction were queued up. Work on Boone Gorge Park, a one-mile stretch with a pavilion, parking, wetlands, boardwalks, and bridges, all built to be fully accessible, was set to begin that same month. Blue Ridge Conservancy had also just purchased 16 acres near Mystery Hill for a new stretch called Angler Park, with the first phase of construction penciled in for spring 2026. In Blowing Rock, the town was preparing to put a 1.2-mile segment out to bid. Add those three projects together and you get roughly 2.5 miles of new trail, which would bring the total to 4.5 out of 6.5 miles, leaving about two miles still without a construction plan attached to them.
Then there's the damage nobody budgeted for. Hurricane Helene tore into the greenway corridor, and as of last August two repairs were still outstanding: streambank stabilization at Payne Branch Park, covered by a $100,000 contract the Watauga County Board of Commissioners approved with Brushy Fork Environmental, and a 90-foot washed-out section near Mystery Hill still out to bid. FEMA had approved reimbursement for both, which tells you the money exists. It doesn't tell you when the work gets finished.
State Representative Ray Pickett, who helped secure state funding for the Blowing Rock segments, described the long view in blunt terms at that same event, saying it would be "unbelievable" to one day have Boone and Blowing Rock connected by trail. He's not wrong. He's also describing a project that, by its own published numbers, is still missing a third of its planned mileage and has storm damage sitting on top of that gap.
While attention gathers around the trail heading south, a different plan has been moving through Town Hall with none of the same press coverage. This past February, the Boone Town Council adopted a route plan, drawn up by the engineering firm Kimley-Horn, to extend the existing Boone Greenway north into downtown and onto Appalachian State's campus. The proposal includes a pedestrian and bike bridge over Winklers Creek. There's no mural for it yet, no ribbon cutting, and no completion date attached to the reporting so far. But it would do something the Middle Fork Greenway can't: put trail access within walking distance of the businesses on King Street and the residence halls on campus, instead of the meadows between here and Blowing Rock.
That's the part easy to miss if you're only following the project with the better press releases. The Middle Fork Greenway carries the bigger vision, an eventual link between two towns, and researchers at NC State's Institute for Transportation Research and Education estimated that a finished trail could draw around 12,000 annual tourist trips worth roughly $6 million to the local economy once fully built. The downtown extension, still in the planning stage with no mileage built yet, is aimed at a smaller and more immediate group: people who already live within a few blocks of King Street and currently have no way to reach a greenway without crossing traffic first.
If you'd rather walk something finished this weekend than something still being funded, the in-town options hold up well right now:
- Clawson-Burnley Park remains the easiest entry point, with a short loop across the covered bridge and access to the Clawson-Burnley Wetlands, a constructed wetland built to filter runoff before it reaches the river.
- The Brookshire Park underpass carries the trail beneath the highway, past the historic dam site, and out toward the soccer complex without a road crossing.
- The Middle Fork's two open miles run from the Highway 321 trailhead near Tweetsie through the mural-lined underpass to Sterling Creek Park, flanked at the trailhead by Blue Deer Cookies and Birdies Coffee & Treats if you want a reason to turn around and do it twice.
None of this means the Blowing Rock connection won't happen. The land near Mystery Hill is bought, the grants for the Boone Gorge and Blowing Rock segments are approved, and the 2026 construction calendar has real dates attached to it. It just isn't the trail closest to finished, and it isn't the one most residents in town will end up using first. That distinction currently belongs to a bridge over Winklers Creek that doesn't have a name yet.
Harper Realty keeps closer track of ground-level changes like this than any map app does, because a new bridge over a creek says more about how a block will feel in five years than a listing photo ever could. If you're curious how a project like this might shift things in your part of town, reach out to Harper Realty.
