Region
Most climbed route
Highlights
- Black Mountain is the highest peak in Kentucky.
- It is about 500 feet taller than any other mountain in Kentucky and is one of the tallest mountains in Appalachia outside the Blue Ridge Mountains region.
- The summit is marked with an abandoned metal lookout tower.
Routes
1 summit • 3.5 mi • 417 ft gain • 1 hr 4 min
Latest summits
"Since I was visiting family in Louisville, why not drive across the state for a little detour on the way home, since I hadn't gotten to this state H.P. before? A cloudless bluebird day made the windy ascent up Rt. 160 pretty awesome. It's a shame the observation tower is in such disrepair. It would make this high point so much more attractive." — SteveM_StickMan • Oct 20, 2022
"Hiked Mount Rogers in the morning then drove down to the Kentucky border and up the muddy, 2 mile, pothole ridden Black Mountain Ridge Rd. Parked at the FAA tower and walked about 5 min further up the road to explore the summit area." — jodola • Oct 3, 2022
"Decided to revisit this mountain while on the road trip home and see if a logbook was still up at the summit. Unfortunately it's no longer there. There is a logging operation going on from April to December this year and trucks are on the road which is narrow and winding. " — StoneMan • Jul 6, 2022
"First of a 5 day highpoint road trip.. almost passed by this one as the drive is is peppered with Private property signs, but continued the service road an we saw the summit. " — CravinoCrew • Apr 7, 2021
"What a drive. SR-160 in Virginia up Black Mountain (from the south) was... interesting! White-knuckled at times. Drove up the summit road all the way to the tower. :) Found the benchmark! This was our last highpoint of the trip, and marked #12 for me and #7 for my mother. We had signed and mailed our waivers a week before our visit, so hopefully everything was above-board!" — psychikingjes • Mar 31, 2018
"Hooray for Labor Day weekend! We flew into Atlanta from Vegas with the intention of bagging 9 new state highpoints and a couple National Park highpoints in 4 days. We accomplished that and then some!" — Kevin • Sep 3, 2016
"Pouring rain due to hurricane Joaquin cut our rock climbing short so we headed south towards our destination of Hatteras, NC and will bag 4 state high points on the way. This one was in a heavy rain and dark at 9pm at night." — alexjoseph • Oct 1, 2015
"#2 on "the southern six pack"
At first I hiked up the wrong direction thinking that it would lead me to the highpoint. Realized I was in the wrong area and headed back down. Drove up the road and saw 2 guys hanging out with a shot-gun. They told me the highpoint in just down the road and "WATCH OUT FOR BEARS". Haha, I assume that's why they had the shot gun. Took some photos of the marker at the top and headed out to the smoky mountains." — hollis83 • Jul 4, 2013
"Hiked the semi paved black mountain ridge road to the top. The flies were very annoying and really picked up about halfway in. Not much on the order of scenery our views on this one. The tower at the top is not climbable." — usncahill • Jul 1, 2012
"If you come in from the Virginia side on highway 160, you can be briefly fooled by a dirt road into thinking that the road to the high point is unpaved and rather rugged. But actually the real road is paved and goes almost the entire way to the highpoint. We decided to walk instead, and it made for a nice 3.5 mile round-trip walk through a quiet wooded area. Curiously we saw three dead moles on the road as we walked. No clue why they were just lying on the road, but we decided it was due to the massive RF radiation emanating from the FAA radar antenna situated near the highpoint. The radar installation is probably the most impressive thing near the highpoint (though my wife was unimpressed and did not like it). The actual summit is rather ugly, with debris strewn about and a bunch of antennas. On the way down we found an RF immune salamander with red spots on its sides. My son Renny threw his knife at random trees for most of the hike, and aside from woodpeckers, it was about the only noise we heard. We took a few pictures by the state line signs, and I managed to leave my backpack behind. We drove over a hundred miles before noticing that the backpack was missing. Decided to drive..." — wbrouhaha • Mar 23, 2009