Pilot Mountain

Boo had found an awesome deal on a new backpack at REI last week, so we were psyched to try it out this weekend on a section backpack trip of the Appalachian trail in Mt. Rogers. Well... the weather had other plans for us. When I looked up the weather it was supposed to thunder storm the entire weekend. It's not that we were afraid of a little rain, just that we were worried we wouldn't have any good views. So we went with the flow and just changed our plans a bit. We decided to go on a day hike with the dogs. I found out that Pilot Mountain has a river section (great for the dogs) and a mountain section (great for some views), so we decided to hike both!

We got up early on Saturday, loaded up the dogs in the car, and drove all the way to Pilot Mountain. Boo consulted the I-phone and calculated that we had about 3 hours before the rain started pouring down on us. So we decided to do just a 4 mile section of the river trail. The way I had interpreted the river trail was that we could hike down a mile to the river then wade thru to an island, hike and explore the island then come back. Well... we hadn't counted on the water level being so high. So we began our 1 mile descent to the river, (yes descent, so that means 1 mile ascent on the way back) and can I say I did some serious webbing. Seriously, why do spiders string there webs right at mouth level? YUCK! Anyways, we got to the river bank and the water looked brown from being churned up. It was flowing fast and looked really deep in some spots. Boo said there was no way to safely cross over to the islands or to let the dogs play in it. Bummer. So we opted to follow the trail along the river for a while. After 1/2 a mile in, we decided to just turn around. Not because it was difficult, but because we were wearing shorts and you needed either gaiters or long pants to hike along this tall grassy, thorny, narrow trail. So we back tracked and started our 1 mile climb back out to the car. We decided we had enough time to do make it to the mountain section for some good hiking and views.

Pilot Mountain State Park is located in two different counties, Surry County and Yadkin County. "1. The mountain section, 2. the north River Section (Surry County) 10 miles from the mountain section and the south River Section (Yadkin County) is 20 miles from the mountain section of the park. " (NC state park webiste.)

We hiked the south river section then hiked the mountain section. The drive to the mountain section was pretty cool Small rolling hills, then all of the sudden you see this striking "mountain" (2421 ft.) with a rugged rock tip, jut out into the sky. The rock tip is actually a "monadnock, an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain." (wikapedia)

We drove up to the summit and hiked the Jomeokee trail out to the rock tip. The monaduck was probably my favorite part. Just layers and layers of sandstone, that's actually called, "Quartzite a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone but converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression" (wikapedia.) I can see why this is a rock climbers paradise, all the grooves to place your fingers and toes on, and the height of the rock wall was intimidating. I felt like I was hiking through a deep canyon, then on the rim of mountain. When we came back to the trail head, we decided to take the short walk to the "little pinnacle" trail and check out a view of the rock tip and catch some amazing views of the surrounding area.

The hike would be considered moderate, some ups, some downs, but not that tough all around. The views, the breeze, the interesting rock formation, and the ravens, who look more like raptures, swirling around, make this hike a perfect day trip. As soon as we climbed in the car it started sprinkling. Thank goodness the weather held out for us. Til next time. GET OUTDOORS!!