Stone Mountain State Park

This is Stone Mountain State Park, located near Elkin, NC. In case it isn't obvious from the pictures, it is so named because the majority of the mountain is solid granite, mostly overlaid with soil that has fostered lovely forests. However, there are many vast expanses of exposed rock.

First we hiked down the waterfall trail. The "trail" was actually a long, long, long staircase. Did I mention long? "Waterfall" is a misnomer, because the water doesn't fall, but sluices 200 feet down a steep granite slope.

I'm not sure that this picture gives you an appropriate appreciation of the steepness of that slope. It was dramatically impressive. Note that I wore my new Crocs. They did fine on the hike and were quite grippy, though the spouse was skeptical.