DIRECTIONS: From Main St Pickens take SC 8 down Jewell Street pass the high school and football stadium to the intersection at the bottom of the hill. Bare to the right and take US 183 toward Greenville pass the Runnymede Road sign. Turn at the next left onto S Glassy Mtn St, watch for vehicles comming up out of the dip from Greenville. Follow the road to the top. Parking is scarce so don't everyone show up on the same morning and remember to keep the road clear for traffic.
For the early morning people who like to greet dawn outdoors and face to face, there's the top of Glassy Mountain. To enjoy the complete effect, from first glow on the horizon to yellow sun above it, plan on being at the top sixty to ninty minutes before sunrise.
Sunrise happen from about 7:38 EST on 10 January to about 6:15 EDT on 10 June. For those who mark time by the change of seasons, the sunrise occurs 7:32 EST for Winter solistice, 6:28 EST for Spring equinox, 6:14 EDT for Summer solistice and 7:16 EDT for Autumn equinox.
Sipping a hot cup of coffee as dark changes to light adds to the experience, so stop at some all night convenience store on the way and pick up a large cup along with a biscuit or other morning munchie. Breakfast can be later after the resturants open.
There's a small rock face just off the road from which all but the northern most sunrises can be seen. There's a space between the road and a block building which is good for viewing those.
The view is mostly due east across the Saluda River to Paris Mountain and Greenville and southeast toward Easley. Easley's behind some trees and can't really be seen.
While it's still dark, the lights along US 123 around Easley and the scattered street lights in the countryside mirror the stars. During the winter mornings, the lights of Pickens can be seen through the bare trees from the grassy knoll around the old fire tower.
Foggy mornings are extra nice. During Spring and Autumn a warm, wet day followed by a cool night is a general rule for fog. As the morning glow turns to daylight, the fog can be thick enough to cover the lower hills with only the top of Paris Mountain and Mauldin Mountain (west of Easley) visible. Almost like being above the clouds. Or it can be thin following the hollows between the hills. Some mornings there's only river fog following the course of the Saluda or Wolf Creek; or lake fog marking where Keowee and Jocassee are.
When the clouds are right, high over head with a clear horizon, the colors of sunrise reflect off of them and onto the fog; pinks and reds both above and below the horizon. After the sun warms the fog and it begins to rise, there's the experience of being among the clouds with whisps of vapor drifting by.
The most colorful mornings are between late Autumn and early Spring when weather fronts move through more frequently. The dry, hazy, hot days and warm nights of Summer aren't the best for color, but do make some of the better 'crack of dawn' glows.
While sitting around waiting for sunrise there usually are some song birds to listen to. Or during Spring and Summer a hummingbird to watch hovering about the tulip type plants next to the road or above the pine trees. About the middle of June the catii are blooming, cluster of white blossoms at the top of a long stalk.
There's also two planes to watch for, the 5:45 flight from Knoxville to Columbia and the 6:40 flight from Greenville-Spartanburg to Atlanta. There's a couple of high flyers too, leaving its vapor trail from somewhere up north to somewhere down south.
The equinox sunrises happen over the south slope of Paris Mountain. The Summer solistice is some few degrees north of Paris, there's a crack in the rock just southeast of the block building which points to it. The Winter solistice is some few degrees south of Greenville, standing where the loop around the fire tower closes back down the road and looking across the north slope of the nearest hill is about the right directions.
The resturants are open by now, time to go to Pickens and have breakfast.
This is about Glassy Mountain, the monolith just East of Pickens, not the other one in northern Greenville county where the resort golf course is being built. People sometimes get them confused. One of the times I was sitting under the shade trees up on top of ole Glassy a car rode around the loop like most of the others do. It was a group of older people and as they drove by where I was sitting the driver stopped and ask if this is where they were building the golf course. I sort of grinned and told them no that Glassy is over in Greenville somewhere off of highway 11. After exchanging a few pleasantrys they left and I did get to thinking about what kind of golf course could be built around our Glassy. Perhaps one tee at the top with 18 greens scattered about the base. But that first shot would probably bury itself a foot into the green after that 600 foot drop. Of course there's the other direction to go too; have 18 tees at the base and one hole at the top. But then the vision of seeing golf balls bounce off the granite face and back down didn't seem promising either. One thing for sure though, the exercise which use to be associated with golf before golf carts would return with all that climbing around amoung the bolders at the bottom.
