I grew up in North Carolina and I'm over 50 so I, of course, watched the Andy Griffith show a lot when I was younger. It's part of who I am. One of the things that made the show more special was that occasionally, some specific part of North Carolina was mentioned. Few nationally shown TV shows seemed to be aware that the south even existed and for us to hear about somewhere we'd actually been was a treat.
Every once in a while Andy went to Raleigh. I'd been to Raleigh. I connected. Of course, they also talked about Mt. Pilot. But growing up on the other side of the state, I never had an opportunity to go there or to it's real equivalent, Pilot Mountain, until I was much older. What I didn't realize, and they never mentioned it on the show, is that Pilot Mountain is a weird beast. It's not a huge mountain, but it sort of sticks out of a relative flat area and on the top it has this lovely carbuncle. It's just really odd looking.
Pilot Mountain is a state park and you can go visit and walk around on some of the trails. Unfortunately, you can't go up on top of the carbuncle. I think you could a long time ago but I suspect that expense, liability concerns, nature preservation and all those other things of that nature have put a stop to it. That's really too bad. If I had a ton of money, I'd approach the State about figuring out how to make it accessible. Maybe drill a tunnel into the side that led to an elevator or set of steps that took you up to the top. That would be cool.
If you haven't done it you should take out an afternoon or day and visit the park sometime. Especially if you're a North Carolinian.
