Sauratown Mountains · Hanging Rock & Pilot Mountain

The Piedmont's own mountains, one way: from Walnut Cove the route takes NC-89 to Danbury, passes Hanging Rock State Park by the Moore's Spring area, heads south on NC-66 and west to Pilot Mountain State Park. It's 32 miles, about an hour from Winston-Salem and Greensboro. Fuel is scarce, so fill up in Walnut Cove, and NC-66 has narrow shoulders and deep ditches. At Pilot Mountain the summit road closes its gate when the lot is full.

The Sauratown Mountains rise out of the Piedmont north of Winston-Salem, the easternmost mountains in North Carolina. From Walnut Cove the route takes NC-89 to Danbury, the seat of Stokes County, and continues west past Hanging Rock State Park, which opened in 1936; the Civilian Conservation Corps built its 12-acre lake and dam in 1938 and the stone bathhouse in 1939. The route skirts the park by the Moore's Spring area, with its trail parking just off the road.

From there it heads south on NC-66, a rural road with narrow shoulders and deep ditches, and west toward Pilot Mountain, whose rock knob is visible for miles. Pilot Mountain became a state park in 1968, and its road to the summit parking closes its gate when the lot is full, which happens on weekends and holidays. Fuel is scarce on the route, so fill up in Walnut Cove. It's a one-way route.