Anyway, there's more stories about Glassy Mountain from a long time ago. Back in November of 1886 it was a really hot time on the mountain. It was on fire. The PICKENS SENTINEL article didn't report much about the incident, just that 'With its necklace of flames viewed from Pickens it was a beautiful scene.' It must have been a dry time too cause the article did go on to say 'it was a dangerous time for fire to be loose in the woods.' So, some 100 plus years later we are left with our imagination to fill in the details. Perhaps some farmer was burning off a field for the winter and the wind spread the flames to that Falls fallen leaves. There wouln't have been many if any leaves left on the trees in November so it was probably just a brush fire. Of course the fire could have started at the top. Some group of boys would have been out hunting squirrel and rabbit and their camp fire got out of hand. Burning from the top down would create that necklase around the whole mountain. In this case there was a franic group of kids running around thinking about the whipping they were going to get for being careless. Or perhaps they were suppose to be in school instead of out hunting that day.
Picnics have always been a popular family event, I think more so a hundred years ago. Anyway the fire of the previous Autumn did not do much damage because in May of 1887 'A large party of Picnickers from Pickens and Easley and the surrounding country gathered on the summit of Glassy Mountain.' According to the PICKENS SENTINEL article Mr John Ferguson who owned the mountain at that time had arranged for the party. No reason for the occassion was given but he did have guests from as far away as Greenville. 'Lavish provision' conjures up visions of more than one wagon load of suppiles being drawn by horses up the side of the mountain. Even iced lemonade was provided. On that day in May there were children playing around a cleared out place and among the trees. The women gathered in groups gossiping. Some of the more adventurous boys probably walked down to the top of the face to climb around and impress the girls. The men talked about the usual topics, politics and business. One of these was the 'long talked of Carolina, Cumberland Gap and Chicago Railroad' and maybe that was the reason for the occassion. There were plans at that time to build a railroad from down around Aiken through upstate South Carolina and Cumberland Gap in North Carolina and on to Chicago. Just how close it would be to Pickens or Greenville was debated, sometimes hotly so, over several years. From the tone of the SENTINEL article this picnic was the 1880's version of 1990's special interest politics. Pickens was being presented as a delightful and advantagous place as a summer resort, 'just near enough to the towering peaks of the Blue Ridge and not too near for the many discomforts of mountain life.' Anyway, just what the real reason was for this picnic on Glassy Mountain will always remain a mystery.
There were others occasions for picnics there too. On a Friday in April of 1890, a Professor Dargon took his school class there. This was way back at a time when there were such a thing as chaperones for youthful get togethers. This was also at a time before radios, car stereos, and CD's; the kids made their own music back then. So picture this, twenty or thirty kids passing the sunny day away sitting around on top of a mountain playing their fiddles and guitars singing with and for each other. Some parents can only dream about such today. On the Fourth of July during the early evenings, people would linger around after the day's festivites to watch the fireworks in Greenville. Pre-smog and haze visiblity was much better back then. The rockets and star bursts would have been shooting into the air higher than the skyscrapers of today clearly visible on the horizon. And on top of Paris Mountain there may have been a campfire where some of the Greenville people had gathered to watch the show from there.
Thirty something years latter in 1924 the well known landmark of Pickens was in the news again. The cars and trucks were the latest means of getting around and the State Legislature was about the pass a $40,000,000 road bond. The old dirt roads, wagon ruts more likely, were going to be paved and that meant lots of gravel. A group of business men were thinking of turning Glassy Mountain into a stone quarry. The railroad spur from Easley had been built by then, which was as close as Pickens ever got to being on a railroad line, and ran near the foot of the mountain. So there was an easy means of transporting the stone to the rest of the state and the nation according to the SENTINEL article. Besides the usual reason for business ventures, making money, there would have been jobs created and the promotion of Pickens as a resort town during the 1880's had turned to Pickens as a construction town instead. Fortunely though the idea never caught on and the mountain did not turn into a giant size golf hole.
For 25 to 30 years Glassy just sort of sat there. It is possible to imagine that during the World War II years the summit may have been used as an Air Civil Defense lookout but there were no records of such. The fire watch tower was built during 1948-49 and has served as the only known lookout post, and as an added attraction for visitors to see a 360 degree vista. To the East and South the city lights of Mauldin, Anderson, and Clemson are visible on the horizon. Raburn Mountain in Georgia as well as Whiteside in North and other mountains in North Carolina can be seen some sixty or more miles away. Of course Sasafrass, Pinnicle, Table Rock and Cesear Head dominate the Northern view. It has always been the view from the top that brought people to Glassy Mountain, especially at sunset and sunrise.
For the young people, teenagers, it has been a meeting place and hang out, one of the sixteen top make-out places around Pickens during the fiftys and sixtys. But those peaceful romantic times have faded away with the memory of the other fifteen locals. Or have they? Before the picnics of the late 1800's, kids were being kids on top of Glassy Mountain. Even now the loop around the fire tower is spray painted with declarations of love, Susie l/s Randy enclosed in a Valentine heart or 'Pickens boys look great'. But of course there is graffiti, some of it clean and orginial, others down right vulgur, none of it in the style of New York, Chicago or Los Angles. Yet, the young still roam around up there doing what kids do outdoors on mountain tops late evening or during the night.