The pullout for Huckleberry Knob — at about 5,560 feet the highest peak in the area, an easy 2.5-mile round-trip walk to a grassy summit with 360-degree views (and a lonely grave).
Here's the trailhead for Huckleberry Knob, and if you have an hour and decent weather, this is the walk to take — an easy two and a half miles round trip up an old road to the highest peak in the whole area, about five thousand five hundred and sixty feet. The summit is another grassy bald, wide open, with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view that on a clear day is simply staggering.
It's a gentle climb through high forest and meadow, carpeted in blueberries in late summer — huckleberries, hence the name — and it feels like walking up onto the top of the world. Bring water and watch the sky; weather up here turns fast and there's no shelter on that open dome.
And I'll be honest with you: it's a beautiful place with a sad story sitting right on top of it. There's a lonely little grave up near that summit, and Boone will tell you whose it is and how they came to rest on the highest, coldest point around. It's a reminder that these gentle-looking mountains have always demanded respect. Take the walk if you can — just come down before the weather does.
Photo: Brian Stansberry · CC BY 3.0
