While the Triad area is part of the foothills, we do have a mountain range we can call our own. It includes the landmark Pilot Knob.
For this week's Carolina Curious, WFDD's Paul Garber was wondering: How did the Sauratown Mountains form here, and what sets them apart?
Pilot Mountain State Park Superintendent Jason Anthony knows it can be weird for visitors when they first see Pilot’s famous dome in the chain of peaks sometimes called “the mountains away from the mountains.”
“People don’t expect it when they’re coming up Highway 52 if they’ve never been here before," he says. "They just see this thing coming out. 'What is this?'”
Anthony says there are various theories on the origins of these mountains, but the idea is that they began beneath a vast ocean that eventually flowed into the Atlantic.
"Layers of sediment were deposited underneath the water, and as the waters receded, the mountains were pushed up through pl