Pilot Mountain State Park in North Carolina preserves the distinctive peak long known to the Saura as Jomeokee, "the Great Guide," a landmark later used by European settlers and renamed Pilot. After the Saura left around 1700 under pressure from disease and attacks, settlement spread slowly into this isolated region. The mountain later became a tourist attraction before the state park was established in 1968 to prevent overdevelopment, with additional Yadkin River land added in 1970. Today the park combines mountain and river landscapes, recreation, and environmental education with notable ecology, including Catawba rhododendron, eastern woodland wildlife, and occasional ravens.