The Monkeyhead Rocks (Sill Branch Overlook) 3-19-2010
After several days off to recuperate from our last trip (to Buckeye Falls), the day before the official start of Spring found us going back to the Monkeyhead rocks aka: The Sill Branch Overlook. I had not been back there since our first expedition back in April of 2009 when we experienced the grueling ‘meatgrinder‘ ridge when my stealth pack was temporarily lost. We did not have much time to explore that day so we took this day to do just that.
It was the first sunny, hot, day in quite sometime and it felt good although being exposed out on the rock cliffs was like being baked in an oven. My son Tyler, Bol’Dar, and I got our usual late start around 1:30 pm that afternoon and it only took about an hour or so to make it up the somewhat hidden trail to the crest of the ridge where the turn off to the rocks lies among the growth and destruction that is found there. It`s basically a bush-wack traverse over to where the rocks reside. We came out to the place we had found before where we rested briefly enjoying the views looking over the entire North and South forks of the Sill Branch valley (and beyond), the ‘volcano‘ and Sampson mountain, before deciding to make our way further to check out the rest of the rock formations that continue like a vein bulging out the side of the ridge.