PILOT MOUNTAIN — One mountain can stand only so much, and recent snow, ice and high winds have taken their toll on Pilot Mountain State Park to the point it is now closed indefinitely.

“I don’t have a time frame,” Ranger Keith Martin said Friday regarding when the park might reopen. “We just don’t know.”

In the meantime, Pilot Mountain State Park is closed to all vehicles and visitors, including hikers, so the park staff and other personnel can clear away fallen branches from roads and trails and overcome additional problems created by bad weather.

The facility has been temporarily closed since Feb. 5, when Surry County was hit by a winter storm that brought snow as well as freezing rain. Even before then, the park had closed once previously and reopened.

“There’s still ice on the road up top,” Martin said Friday.

After the snow and ice, high winds arrived Wednesday and blew down trees across the area, causing damage at the park as well. Martin said roads there were blocked by trees, broken branches and limbs, mostly from pines as well as birches.

The main concern involves access roads that feed off the park’s primary roadway, along with trails and picnic areas. The large number of fallen trees and additional conditions made it unsafe for people to walk and otherwise use the park, which Martin said is visited by the public during the winter although not to the extent of warmer months.

While its campground is closed for the season, people still like to come to the mountain to walk and enjoy the views. “It still gets used during the wintertime,” Martin said of the park.

The ranger added that its reopening date largely will depend on the absence of further inclement weather and the amount of work available personnel can accomplish.

“We’ve got extra help today,” Martin said Friday, explaining that a five-member state park fire crew from the Raleigh area was assisting the facility’s six permanent staff members and some volunteers with clean-up work.

“We’re going to have more help coming in next week, but I don’t know if it’s these same folks,” the ranger said of the special fire crew made up of workers from other state parks.

Martin said that interested persons can be updated on the facility’s operating status by visiting the Web site ncparks.gov and choosing Pilot Mountain State Park from a drop-down box. The home page for the local park will contain information about its present situation.

Contact Tom Joyce at tjoyce@mtairynews.com or at 719-1924.