In the morning sun, the smooth surface gleams in sharp contrast to the vegetation below.
Geologists call it a monadnock, hikers call it massive, and rappellers dub it matchless.
Many upheavals during mountain-making periods followed, pushing these rocks closer to the surface in what geologists call the Alligator Back Formation. Almost 200 million years later, overlying rocks began eroding, with rivers carrying the resulting sediment eastward to the Atlantic. The pressure over the rock mass lessened, causing it to expand upward and creating lines of fractures and slabs of rock known as exfoliation sheets, which, as they erode, give the mountain its dome shape. Twenty miles of hiking trails lead across and around the great dome and past natural rock shelters large enough to provide cover from a sudden rainstorm. Other geologic features along these trails include xenoliths and weather pits.