We had to head home early on Sunday, so I planned a short hike. We broke camp at 9:30 and headed for Dupont State Forest. Dupont has over 100 miles of trails, and I had only been on less that 10 of them. Today I resolved to explore a new part of the forest. This meant missing out on Dupont's signature waterfalls, but those will still be there the next time we visit.
On this occasion we planned to hike up Stone Mountain. No, not the one near Atlanta, and not the one in Wilkes County. This is the Stone Mountain in Dupont State Forest. We drove in on Sky Valley Road and looked for the trailhead on the north side of Stone Mountain. This would've provided a 4-mile roundtrip hike. We found the trailhead, but there was nowhere to park. Pulling off the road wasn't an option, since the shoulder was still buried under snow and ice. We decided to drive to the trailhead on the west-side in hopes of finding more parking options there.
We barely avoided a collision with a truck pulling a horse trailer before arriving at the trailhead. Here we found a small parking area that was partially melted out. We parked and started up an old road. As soon as we got into the woods we had to stop and put on ice cleats and / or crampons. This road was as smooth as glass. It was much worse than the trails in Middle Prong, despite being almost 3000' lower in elevation. Fortunately our gear did the job, and we hiked up the ice-covered road like we were walking on grass. We amused ourselves by throwing sticks for Saucony to fetch and watching her slide around on the ice.
We were feeling pretty smug until 2 guys on mountain bikes rode by. I was impressed. Can you put snow tires on a mountain bike?
Eventually we began to climb. The old road is surprisingly steep in places, though the total climb over 1.5 miles is only 600' or so. We reached a meadow with a nice winter view. This would make a great campsite, if camping were allowed in Dupont State Forest.
We left the old road after the meadow, following a footpath towards the summit. We hiked through a lovely, open hardwood forest covered in snow. Finally we reached the base of the final ascent. Here the trail goes straight up, without a single switchback to speak of. This part of the trail would've been challenging even if it hadn't been buried under a coat of ice. We dug in with our ice cleats and crampons though, and slowly struggled upwards.
After a short distance we passed the mountain bikes we'd seen earlier. I was amazed that they had gotten them up that far. We saw the bikers at the summit. Somehow they had clawed their way to the top without the benefit of crampons. They were heading back down, and I'm sure they were looking forward to a thrilling descent.
The summit is open granite and provides a descent view of the surrounding forest. It's not completely open though, so going in the winter when the leaves are off the trees is probably your best bet. Overall, I'd say that I like the view from nearby Cedar Rock a bit more than from Stone Mountain. Still, it was a nice place to be, and an adventure to get to. I explored south along the ridge, and found a faint path the seemed to be heading towards two more summits. I was tempted, but knew we had to head home early. I guess it's always ok to save something for another day.
We returned by the same route. Even with ice cleats and crampons, the initial descent was exciting. We picked our way slowly down until the grade eased. From there it was an easy hike the rest of the way. We reached the cars at 1pm, and headed home to watch what turned out to be arguably the most exciting super bowl ever. It had been a great weekend, and we're already looking forward to returning to the Brevard area again.
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