Mount Rogers
| Mount Rogers | |
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Mount Rogers in winter
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| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 5,729 ft (1,746 m) |
| Prominence | 2,449 ft (746 m) |
| Listing | U.S. state high point 19th |
| Coordinates | 36°39′35″N 81°32′40″W / 36.6598406°N 81.5445575°WCoordinates: 36°39′35″N 81°32′40″W / 36.6598406°N 81.5445575°W |
| Geography | |
 Mount Rogers
Location of Mount Rogers in Virginia
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| Location | Grayson / Smyth counties, Virginia, United States |
| Parent range | Blue Ridge Mountains |
| Topo map | USGS Whitetop Mountain |
| Climbing | |
| Easiest route | Hike via Appalachian Trail spur |
Mount Rogers is the highest natural point in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, with a summit elevation of 5,729 feet (1,746 m) above mean sea level. It lies in Grayson and Smyth Counties, Virginia, about 6.45 miles (10.38 km) WSW of Troutdale, Virginia, within the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and Jefferson National Forest.
The mountain is named for William Barton Rogers, a Virginian educated at the College of William & Mary, who taught at William & Mary and the University of Virginia, became Virginia's first State Geologist, and went on to found the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The summit is most easily accessed from Grayson Highlands State Park by following the Appalachian Trail southbound for 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to a blue-blazed trail leading to the summit, which is covered by trees and marked with four National Geodetic Survey triangulation station disks; a standard station disk marked with an equilateral triangle and three standard reference disks marked with arrows pointing towards the station disk. One reference disk has been obscured by dense overgrowth. Because the Appalachian Trail passes within a half mile of the summit, the area is especially popular with hikers.
The Mount Rogers area contains a unique record of the geohistory of Virginia. There is evidence from the rocks that volcanoes were part of the landscape. Roughly 750 million years ago, rift-related (divergent) volcanoes erupted along the axis of what later became the Appalachians, and one remnant of that volcanic zone, with its volcanic rocks, still can be seen at Mount Rogers. Massive rhyolite lava flows erupted at the mountain during the Precambrian rifting event. Mount Rogers is also the only place in Virginia that preserves evidence of ancient Proterozoic glaciation.
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Wikipedia