Hike To This Abandoned Town In North Carolina That’s Rumored To Be Haunted
Adventure comes in many forms. For those who genuinely seek a thrill, hiking to a bonafide ghost town in the middle of nowhere is pretty close to the ultimate experience. Fortunately, for thrill seekers, North Carolina has a few ghost towns. But not many are as much of a challenge to reach as is Lost Cove, the sort of creepy abandoned town in Yancey County. The last family left Lost Cove in 1957. Take a look below to see what this ghost town looks like today.
Not only is it quite a hike to reach Lost Cove, but it's also a challenge just finding the trail. But the pay off is both rewarding and chillingly haunting. Lost Cove was first settled just after the Civil War and became a great logging town — but that was before it found its calling making moonshine during the prohibition.
There are several ways to get to Lost Cove. We followed a Vlogger's hike (video below) that started out on these railroad tracks traveling alongside the Nolichucky River in Tennessee. The trek was not at all what was expected. It dropped the hiker off at the foot of a primitive trail that climbed to the top of the mountain on which abandoned Lost Cove can be found.
Just shy of Lost Cove, there is a cluster of rocks that were believed by the locals to be magical. It was on this rock that a young dead girl was placed during the dead of winter. She came back to life and the locals started calling the rock, 'Miracle Rock.'
Whether miracles happened in Lost Cove is a question for another day. In its heyday, the town was populated with several residents and houses. Lost Cove even had a school and a church. Today, only a few structures remain.
On top of the hill above the town there is an abandoned cemetery. Anyone who lived (and died) in Lost Cove was buried here. Markers are still in place and legible, giving an eerie sense of abandon and order at the same time.
If you dare to hike to Lost Cove, then you'll need to be a seasoned hiker. The terrain is quite challenging and the short hike can take much longer than expected.
Want to see more of this abandoned ghost town in North Carolina? Watch the video below from youtube user Joshua Harris Vlogs, whom we thank for most of the images in this article.
Getting to Lost Cove: Lost Cove is located in Yancey County, North Carolina near the Tennessee border. Per findagrave.com, the coordinates for the abandoned cemetery are: Latitude: 36.06775, Longitude: -82.39334. Please note, the trails aren’t marked and there are several ways to get there from both North Carolina and Tennessee. You can follow the hike as outlined in the youtube video above, or you can refer to the directions found on the website of nearby Uncle Johnny’s Nolichucky Hostel. You can imagine that a hostel so close to the ghost town is accustomed to giving hikers directions to Lost Cove all the time.
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