Mount Kephart is a mountain in the central

Great Smoky Mountains The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains and form part of the Blue Ridg ...

, located in the Southeastern United States. The

Appalachian Trail The Appalachian Trail, also called the A.T., is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.Gailey, Chris (2006)"Appalachian Tra ...

crosses the mountain's south slope, making it a destination for thru-hikers. The Jumpoff, a cliff on the northeast side of the mountain, has views of the central and eastern Smokies. A stand of

Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express ...

coats the mountain's upper elevations. With an elevation of 6,217 ft, Mount Kephart is the 7th-highest mountain in

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

. Its

topographic prominence In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...

is drastically reduced, however, by its close proximity to two higher neighbors,

Kuwohi Kuwohi (, also known as Clingmans Dome, its former official name) is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina in the Southeastern United States. At an topographical summit, elevation of , it is the highest mountai ...

and Mount Le Conte. Like much of the Smokies crests, Mount Kephart lies on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, in

Sevier County, Tennessee Sevier County ( ) is a county of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 98,380. Its county seat and largest city is Sevierville. Sevier County comprises the Sevierville, TN Micropolitan Statistical Area, which ...

and

Swain County, North Carolina Swain County is a County (United States), county located on the far western border of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 14,117. Its county seat is Bryson City, North Carolina, ...

. The mountain rises nearly above its northern base at Porters Flat, and approximately above its southern base along the

Oconaluftee River The Oconaluftee River drains the south-central Oconaluftee valley of the Great Smoky Mountains in Western North Carolina before emptying into the Tuckasegee River. The river flows through the Qualla Boundary, a federal land trust that serves a ...

headwaters.

Newfound Gap Newfound Gap (el. ) is a mountain pass located near the center of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park of the southern Appalachian Mountains in the United States. Situated along the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, the state line crosses ...

, at just over , divides Mount Kephart from Fork Ridge (Mt. Collins) to the west. The gap is traversed by U.S. Highway 441, the only paved road crossing the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in the southeastern United States, southeast, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline o ...

from north to south.

Geology

Mount Kephart is composed of a type of

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

and meta-

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility. Although its permeabil ...

known as Anakeesta Formation, which is common throughout the central Smokies. This type of rock is exposed at Charlies Bunion, just to the northeast of Kephart. The Anakeesta Formation rocks are part of the Ocoee Supergroup, formed from ocean sediments nearly a billion years ago. The mountain was formed 200 million years ago when the African and

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

plates collided and

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...

the rock upward during the

Appalachian orogeny Appalachian may refer to: * Appalachian Mountains, a major mountain range in eastern United States and Canada * Appalachian Trail, a hiking trail in the eastern United States * The people of Appalachia and their culture ** Appalachian Americans, e ...

History

Mount Kephart is named after

Horace Kephart Horace Sowers Kephart (September 8, 1862 – April 2, 1931) was an American travel writer and librarian, best known as the author of '' Our Southern Highlanders'' (a memoir about his life in the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina ...

, an author and early proponent of establishing a

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

in the Smokies. The mountain was called "Mount Collins" until the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

gave it its current name in 1931, shifting the name " Mount Collins" to the peak between

and

. Before the 1880s, Mount Kephart was known by various local names.Peattie, ''The Great Smokies and the Blue Ridge: The Story of the Southern Appalachians'' (Boston and New York: Vanguard, 1943), 330. Mount Kephart was probably visited and measured by

Arnold Guyot Arnold Henry Guyot ( ) (September 28, 1807February 8, 1884) was a Swiss-American geologist and geographer. Early life Guyot was born on September 28, 1807, at Boudevilliers, near Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He was educated at Chaux-de-Fonds, then a ...

during his survey of the Smokies crest in the late 1850s. The name he used for the mountain, however, is uncertain. Guyot listed two mountains between Laurel Top and New (Newfound) Gap as having elevations greater than — Peck's Peak, which Guyot measured at , and Mount Ocona, which Guyot measured at . The former may refer to Peck's Corner, although Peck's Corner is not between Laurel Top and Newfound Gap, and Guyot would have missed its elevation by a staggering . Other than Mount Kephart, the only peak between Laurel Top and Newfound Gap higher than is Mount Ambler, a knob on Kephart's southwest slope. Laura Thornborough, a writer who made many excursions into the Smokies in the 1930s, recalled a stream now known as Icewater Spring, on Kephart's south slope:

Our party reached a good spring on the Carolina side of Mt. Kephart, about three miles (5 km) from our starting point. It had been freshly cleaned out and lined with native rock. The water was clear and icy cold."

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

camp operated on the mountain's southern base in the 1930s, the chimney of which remains near the head of the Kephart Prong Trail. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, this camp was used to house conscientious objectors. Also in this area are the remains of a

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

fish hatchery built in 1936.Michal Strutin, ''History Hikes of the Smokies'' (Gatlinburg: Great Smoky Mountains Association, 2003), 122–123.

Access

The

crosses Mount Kephart's southern slope en route to the Sawteeth and the eastern Smokies. While the trail misses the summit by just over , several clearings between Mount Ambler and Icewater Spring have views of the south-central Smokies and Kuwohi. There is a backcountry shelter at Icewater Spring for Appalachian Trail thru-hikers. The Jumpoff Trail crosses the summit en route to the Jumpoff, a high cliff on the mountain's northern slope. The view from the Jumpoff is usually greater than 180 degrees, from Mount Le Conte to the northwest to the Balsam Mountains to the southeast. The Jumpoff Trail is just a few feet beyond the Appalachian Trail and The Boulevard Trail intersection, approximately three miles from Newfound Gap. The Kephart Prong Trail ascends the mountain's south slope to the Kephart backcountry shelter. Its trailhead is on U.S. 441 between Newfound Gap and the Oconaluftee Valley. After two miles (3 km), the Kephart Prong Trail forks, one way following the Sweat Heifer Trail to Kephart's southwest slope (near Mt. Ambler), the other continuing on to Dry Sluice Gap (near Charlies Bunion).

References

External links

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Trail Map
— Large file in .pdf format.
Mount Kephart
— Peakbagger.com

— SummitPost.org
Icewater Spring Shelter
— Appalachian Trail backcountry shelter near the summit of Mt. Kephart
Horace Kephart: Revealing an Enigma
— Website dedicated to the legacy of Horace Kephart {{DEFAULTSORT:Kephart, Mount Mountains of Great Smoky Mountains National Park Mountains on the Appalachian Trail Mountains of Tennessee Mountains of North Carolina Southern Sixers Protected areas of Sevier County, Tennessee Protected areas of Swain County, North Carolina Mountains of Swain County, North Carolina Mountains of Sevier County, Tennessee