Emerald Vista at McDill Point: Cheaha Mountain, Alabama

At 2,413 feet, Cheaha Mountain is the highest point in Alabama — and from McDill Point, one of its most dramatic overlooks, the view makes it very clear why that distinction matters.

Shot from the McDill Point overlook in Cheaha State Park, "Emerald Vista at McDill Point" captures the mountain at the peak of its summer green — an unbroken, undulating sea of hardwood and pine forest rolling over the ridgeline and filling the frame from edge to edge in every shade of deep emerald, from the dark shadowed hollows in the valleys to the bright yellow-green canopy tops catching the full force of the summer sun. There is no road, no structure, no sign of human presence anywhere in the forest below — just trees, ridge after ridge of them, stretching away toward the horizon in a landscape that looks much the same as it did centuries ago.

Above the ridgeline, dramatic summer cumulus clouds build and billow against a vivid blue Alabama sky — their bright white forms echoing the rounded shapes of the treetops below, the whole composition a study in green and white and blue that feels almost impossibly saturated and alive.

McDill Point sits along the Pinhoti Trail corridor in Cheaha State Park in Clay and Cleburne Counties — part of Alabama's most beloved wilderness area and one of the Southeast's premier hiking and overlook destinations. On a clear summer day, the views from its rocky outcrops extend for miles across the Talladega National Forest, and the forest below looks exactly like this — endless, ancient, and gloriously green.

Bring the lush, sweeping beauty of Alabama's highest mountain home with this museum-quality fine art photography print by Bama Price — available as metal, canvas, or glossy paper.