From the parking lot of Highlands Plaza, it must be about a four-mile hike round trip, and I realized that I had not climbed it in many months. What a treasure, here within an easy hike from downtown Highlands! I wondered why I did not hike it more often, or even run to its summit, though the ascent would be considerably steeper than Big Bearpen.
The climb follows Satulah Road and Worley road, along incredible rock walls that have been in place for nearly a century - a lesson in good stonemasonry:
The views back down to the downtown business area, and Harris Lake around which we run nearly every day, were breathtaking:
The road is private but and the signs say so, but they bear an acknowledgement won through the efforts of the Highlands Land Trust that it is open to foot traffic, a perpetual easement for hikers granted many decades ago by the farsighted men and women (and stonemasons) who settled here.
Several years ago, Martha was invited, together with other members of the Highlands Historical Society, to a picnic on this summit, wearing the kind of clothing that picnickers would have worn when they traveled here by horse and wagon:
When the pavement ends, a path winds through this enchanted canopy of mountain laurel through which this tall hiker had to duck:
And then past the ruins of the old Rock House, just below the summit, still a favorite place for some to camp:
And finally the big, flat rocks and spectacular unimpeded views from the top:
And somewhere down here, slightly west of south, is Clear Creek Valley, and through those trees barely visible the deck on which I stand and gaze upward every morning:
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