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By
1Л1.Л
N. WEIR
GOOD roads, high-powered
automobiles and the craving
to explore far-away scenes
have a tendency to persuade North
Carolinians to ignore the natural
wonders and beauty spots of their
own back-yards and go a-touring
to places far less blessed with
Nature's wonders. Particularly is
this true in western and north¬
western North Carolina, where oc¬
casional mountain peaks rise above
t be surrounding foothills and val¬
leys. as veritable freaks of nature,
to greet the visitor at an unex-
l>ected moment and where marvel¬
ous scenery is the rule rather than
the exception.
In Wilkes County, for instance,
about four miles from the remote
little village of Traphill and less
than four miles off the highway
leading from Elkin to Roaring Gap
is Stone Mountain, a mountain of
solid granite, almost circular in
shape and excelled in size by no
mountain of solid rock in Eastern
America with the single exception
of Stone Mountain in Georgia.
Undeveloped and unknown to
many save those who reside in the
immediate section where it is lo¬
cated, Stone Mountain rises more
than seven hundred feet above the
foothills from a base which is live
miles in circumference. It is
smooth and compact with no pin¬
nacle nor evidence of breaking
away.
Bulky, rather than majestic in
appearance it sits like a pedestal at
the foot of the Blue Ridge moun¬
tains that surround it on throe
sides. In former years, before the
era of good roads and the speed
mania. Stone Mountain was long a
rendezvous for picnic parties, par¬
ticularly at Easter and other holi¬
day seasons.
Surrounded by forests of pines
and cedar, the country is green
throughout the year save when
forest fires sweep the foothills, as
of the past spring, to devastate the
wooded areas. A veritable picture
of grandeur, this: with a gray
mountain of rock rising from the
verdure of the countryside, with
an occasional streak of scrub trees
on its barren slopes. A close-up
shows glassy streams of clear water
trickling down along the crevices
of the steep sides.
The approach is not an easy one,
a fact which accounts for the lack
of knowledge of the mountain's
beauty. The forests around are un¬
broken save for on occasional farm
house and the attending cleared
grounds. Rhododendron and moun¬
tain ivy nourish and blossom along
the cool, shaded slopes, the large
purple variety of rhododendron
being partial to this locality. Wild
(lowers in every hue and ferns line
the damp paths near the base, but
climbing the steep slopes which is
possible only at certain points, bare
sections furnish a sharp contrast.
On the south side of the moun¬
tain which is more rugged and
broken than any other, is a natural
cave in the rock, square and pro¬
portioned as if carved by human
hands. Deep and damp with sides
covered by moss and ferns, the
cave, according to tradition, was
once a hiding place for the Indians
who roamed this section.
Near the cave is a spring from
which water drips continuously
into a bowl in the rock and over¬
flows down the mossy slopes. Then
comes the wonder of wonders,
the Cascades of Sandy Creek,
which have their source far back
in the mountains. The water falls
over the rock approximately 100
feet to the base; then narrows it¬
self into the banks of the creek,
bounding over huge boulders in
its path.
Among the ancient legends
which have come down through
the ages is one which tells that the
Devil had a garden at a certain
place near the summit. Traces of
His Majesty’s chariot wheels and
the very place where his pumpkins
where rolled down the precipice
to the village folks at Hallowe'en
were frequently pointed out by the
old timers of the section. They
could point to tlie rows of huckle¬
berries planted with precision in
cracks, carefully laid out in the
rocks, and would describe the low
rumble of the Devil's chariot
wheels, on dark, still nights, along
the mountain side.
And then, there was the Devil's
Pot. a round cuplike cavity, cut by
the rain and weather deep into the
mountain of stone. It was only the
dare-devil youth who would risk
his life to descend the slope to get
a close-up of the basin. Gold and
copper have been secretly hunted
in earlier years when rumors of
such deposits, along with precious
THE STATE. AUOUST 26. 1950
