Pilot Mountain State Park has been known as a landmark for thousands of years with trading paths crisscrossing the landscape from all directions. Many of these ancient paths amide the logging trails can be seen in the LIDAR scan at the start of the book. From up on the Blue Ridge Parkway the mountain can be seen all the way from Virginia. While this landscape around Pilot Mountain State Park of the North Carolina is rather hilly the mountain still sticks out just shy of 1,500 feet above the surrounding area so the view from the mountain is stunning.

The worn down mountain is now approximately 2,600 feet above sea level but for a long period of time in its 1.6 billion year history it was under an ancient sea. At one time it also might have been one of the tallest mountains on earth. The State of North Carolina has issued a Pilot Mountain State Park license plate which has the initials, GG, that references the mountain descriptively as the “Great Guide.” That term adopted by the European settlers informed the landmark status of the mountain for them. However, that same term had far deeper meanings for the indigenous who had so many trading paths toward the mountain but kept their distance in terms of villages. Indeed, the landscape around and within Pilot Mountain State Park informs many ancient legends, myths and lore.

“The earth is not static. The forces that shape its surface are at work all the time, slowly heaving up mountains and just as slowly wearing them away.” - “The Practical Geologist,” Dixon & Bemor, ed.

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