i came, saw and conquered pilot mountain

we went hiking at pilot mountain state park yesterday. the weather was gorgeous - how could we not?

this is pilot mountain - seen from afar. i did not take this photo - got it off the national park website. :P

and this is what the pinnacle looks like up close. it took about an hour to hike from the camp base to the 'summit'. there's a trail around the pinnacle but the peak is protected. the vertical rock face is a climber's dream which is why climbing is not allowed here. ..

and this is what the pinnacle looks like up really really close! as we walked past the rock face on the south side we couldn't help but notice a swarm of flying insects overhead which frankly quite freaked me out. i was about run off - when okm took a closer look and saw that they were cute little lady bugs :)

i saw so many of these spiders - they seemed pretty harmless so i zoomed in for a close-up

we paused at this look-out ledge on the way up for it's incredible view of the valley

which looked all the way to the blue ridge mountains out west

the foliage was still mostly green but there were some bursts of color at the higher elevations - like this one :)

yay for fall!