Rocky Knob Recreation Area — Hotel in Stuart

I love having family get-together cookouts here at this place and hiking the trails near it. When you get to this place, you will see a small building that is closed up. Turn into that parking area to either take the small road to the right to go down to the picnic and restroom areas or go to the lower parking lot behind the closed building to start hiking some of the trails that are there. I have hiked some of the trail that goes all the way down beyond the picnic area. It is a beautiful trail that has a creek running down it. The only time I hiked this trail was with my beloved dog, Snowflake who shortly passed away after we took him hiking on this trail. He really loved it. This was a wonderful, but sad memory for me with this trail. If you go on the small narrow road down towards the picnic areas and restrooms, you will see many different picnic tables on these rocky hills. Some picnic tables are too mossy and run downed to eat on. My favorite spot is the very back of the picnic areas where the upper restroom area is. There are two picnic tables in a flat area beside a trailhead. This is an easy accessible and shaded spot. There are grills here and there throughout the picnic areas. There are deer that love to hang around this park or near the roadside coming into the place. I have taken many beautiful photos of bucks and does that seem kinda calm around humans. Please be kind to these animals and try not to hit them. They seem to like grazing on the roadside before you get to this place, especially at night. The only thing I wish this park would do is repair this narrow road that goes down to the picnic areas. It is full of potholes. It needs to be repaved and some of the picnic tables and grills need to be replaced where weather and moss has damaged and...

Beautiful place. The only complaint I can think of is there is no soap in the men's restroom. Hand sanitizer by the door isn't good enough in some cases. An older couple was having a problem because the gentleman didn't make it to the restroom in time and it was hard for them to clean him without soap. I guess I'm old school because I like to wash my hands instead of using only the sanitizer if nature calls. My hands were dirty from cleaning my portable grill and all I had was water at the sink so they may have been germ free after trying the sanitizer but they sure did look dirty still. Enough complaining.....this really is a beautiful place for a picnic. We drove north on the parkway past a few popular places that were very crowded but this place was different. There was only a few folks scattered about and very peaceful. We heard the storm coming and packed up and went to a shelter by the parking lot where my wife and I got to sit and snuggle and wait out a hard rain and watch the lightning. We love the sound of rain so this didn't spoil our afternoon at all, in fact, it made it on of the best days I have had in a while. If you haven't been in the woods in the mountains during a good rain and then watch the clouds break up and the sun reappear and then see the world through a misty haze with every raindrop on everything sparkling like millions of diamonds then you life is really missing...

What a travesty has befallen Rocky Knob Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's been a number of years since we visited the Rocky Knob picnic area, but today armed with charcoal and hot dogs we hit the park for a picnic. It's in shambles. Downed trees and branches everywhere, more grills falling apart than fit for cooking, debris everywhere, weedy and unkept, and the visitor center was closed going into the July Fourth weekend.

The federal government should be called on the carpet for letting Rocky Knob get in such disrepair. The county supervisors of Grayson, Carroll and other surrounding counties should be all over their congressmen and senators to fix this park. The park officials know they have a problem because they've post "NO PICNICKING" signs at the Rocky Knob campground.

Covid is just an excuse. It's over, it's done, but the National Park Service has also removed all the exhibits from the Blue Ridge Music Center and closed that facility.

For us we'll not frequent that section of parkway for a while. For you locals, if this slack demeanor continues you can watch your tourism...