Rocky Mountain is one of a series of high peaks clustered together along the Blue Ridge Range between Lexington and Amherst along US-60 and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Rocky Mountain itself sits on the Rockbridge-Amherst County Line and is the highpoint of Rockbridge County, and possibly the highpoint of Amherst County as well. Nearby peaks Bald Knob and Mount Pleasant are also contenders from Amherst County honors, with Mount Pleasant’s “unofficial” elevation of 4,071 feet making it just one foot lower than Rocky Mountain – essentially a statistical tie for highpoint honors. Bald Knob is listed at 4,059 feet, so it is probably out of the running.

Beth and I were staying in Buena Vista near Lexington, where we were spending a couple days touring the college, walking the narrow city streets and visiting Beth’s old favorite places, and doing some hikes in the region, notably Big House Mountain, which we did the previous day. Today was our last day in town, as we’d be starting on our way back to Baltimore for our flight out the next day. The hike up Big House had gone well and it is truly one of the best hikes I’ve done in Virginia, and one of Beth’s favorites from her days at Washington & Lee (Beth has way more hiking experience in Virginia than I do, so my list of hikes here is relatively short compared to hers). As this morning came around, Beth was still sore from yesterday’s hike and not terribly interested to visit Rocky Mountain, so she allowed me to go make a quick visit while she slept in and recuperated.

From our hotel in Buena Vista, I get rolling a bit after 6 a.m. in pretty morning sunlight and high clouds, knowing that another front was expected to move through very soon – by mid-morning said the news people. I took US-60 up and over the crest of the Ridge then down another 8-9 miles or so to CR-634, marked as Coffeytown Road on the street signs. I followed Coffeytown Road north through the pretty countryside and past numerous homes and pastures for about 4 miles to a T-junction, where I went right. The pavement ends another couple of miles or so near a big fenced pasture. The sun was still low in the east and Rocky’s nice symmetrical peak came into view between some foreground peaks. The backlit effect was pretty nice, especially with some high clouds for color. The road, now gravel, is signed as Forest Road 63 and leads another couple of miles up to a four-way junction called Salt Log Gap. To here the road was pretty good and our little “mid-size” passenger vehicle did just fine.

The road north leads toward Rocky Mountain. The condition of this road was a notch below that of the main road in quality, so I eased the car onto it and took it slow. Previous rains had left some muddy sections and standing water, but other obstacles were few and as long as I went slow I did fine. About a mile later, probably less, I parked at a junction and decided to walk the rest.

The hike covered maybe three-quarters of a mile in gained about 500 feet along the road, which goes all the way to the top and is there for the vehicles that service the towers. On my visit there was no one around. Within maybe twenty minutes I was up top; the highpoint is an outcrop of rocks on the east end of the towers. I climbed up these up the backside and took in the view – trees mostly, but open and very nice to the south. The twin summits of Pompey and Pleasant were the most visible peaks in the distance. I was only on top a few minutes; the hike down took just 15 minutes for a total round trip of about 45 minutes. The drive back to Buena Vista went quick and I was gone for a total of about two and a half hours. Not too bad!

Next summer, Beth’s 20-year reunion for her graduating class at W&L, we’ll be back. I have placed both Bald and Pleasant Peaks high on the priority list for that visit. Both have good trails—some along the Appalachian Trail—and seem to be more “interesting” overall than Rocky. Nevertheless, Rocky is a fun little peak, and easy peak with good road access and convenient to a main highway, so I’m not complaining.