Mount Kephart

Mount Kephart is a mountain in the central Great Smoky Mountains, located in the Southeastern United States. The Appalachian Trail crosses the mountain's south slope, making it a destination for thru-hikers. The Jumpoff, a 1000 ft cliff on the northeast side of the mountain, has views of the central and eastern Smokies. A stand of Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest coats the mountain's upper elevations.

With an elevation of 6,217 ft, Mount Kephart is the 7th-highest mountain in Tennessee. Its topographic prominence is drastically reduced, however, by its close proximity to two higher neighbors, Clingmans Dome and Mount Le Conte.

Like much of the Smokies crests, Mount Kephart lies on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, in Sevier County, Tennessee and Swain County, North Carolina. The mountain rises nearly 4000 ft above its northern base at Porters Flat, and approximately 3400 ft above its southern base along the Oconaluftee River headwaters. Newfound Gap, at just over 5000 ft, 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 from north to south.

Geology
Mount Kephart is composed of a type of slate and meta-siltstone 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 plates collided and thrust the rock upward during the Appalachian orogeny.

History


Mount Kephart is named after Horace Kephart, an author and early proponent of establishing a national park in the Smokies. The mountain was called "Mount Collins" until the USGS gave it its current name in 1931, shifting the name "Mount Collins" to the peak between Clingmans Dome and Newfound Gap. Before the 1880s, Mount Kephart was known by various local names.

Mount Kephart was probably visited and measured by Arnold Guyot 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 6000 ft — Peck's Peak, which Guyot measured at 6232 ft, and Mount Ocona, which Guyot measured at 6135 ft. 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 1300 ft. Other than Mount Kephart, the only peak between Laurel Top and Newfound Gap higher than 6000 ft 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."

A Civilian Conservation Corps 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, this camp was used to house conscientious objectors. Also in this area are the remains of a Works Progress Administration fish hatchery built in 1936.

Access


The Appalachian Trail crosses Mount Kephart's southern slope en route to the Sawteeth and the eastern Smokies. While the trail misses the summit by just over 200 ft, several clearings between Mount Ambler and Icewater Spring have views of the south-central Smokies and Clingmans Dome. 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).