Pine Mountain State Resort Park — Hotel in Pineville

We had a great time and in this review I've added lots of helpful tips for those staying in the cabins.

The trails are well-maintained and very enjoyable if you don't mind moderate to strenuous hikes. The lovely thing is that The Rock overhangs are a great cooling place to relax even in the summer heat, especially rock hotel! Most of the trails are in the shade.

Preload the Park trails into your GPS app, or bring a topo and compass as there are a couple of confusing turns. Mostly it's super easy to navigate.

As far as the cabins go, These are a bit primitive and that is their charm! . Make sure to take your own soap shampoo, coffee filters, and toilet paper (cheap institutional rolls are provided.)The cabin windows do not have screens on them, and the mosquitoes are just waiting for you to think about opening up.

There is no Wi-Fi in the cabins but there is ac and a basic kitchen, but we recommend bringing along your favorite cooking utensils, oven mitt, and such. We found the AC to be in heat mode when we arrived and it was slightly perplexing to switch to AC. Just a few minutes later we had it running. There are no instructions provided.

We had three bars of AT&T LTE and used that as our (slow) cabin Hotspot. So they are not really remote work friendly. I don't think we could have sustained something like a zoom call.

We find it refreshing to stay somewhere where the large screen TV isn't the center of the room! The fireplace looked awesome even though we didn't use it

We actually recommend picking up your own groceries as you pass through one of the towns and cooking in the cabin. But don't expect it to be easy to pop out to the store after you've checked in. Pine Mountain cabins are somewhat isolated and you'll spend a lot of your vacation time driving to the closest grocery and back on curvy mountain roads.

We would really like it if the cabins had a quiet rule at 9pm or so, but we're here for the peace and quiet instead of partying...

Sadly, The Lodge Restaurant left a lot to be desired in our last trip. We hope it was a one-time issue.. I had the worst ribeye steak I've ever had in my life and the french fries were soggy. We had spent a day of strenuous hiking and so didn't want to wait around for a replacement order. They should consider raising the price to $30 and doing a proper steak, actually cooked to the customer order instead of Well Done by default. Thankfully my wife shared her fried catfish and we were both satiated by the end.

The waitress was friendly and efficient and we tipped accordingly. I recommend sticking to very basic fare such as salads, cheeseburgers and fried fish. Inexplicably the beer and wine lists are not provided by default you have to ask for them. Once we had them there was a decent selection which we have been looking forward to all day.

Despite the masks required signage on the door we found the check-in Clerk maskless in the facility.

We will definitely be back and look forward to more hiking in the cooler weather. We're going to bring our own supplies as well as our own groceries and focus...

For reference on my stay, we stayed in the lodge, not the cabin. This is important because a lot of my review may not be relevant for cabin guest.

I'll start with the restaurant. Our service was slow and the food is basic and bland. It's good I guess compared to everything else in the area, but by no means will this be your favorite place to eat. The view however is amazing so that makes up for it :)

The room was clean and well maintained, however there are a few things that are very annoying. To start, the walls are paper thin. You can hear your neighbors entire conversation, or in my case I can hear my neighbor listening to political YouTube videos on his phone while I'm trying to sleep.

To add to that problem, the AC unit in the rooms can't have the fan turned on separately so you can't even have the fan on (unless heat/ac is on) just to make white noise and circulate air in the room. They should really make that option available in the thermostats as lots of people (myself included) like to sleep with a fan on. In their defense tho, I did ask the front desk about this and after housekeeping investigated and determined I was right, they did bring me a fan which was nice of them :)

Last thing, and this is just plain dumb. Whoever's idea it was to put motion sensor light switch in the bathroom has clearly never used a motion sensor light before. The light automatically turns off while you're showering. This is dumb and frankly not safe at all. Put a regular freaking light switch in there.

The resort is clean and well kept and the staff are very nice and helpful, so that's why I'm still giving 3 stars. Most of my other issues can easily be remedied and I hope they do so the next guest has a more...

July 2025 - Pine Mountain KYSP is nicely situated to give the visitor a variety of options. Hike, golf, swim, or just chill in the mountain environment. The trail system here provides multiple options for short or long hikes. I recommend downloading/printing out the park trail map. You can also get trail maps at the lodge.

Some general comments about the trails. I consider the trails that we hiked rugged. Meaning the trails are typically reasonably identifiable, but there are a few spots that overgrown. I do think the trailheads are well marked. And usually on the trails where there are connectors or branches, these are well marked. The trail blazes are hit or miss as whether they are well marked. The trails, thru July, could use some maintenance. There are a number of trails that have overgrowth or downed trees blocking/crossing the path. I also think that with the elevation changes and up & downs, I consider the hiking moderately strenuous. You'll definitely get a nice workout thru your hike. The majority of trails I would not consider for trail running.

For the trails, I recommend the following: Chained Rock - out and back with a great payoff view Honeymoon Falls - lots of options here to connect to other trails. Good rock formations along the trail Hemlock Garden - big elevation changes and right now the trail needs a lot of work to clear tree debris. You'll need to do some scrambling to get around several downed trees. But some really nice formations and streams. Note that at the shelter (essentially the end of the loop) there is a spur to Inspiration Point. I would not waste my time with that quarter mile out then back. Just not much to see and the path does...