University of Virginia Library

The scenery presented by the passage of Dan River down the mountain, and into the
flat country, is awful and sublime in the highest degree. The river rises in a plain,
traverses it for 8 or 10 miles, till it reaches the declivity of the mountain, dashes down
it by a rapid succession of perpendicular falls, and winds its solitary way, unapproached
by any footstep save that of the mountain hunter, and hemmed in on every side by immense
mountains, descending almost perpendicularly to the water's edge for the distance
of several miles, before its banks afford room for settlements. The Pinnacles of
Dan are found in this interval. To approach them you must ascend the mountain at
some convenient gap—upon reaching the top of the mountain, the country becomes
comparatively level. The visitor goes along the top under the guidance of some mountaineer,
who knows the locality of the pinnacles; he meets with no obstruction except
fallen logs, and a most luxuriant growth of weeds, till suddenly he reaches the declivity
of the mountain. An immense basin presents itself to his view, surrounded by lofty
mountains, almost perpendicular, of which the ridge on which he stands forms a
boundary. The depth of the basin is beyond his view, and appears to him to be incalculable.
From the midst of the basin two pinnacles, in the shape of a sugar loaf, rise
to a level with the surrounding mountains, and of course with the beholder. They appear
to be masses of rock rudely piled on each other, with barely soil enough in the
crevices to nourish a few bushes. There is no visible outlet to the basin, the narrow
chasm through which the river makes its escape being out of view. If the visitor
wishes to ascend the main pinnacle, (one being much larger than the other,) he descends
from his station the face of the mountain, which is very steep, to a distance
which he imagines sufficient to carry him down the highest mountain,—when he
reaches a narrow ridge or pass-way not more than thirty feet wide, connecting, at the
distance of thirty or forty yards, the pinnacle to the main mountain,—and to his astonishment
the river appears at an incalculable distance below him. The ascent of the
pinnacle then commences, and an arduous and somewhat perilous one it is. A narrow
pathway winds up among the rocks, and in many places the adventurous climber has
to pull himself up a perpendicular ascent of five or six feet by the bushes. When he
reaches the top, however, he is amply repaid for his labor in ascending. The prospect,
though necessarily a limited one, is picturesque and sublime in a high degree. The
view of the basin is then complete. The mountains surrounding it nearly of a uniform
height; no outlet visible, and the beholder perched upon the summit of an immense
natural pyramid in the centre. The river is seen occasionally as it winds around the
base of the pinnacle. It attempts to pass on the west side, where the narrow ridge by
which the visitor approaches arrests its course; it then winds entirely round the pinnacle
close to its base, until it comes to the opposite or southern side of the narrow ridge,
passing between the two pinnacles: it then passes round the western and southern side
of the smaller pinnacle, and makes its escape as it best can from its apparently hopeless
imprisonment. The summit of the pinnacle is about twenty or thirty feet square,—and
strange to relate, small bushes of the aspen grow upon it—which is found nowhere
else growing wild in this section of country. The echo produced is somewhat remarkable.
If a gun be fired off on the top of the pinnacle, you hear nothing for several
seconds, when suddenly, in the direction of the narrow pass through which the river
flows, a rushing sound is heard, which, although not a correct echo, seems to be the
sound of the report escaping through the pass.

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The other natural curiosity to which reference has been made, is "the Bursted Rock,"
which is not very far from the pinnacles, and forms a part of the frowning and sublime
scenery which overhangs the Dan, in its passage through the mountain. You approach
it as you do the pinnacle along the level top of the mountain, till suddenly your course
is arrested by a perpendicular descent of many hundred feet. The face of the precipice
is a smooth rock. Far below every thing appears in ruins—rocks piled on rocks, the
timber swept from the earth; and every appearance indicates that a considerable portion
of the mountain has been, by some great convulsion of nature, riven and torn from the
rest, and precipitated into the valley, or rather chasm below.