A quartzite outcrop above unbroken forest at first light, an adult standing back from the edge for scale
NC SparksMountains to sea in four hundred miles.ncsparks.net
MOUNTAINSTHE GORGESTHE COASTRIVERSWHAT LIVES HEREHISTORIESEvery guide
MOUNTAINS · THE FLAGSHIP PIECE

Pilot Mountain is what is left, not what was raised

A monadnock is the hard core of a landscape whose softer country eroded away around it. Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock are quartzite that simply refused to leave.

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Photo: Hanging Rock State Park · Wikimedia Commons
WHAT THIS SITE COVERS

Six thousand six hundred and eighty-four feet down to nothing, in one afternoon's drive.

Mount Mitchell is the highest ground east of the Mississippi. Jockey's Ridge is a sand dune that moves. They sit in the same state, about four hundred miles apart, and the ground between them changes rock type four times on the way. Seventeen guides, six sections.

6,684Feet at the summit of Mount Mitchell, per the U.S. Geological Survey
400Miles, roughly, from the Black Mountains to the Outer Banks
2,900Feet the Cape Hatteras light was moved inland in 1999, per the National Park Service
17Guides on the site, in six sections

Two that are worth the detour

Every guide
THE COAST

They picked up Cape Hatteras and walked it inland

In 1999 the lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet on rails because the sea had come to it. The barrier island had shifted underneath a fixed object.

Black-and-white spiral striped lighthouse tower stands on a brick base under clear sky
The tower was first lit in 1870 about 1,500 feet from the water, by the Park Service's account. The water closed the distance.Photo: Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, NC Before 1999 Move ktl · Wikimedia Commons
WHAT LIVES HERE

A plant that eats, and it only lives here

The Venus flytrap is native to a radius of about ninety miles around Wilmington and nowhere else on earth. Poaching it is a felony in North Carolina.

Close-up of an open venus flytrap trap showing red interior and spiky teeth-like cilia

Where all of it is, on one sheet

Nine of the places these guides describe, at their real coordinates. The pins are links.

Mount MitchellMount MitchellGrandfather MtnGrandfather MtnPilot MountainPilot MountainHanging RockHanging RockLinville GorgeLinville GorgeRaven RockRaven RockJockey's RidgeJockey's RidgeCape HatterasCape HatterasGreen SwampGreen Swamp
From Mount Mitchell in the Black Mountains to Cape Hatteras: about four hundred miles, and six thousand feet of drop.Geometry: state outline and place positions at true coordinates
SECTION 1

The rock that stayed when everything around it wore away

Monadnocks, the highest ground in the east, and how it got measured.

4 guides SECTION 2

Places that behave less like ground and more like weather

Linville, the escarpment, and what falls through it.

3 guides SECTION 3

A coastline that will not stay where it was drawn

Barrier islands, and the lighthouse they had to move.

3 guides SECTION 4

Some of the oldest water in the world runs backwards here

The New, the Cape Fear, and what a river cuts.

2 guides SECTION 5

A plant that eats, inside ninety miles of one town

Flytraps, red wolves, and the fireflies that keep time.

3 guides SECTION 6

The men who measured it, and the camps that built the paths

Elisha Mitchell, the CCC, and what a survey settles.

2 guides
Stewards of this terrain.

Fellow travellers of these ridges.

Three more, shorter