We have plenty of opportunities to participate in rock-focused hikes, seeing as this area is replete with ancient metamorphic and igneous rocks – primarily gneiss, quartz, and granite. Whiteside Mountain, White Rock Mountain, and Sunset Rock are just a few in the Highlands/Cashiers area.
One “rocky” hiking opportunity is actually also a state park. In fact, Black Rock Mountain State Park offers visitors an opportunity to stand atop its stony precipice, which just happens to be the highest State Park in Georgia, at 3,640 feet.
Atlantans traveling to enjoy the Plateau have most likely passed the entrance to Black Rock Mountain State Park innumerable times without realizing that it is just around five miles from the intersection of Dillard Road (N.C. 106) and Georgia Road (U.S. 441); think Scaly Mountain and Sky Valley.
Situated at the Eastern Continental Divide, very near the Georgia and North Carolina state line, Black Rock Mountain State Park is around 20 miles from downtown Highlands and 30 from downtown Cashiers.
Thus, outdoorsy folks looking for an adventurous jaunt off the Plateau will find it here. Anything from an easy meander to a strenuous workout is at Black Rock Mountain. For example, Norma Campbell Cove Trail is under a half mile; Tennessee Rock Trail is a 2.5-mile loop; and James E. Edmonds Trail provides more than seven miles of wanderings. Trails are well maintained and sport yellow-diamond or metal-mile markers. Not surprisingly, rock outcroppings are the park’s trail highlights, as are various mosses and mushrooms year-round and wildflowers during spring through fall seasons.
Plus, at overlooks, upwards of 80-mile visas are offered. A downloadable PeakFinder phone app presents outlines of mountain summits in Georgia, North Carolina, and even Tennessee.
If hiking is not your thing, Black Rock Mountain also has a 17-acre lake for boating, paddling, and fishing, plenty of campsites and cottages, a few waterfalls, picnic areas, and a playground for the little ones.
Finally, the bonus is that right outside the Black Rock Mountain State Park entry is the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center – a living history educational property of log structures preserving the Appalachian ways of living, cooking, and handcraftsmanship. Visitors can walk through, learn, and sometimes witness – through demonstrations and classes – how pre-modern residents quilted, made pottery, smithed, woodworked, and so much more. At the center’s store are the locally famous 12 volumes of Foxfire books, published in the 1970s, and the Foxfire informational magazines.
If you haven’t done so already, plan to put a trek to Black Mountain State Park on this year’s activity list!
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