Milepost 48.1
Elevation 3,285 feet.
Spitler Knoll Overlook gives you a glimpse to the Big Meadows Lodge and campground, on that high mountain called Blackrock, Straight ahead is the town of Stanley, which lies at the foot of Roundhead Ridge. To the right of center, is Hershberger Ridge. At the far right, the rounded hill is Nakedtop.
Here, and for a quarter of a mile in each direction along Skyline Drive, the exposed rocks are granodiorite of the Pedlar formation. This is an old rock formation, similar to granite containing quartz and feldspar. It is a plutonic igneous rock which means it was formed when the lava flow infused into the older basement rock.
Spitler Knoll is named for a Page Valley farmer who owned a lot of land here, and each spring drove his herd of cattle up the mountain to graze for the summer, on what at the time was known as “the best bluegrass in the country.”
Come fall, Spitler would sell his fattened up cattle on site, and then drive them down the mountain straight to the railroad at Stanley, which you can see from this overlook,
Spitler would spend summer up on the ridge, but when the Park was created, taking over his land, he could never bear to come back, and the house grew overgrown, and was eventually torn down.
Many families lived here year-round and worked for the farmers who owned the land on which they grazed their animals and make up among the 500 generational families who lost their livelihood when the Park was created.
Images:
Sign: Famartin is licensed through CC BY-SA 4.0
Labeled view: National Park Service
