If you drive along U.S. Route 58 in Lee County, VA you might notice a distinctive geologic feature a few miles east of the entrance to Wilderness Road State Park and just inside the eastern boundary of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Atop the ridge of Cumberland Mountain sit the “White Rocks,” a sandstone formation containing light-colored quartzite that shines when the sun hits it.
In the late 1700’s the rocks were an important landmark for the hundreds of thousands of settlers traveling on the Wilderness Road below. The sight of this outcrop let migrants know that they were about a day’s march away from Cumberland Gap, which offered a passage through the mountain wall into Kentucky. (Today you can drive from White Rocks to the Gap’s opening in fifteen minutes.)
I doubt any of those frontier migrants felt like climbing to the top of the ridge to see what the valley looked like from the rocks; they had more important things on their minds. Today, though, if you want to check out the view from White Rocks, there’s a three-mile trail that will take you there. That’s three miles one way, mind you, and it’s mostly uphill. Not exactly easy, but you can take in some nice scenery once you get there.
Sort of a bird’s-eye view of Daniel Boone country. Actually, I guess it is a bird’s-eye view, since you’re eye-level with the birds.
If you’re going to hike to White Rocks, make sure you see Sand Cave, too. It’s about a mile from the White Rocks overlook, and on the other side of the ridge. I’d never been there before last week, but as soon as I saw it, it immediately became one of my favorite places in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.
The cave gets its name from the fine sand that covers the floor. There’s a small waterfall near the cave’s entrance. My pictures don’t really do it justice; with the waterfall-fed stream running through the trees and the cave’s ceiling towering overhead, it’s like stumbling across the Garden of Eden. It’s not a deep cave, but the semi-circular roof towering overhead and the wide entrance make it pretty spectacular. The sand inside is so thick that it’s like walking on a beach, with your feet sliding and churning all over the place.
Past in the Present 