Looking Glass Rock

Looking Glass Rock is a granite pluton in the Pisgah National Forest of western North Carolina, rising some 1,210 meters above sea level and towering nearly 1,200 meters above the valley floor below, its bare granite face said to take its name from the way sunlight reflects off the rock after rain, as though off a mirror. The dome formed as a body of molten granite intruded into the surrounding rock and later stood exposed once softer material eroded away around it, leaving sheer cliffs on several faces that have made the mountain a well known rock climbing destination in the southern Appalachians.