Catawba Meadows Park: Amazing Adventure Playground in Morganton, NC

Inside: A family visits Catawba Meadows Park in Morganton, NC and shares all the details in a real “we’ve been there” review.

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Every once in a while, you come across a really amazing park, and that’s just what happened when we visited Catawba Meadows Park. The Adventure Playground is massive and full of climbing obstacles, ropes, and bridges mixed in with fun swings, slides, balance beams, and lots more. We were blown away and couldn’t wait to share this park with our readers because this park and Morganton, NC are definitely worth the day trip! Note: The park is currently closed due to the effects of Hurricane Helene. We will update you once we know when it will reopen!

Quick Details: Catawba Meadows Park

• Amazing playground spaces
• Restrooms are convenient to playground
• Picnic shelters
• Convenient parking
• Lots of open green space
• Walking Trails
• 5 minutes from historic Downtown Morganton, NC and ICE CREAM

Adventure Playground: Catawba Meadows Park

Possibly one of the best playgrounds we’ve ever been to, this park offers an absolutely humungous variety of unique obstacles and climbing structures. It’s a combination of the old school castle playground, mixed with a treehouse and ninja warrior courses. The space is incredibly imaginative and offers several accessibility features like wheelchair swings and ramps.

Even my older kids, who are teens and have pretty much outgrown visiting playgrounds, enjoyed this park. There was an epic game of hide and seek, and lots of climbing and swinging on the equipment.

There are actually two large playgrounds, one intended for younger kids and one intended for older kids. They are side by side, and you can easily watch both. And both of them are just super. But the one for the older kids is massive with a central climbing space surrounded by nets, ropes, bridges, and pathways extending out into a huge square pattern.

There are benches nearby, some shaded, if you want to just relax and watch. But, if you’re like me, you’re not going to be able to resist joining in.

More to Do

In addition to the awesome playgrounds, there are picnic spaces and shelters, walking paths, and quite a few ball fields. There is also a ropes/zipline course across the road on the other side of the park. It was not open while we were there.

Catawba Meadows Park
701 Sanford Drive, Morganton, NC

Day Trip

Make it a full day trip adventure! Head into Downtown Morganton after you play for some ice cream. We stopped at Buzze’s Creamery and General Store. I loved that they had a couple of non-dairy options so even I was able to enjoy a treat. And their shop was fun, with all kinds of local gifts, crafts, soaps, and fun t-shirts.

We also visited South Mountain State Park while we were in the area to hike to High Shoals Falls. It is a beautiful state park and we all thoroughly enjoyed the hike. Admission to the park is free so it’s definitely worth stopping by. South Mountain State Park is about 30 minutes from Catawba Meadows Park. We hiked first, ate lunch, went to the park, and then got ice cream.