Sauratown Mountains, NC
The Saura Mountains are located northwest of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, near the Virginia border, by the Dan river. They are characterized by tall, sheer-sided outcrops of white quartzite dropping off directly from flat ridge tops. Some interesting rock formations can be seen and climbed on. Monadnocks surrounded on all sides by the vast rolling Piedmont, they are landmarks even though they are not especially tall, maxing out around 2500 feet. Hanging Rock State Park is a good place to walk through them. The view northwest looks across miles of Piedmont to the constant wall of the Blue Ridge of Virginia and NC. Higher summits peek out behind it here and there. The major peaks of the Southern Appalachians are too far away to the west and south to be visible, except perhaps for an extraordinarily clear day. The opposite, southeastern view is less interesting but in a way more impressive. Low, gently rolling terrain, more forested than cultivated, stretches off to the nearly flat hor