A quick hike around the mountain can take an hour or two, but if you want to climb your way up the cliffs, you can take all day. Rappelling, climbing, and exploring the boulders and overhangs like a lizard, there are plenty of rocky surfaces to leave a chalky handprint.

 

"A wise man is with strength, and a man of knowledge maintains strength."

-Proverbs (Mishlei) 24:5 

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A great spot to start your journey up the bluff-line would be Round Top Hiking Trail. It's only around 3 miles long, but riddled with unique rock formations, epic walls to scale, and the remains of a bomber plane that crashed into the mountain in the 1940's. If you happen to make your way to Round Top in the summer time you might also fine some ripe Paw Paw fruit along the trail. Read more about Round Top HERE. 

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Other great spots to explore would be Horseshoe Canyon Ranch (private property), or Alum Cove Natural Land Bridge, they are both in the same area as Round Top, but have different degrees of difficulty for the climber.

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Beyond these spots, there is one secret rocky grove that only the locals know of. Tucked away down a long dirt road, one might not expect to explore a cemetery for rocks to climb.

The road to Ricketts Cemetery or Rock Gap is a long one, be prepared to use 4WD and some nice music to make your journey all the way to the back of the forest, but be prepared to explore a vast realm of boulders and cedars hiding trails that wind in and out of the cliffs and bluffs.

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Hiking around Ricketts Cemetery, there are plenty of nice spots to climb and setup a small camp in one of the numerous nooks hiding in the rocky maze. If you continue past the rocks, there is an actual cemetery on the top of the mountain. Old graves lay under the cool shade of the trees, where something as simple as a rock, marks where they lay. Read more about Ricketts Cemetery HERE. 

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