Old Black is a mountain in the

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 Ridge ...

, located in the Southeastern United States. While often overshadowed by Mount Guyot, its higher neighbor to the south, Old Black is the 5th-highest mountain in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

and the 7th-highest in the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, w ...

. 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 ...

crosses its western slope, connecting the Cosby-area trail system with the heart of the Eastern Smokies. Like much of the Smokies crest, Old Black lies along the border between Tennessee and

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, with Cocke County and Sevier County to the west and Haywood County to the east. The mountain rises above its northwestern base near Rocky Grove and above its southeastern base near Walnut Bottom. Old Black is part of the Guyot massif, which extends deep into the interior of the Smokies. A ridge known as Pinnacle Lead intersects this massif— which comprises the eastern section of the crest of the Smokies— on the western slope of Old Black, giving Old Black a triangular shape similar to that of

Tricorner Knob Tricorner Knob is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains, located in the Southeastern United States. It has an elevation of 6,120 feet (1,865 m), with 160 feet (48 m) of clean prominence. The Appalachian and Balsam Mountain trails intersect ne ...

to the south. Old Black gets its name from the dense

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, ...

that coats its higher elevations. From afar, this forest takes on a dark green character, especially in cooler months when contrasted with the brown hardwood forest in lower elevations. This forest also adds to Old Black's blunt appearance— that of a low pyramid with a wide base.

Geology

Old Black comprises Thunderhead sandstone, a type of Precambrian metamorphic rock common throughout the Smokies. The rock is part of the Ocoee Supergroup, which was formed from ocean sediments nearly a billion years ago. The mountain was created over 200 million years ago during the

Appalachian orogeny The Alleghanian orogeny or Appalachian orogeny is one of the geological mountain-forming events that formed the Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Mountains. The term and spelling Alleghany orogeny was originally proposed by H.P. Woodward in 195 ...

, when the North American and African plates collided, thrusting the rock upward.

History

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 ...

first measured the elevation of Old Black on his survey of the crest of the Smokies in the late 1850s. Guyot measured the mountain's elevation at , missing the modern measurement by just three feet. While Guyot initially named the mountain "Mount Henry" after the director of the

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, "Old Black" was the name that stuck. Laura Thornborough, a writer who made several excursions to the area in the 1930s, recalled the thick spruce forest that dominates in the Eastern Smokies: In 1984, an

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fighter plane crashed into the ridge between Inadu Knob and Old Black. Some of the wreckage from this crash remains scattered about the area, with a number of fragments located in an area along the Appalachian Trail about a quarter-mile west of the trail's junction with the

Snake Den Ridge Trail The Snake Den Ridge Trail is an American hiking trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park of Cocke County, Tennessee. Winding its way up the backbone-like crest of Snake Den Ridge, the trail connects the Cosby Campground to the Appalachi ...

. A short spur trail winds through the wreckage. In 1935, the

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constructed a segment of the

across the western slope of Old Black.Hatcher, Sherrill. "The Appalachian Trail In the Smokies," ''Smoky Mountain Historical Society Newsletter'' 20, no. 3 (May–June 1994): 2.

Access

Like most of the key peaks of the Eastern Smokies, Old Black can only be reached via a lengthy hike. The mountain is just over from the nearest parking lot at the Cosby Campground. The quickest route involves following the Snake Den Ridge Trail out of Cosby (the trailhead is behind Campsite B51) for to the

junction at Inadu Knob. From this junction, Old Black is nearly a mile to the northwest. The trail comes to within less than a 10th of a mile from the summit, but the thickness of the forest atop the mountain will considerably slow any bushwhack attempt, and make off-trail navigation difficult. As the Appalachian Trail crosses Old Black's western slope, various clearings allow for views of Cocke County and Sevier County, Tennessee to the north and northwest. Along the mountain's northeast slope, near a clearing used for a high-altitude helicopter landing pad, much of the Eastern Smokies and the Balsam Mountains can be seen, including Mount Sterling and Luftee Knob. Some of the finest views of Mount Guyot can be seen from this point.

References

External links

Great Smoky Mountains Trail Map
- Large file in .pdf format.

- Information provided by the Carolina Hiking Club for climbing Old Black and other nearby high peaks. {{Mountains of Tennessee Mountains of Great Smoky Mountains National Park Mountains on the Appalachian Trail Mountains of Tennessee Mountains of North Carolina Southern Sixers Natural history of the Great Smoky Mountains Protected areas of Cocke County, Tennessee Protected areas of Haywood County, North Carolina Protected areas of Sevier County, Tennessee Mountains of Cocke County, Tennessee Mountains of Haywood County, North Carolina Mountains of Sevier County, Tennessee