Hiking the Highlands

Hanging Out in Hanging Rock State Park

By Joe Tennis

Among the picturesque plains of the North Carolina Piedmont, the Sauratown Mountains rise north of Winston-Salem.

Capped by cliffs, these peaks on the east side of the Blue Ridge are known locally as the “mountains away from the mountains,” and take their name from the Saura Indians, who lived in this area as early as 1,000 A.D.

Here, among the hills of scenic Stokes County, just below the Virginia border, Hanging Rock State Park stands like a crown of the Sauratown Mountains, near towns called Danbury and Lawsonville. The park boasts about 7,000 acres, attracts as many as 350,000 visitors a year and takes its name from a rock outcrop with an elevation of 2,150 feet. This natural wonder - the “Hanging Rock” - stands quite distinctively among the surrounding hillsides, which have an average elevation of less than 1,000 feet.

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