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 horizon. The tall buildings of Winston-Salem and Greensboro are the only points of immediate visual interest. The contrast between the high, steep vantage point you are standing at and the lack of any other visible relief is striking.

The vegetation, and the general look and feel, is somewhere across between the semi-jungle of Western NC’s higher mountains and the scraggly oaks and pines of the low, rocky ridges of the mid-Atlantic that I know best. I was excited to identify Table Mountain pine in rocky areas that in a colder climate like New Jersey or New York would be home to pitch pines. A familiar mix of oaks, especially chestnut oaks, dominate the forest, but shortleaf pine is a conspicuously southern presence in dry but not excessively rocky sites. Moister or richer sites commonly have southerly distributed sub-canopy trees including cucumber magnolia and sourwood, as well as more familiar ones such as persimmon and ironwood. Northern hardwoods such as maple and birch are rare. Both native rhododendrons are common: catawba widespread on ridges and mountainsides, in full purple flower in early May, and rosebay forming vast thickets along streams. Mountain laurel is also a frequent presence. Witch Hazel is rare.

Much of the drier chestnut oak forest shows evidence of recent fire, and blueberries were just starting to come back at my visit.

Mostly above 2,000 feet, hemlocks thrive, though somewhat stunted. At the top of the ridge, some tiny birch trees are growing through the rocks.