Pilot Mountain is easily visible from highway 52, north of Winston Salem, NC. Jamoekee as it was called by the native Saura people means "great guide" or "pilot". Pilot Mountain is a monadnock formation. According to Wikipedia, a monadnock is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. Believed to be formed when volcanic or other metamorphic processes give rise to a body of rock resistant to erosion that is surrounded by softer rock, such as limestone. When the softer rock is eroded the harder monadnock remains as a isolated mountain. The Pilot Mountain's Big Pinnacle is quartzite that is believed to be from the sand of an ancient sea floor. The sand metamophized into quartzite. Geologists believe that tectonic plate collisions pushed the quartzite up and then erosion of the softer "plate" above and subsequent erosion by the elements created what we see today.The state park is actually two sections of land with a narrow 5.5 mile "corridor" that connects the area surrounding Pilot Mountain to the area of the park along the Yadkin river. The
combination of hiking & bridle trails afforded us the chance to spend a good portion of the day walking from the "knob" back to our campsite near the river. This picture is taken near the trail head looking towards our campsite in the distance.We hitched a ride to the trailhead near Pilot Mountain on Saturday morning. While the scouts were getting ready to spend the day climbing & rappelling, we headed toward the river. The initial 4.5 miles is a realtively steep downhill descending from around 2215 feet to around 950 feet above sea level. The remaining almost 7 miles rolls up and down with a net drop of about another 100 feet.
The hike was beautiful through fairly young hardwood forest. A good portion of the "corridor" is
bridal trail. We encountered a number of riders & horses along the way. The trip took about 5 hours over all plus a lunch stop. I have to admit it was about 3 miles farther than I wanted to walk, which told me I had some more work to do to prepare for the trip to Iron Mountain. While this was a fairly easy hike in this direction, reversed it would be challenging. After 7 miles of gradual climbs, you would make a rapid ascent to the upper part of the park. This was our original plan. Fortunately after a discussion with the park ranger, we reversed our plan!
