It was about seven-thirty on a Tuesday morning when I first noticed the fog sitting low over the creek at Horizons Park, the kind that makes you feel like you’ve walked into the wrong decade. I’d come out early specifically to beat the heat, and I ended up staying almost two hours without really meaning to.
Quarry Run Trail is one of those places that doesn’t announce itself. The trailhead is off Bethabara Road on the northwest side of Winston-Salem, in a neighborhood that most people drive through without stopping. The park itself is managed by Forsyth County, and the trail system here runs roughly four miles in and around the park’s forested corridors — mostly unpaved, rooted in places, and occasionally muddy after rain. Bring real shoes. The ground has opinions.
What sets Quarry Run apart from the busier greenway options around town is the terrain. You’re moving through actual woods — mixed hardwoods, tulip poplars, the kind of canopy that earns its shade. The trail dips down toward Quarry Run Creek and follows it for stretches, which is where it gets genuinely pretty. The water sounds like it’s in a hurry even when it’s not. There are small footbridges, a few steep-ish climbs if you take the right loops, and enough variation that you don’t feel like you’re walking in circles even when technically you are.
I’ve run into families with kids, solo walkers with headphones, and the occasional trail runner who looks slightly annoyed that the path isn’t smoother. It’s a mix. On weekday mornings, though, you can have long stretches entirely to yourself. Weekend afternoons get busier but never crowded in any way that feels like a problem.
The whole park covers around 170 acres, and the trail connects to some open meadow areas and a small picnic shelter if you want to sit somewhere after. There are restrooms near the main parking lot, which matters more than people admit when they’re planning a morning outing. Parking is free, the trail is free — the only cost is the time, and an hour and a half goes fast here.
If you’ve been defaulting to the Salem Lake trail loop because it’s familiar, I’d push you to try Quarry Run at least once. Salem Lake has the views, but Quarry Run has the feeling of being somewhere genuinely removed — which is a harder thing to find in a city this size. The two are only about ten minutes apart by car, which makes it easy to mix them up on a longer outdoor day.
Spring and fall are the obvious peak seasons. Fall especially, when the tulip poplars go yellow and the light comes through at angles that make you stop walking. But I’d argue that an overcast summer morning — cool, slightly damp, fog on the creek — is when this trail actually earns its best version of itself. That’s when it feels like something you discovered rather than something that was there the whole time.
It was there the whole time, obviously. I just hadn’t been paying attention.
