Mt. Cheaha - Alabama's Highest Point

Today me and Scipio finally made it to the actual state park portion of Cheaha State Park, which is located on and around Mt. Cheaha, Alabama's Highest Point, which is itself located within Talladega National Forest.

Here is a picture of Mt. Cheaha from a few miles away, from AFTER we were up there. It turned out that the road to High Falls (small waterfall nearby) is STILL closed, and I wasn't up to the 45-minute detour that would have been required to check the water levels after today's rain...

http://www.szulecki.com/images/IMG_6290

Mt. Cheaha is 2,407ft ASL, but feels about twice that due to the very low elevation of the surrounding terrain facing west, which is all you can see from the boardwalked Bald Rock overlook. Cheaha is in a chain that makes up the very last of the Appalachians, and that chain is also the only portion of the Blue Ridge that extends into Alabama. The rest of Alabama's high elevations are related to the Cumberland Plateau.

Here is an image showing that there is a boardwalk...
http://www.szulecki.com/images/IMG_6287

To illustrate how high the mountain is in comparison to the surrounding terrain, that tiny cut in the woods is the road to the mountain.
http://www.szulecki.com/images/IMG_6286

There are Bonsai like trees growing all over the top of the mountain, which gets battered pretty hard by the wind and weather, especially in the winter. This little tree is seen in some popular local photographer's sunset shots. I think that was prior to the developments in the background...
http://www.szulecki.com/images/IMG_6289

I tried to make a panoramic image, but the program (Autostitch - freeware) smeared it a bit. Here is the panoramic and the originals...
http://www.szulecki.com/images/IMG_6281
http://www.szulecki.com/images/IMG_6282
http://www.szulecki.com/images/IMG_6284
http://www.szulecki.com/images/pano

I'm pretty sure that cleared mountain to the left in the last image is (C?)Old Water Mountain/Cold Water Peak, just outside of Anniston, AL. It is really the only high point in that direction for quite a ways. It is around 1700ft ASL.

Alabama's portion of the Blue Ridge mountains runs from the Georgia border near Tecumseh, AL to around Hollins, AL. Alabama has the last 2000ft+ peak and that last 1000ft+ peak in the whole Appalachians, which end right southerly around Hollins with the end of the Blue Ridge. There are a few named peaks above 2000ft in Alabama, with some clustered around Cheaha 10-15 miles south of Anniston, and some clustered north east of Anniston around Dugger Mountain, Alabama's second highest peak.

It was interesting, if photographically disappointing due to the time of day and weather. It was a pretty nice day, just to sunny for my tastes. This would be a GREAT spot to watch incoming thunderstorms, if you are willing to risk the shock...