William B Umstead

Brett Kho

an extremely boring but an extremely large Park, just 15 minutes away from downtown Raleigh. it is a great quiet escape from the city life, and the staff that work at the visitor center are very friendly and knowledgeable, even working on weekends! you would have to come back multiple times if you want to see every corner of this park. sadly there's barely any shred of wildlife and when your main attraction is a tree with some carvings in it, not terribly eventful either... Even Crabtree lake was more interesting

Arelis Pena

This is one of the most beautiful park I have ever been to. I been there after my first time more then 50 times never get enough of this beautiful park, you need to be in shape to go there , it is a long walk and if you go biking 🚴 it take a good hours if you have a fast bike you can do it in 30 minutes if you not that fast it will be one hour to get out. It worth tt

Selene

Amazing! Well marked trails, interesting history. Yes it's close to RDU and some spots you can hear the plans more then others but it's not bad. Frankly at one of the water fronts you can practically watch the plans take off. Was pretty neat. Beautiful scenery! No complaints.

Pete Carlos

A beautiful park. Undisturbed by progress or development. Many miles of trails to enjoy on your own or with your dogs. The only criticism is that due to its close proximity to RDU, there is a lot of noise from aircraft overheard, but the dogs don’t seem to mind.

Anthony Williams

Love the hiking trails. Very well maintained, wide, and well marked without detracting from the natural beauty. And let's talk about the beauty: full canopy mixed forests. The sights, sounds, smells... what an excellent break from urbania. Enjoy it Raleigh, this is a true treasure.

Alex Kravtsov

Free entry, the 2.8ish mile loop that starts/ends at the welcome center/ranger station has a good mix of relatively light-to-moderate terrain, and a lake to see (no area to walk around the perimeter of the lake per se). Short drive from the city center, a decent amount of parking spots, but I can see it be packed during peak hours.

mike taylor

Went to Raleigh because my wife had a work type workshop, and I had like six hours to kill. I chose to spend my whole day here and absolutely loved it. Peaceful, beautiful, and fun trails. I got lucky enough to visit when I did because I was told the carved log was being taken due to it degrading. It was still beautiful. I would love to visit the park again and do other trails I missed out on.

Bre

Great park for hiking 🥾 with a multitude of sights to see 👀. There is a waterfall of sorts near where sycamore trail enters its big loop that is a bit out of the way but a worth while trek. It has a good range of beginner and advanced trails but there could be more. Overall good and a must-visit if you are in NC

Christina Smith

Umstead park is a fun place to explore in Raleigh. We went with three littles. We parked and did the oak rock trail which is a .6 mile loop. Then we went to the next parking lot and took the trail that said 150 yards to Big Lake. We found a picnic table under a pavilion and ate lunch. Potts Branch trail looked fun as well. It’s a 1.3 mile loop. However, we decided to go and look for the chainsaw log art. To do this, park at the sycamore road parking lot. The trail is on your left. There are signs that lead you to the log art which is located on the Grayln multi use road. It’s about a mile trek round trip on big gravel roads. It is not a loop so once you see the log turn around and come back 😉. It’s the purple trail on the map in the picture. The chainsaw log is really cool. It’s starting to get eaten by bugs but is still cool to see.

Mounica Mylapalle

Very beautiful state park.the trails are very nice,well maintained.the people who work for this park are very knowledgeable and answers every question with lots of patience.must visit place.my kids loved this place and want to visit again soon.