PILOT MOUNTAIN, N.C. — Part of Pilot Mountain State Park will reopen on Saturday, according to officials with North Carolina State Parks.
The partial reopening comes just two weeks after a wildfire burned more than 1,000 acres. Rangers are preparing to reopen the popular spot in Surry County.
"I think that everybody is kinda looking forward to getting back to normal and enjoying the park," Will Allen said.
The wildfire is contained at Pilot Mountain, which has many asking when will the state park reopen. Rangers are hard at work trying to make it happen.
"They have been doing a lot of preparations for reopening and also just continuing to maintain those fire lines," Deputy Director of Operations for North Carolina State Parks Kathy Capps said.
She said they're ready to welcome everyone back this Saturday, but not all of the park will be open just yet.
The areas that will reopen include the Yadkin River section including Ivy Bluff, Bean Shoals and the Hauser Road parking area. Park officials said crews have taken care of trees in danger of falling following the wildfire.
"We are excited to welcome everybody back to all of the river access points on Saturday," Capps said. "We are excited to be reopening the mountain section of the park on Monday morning, and that's going to include everything except for Little Pinnacle."
Capps said the fire didn't move through the river access areas, so visitors shouldn't see any changes there.
"With the mountain, what they're going to be seeing is definitely a lot of the lower level ground cover being burned, and so, that area is going to be blackened, but they're not going to see a lot of difference to tree canopy because in most of the areas the fire height didn't get that high," Capps said.
As for nearby businesses like the Pilot Knob Inn, the owner, Will Allen, said the wildfire impacted guests.
"We had been really busy up until that Saturday and then starting on Sunday we got pretty slow," Allen said. "We actually encouraged people not to come in because we wanted to be sure everyone was safe."
Now that it's set to reopen, Allen is at full capacity this upcoming weekend.
Capps encourages people to come back this weekend, but again in a few months as the mountain continues to change.
"This is one of the iconic natural areas in North Carolina, and I know there are so many folks who really just value and treasure this space," Capps said.