Mt. Guyot

Description

Named for the famous antebellum geographer Arnold Guyot, this peak is the second highest mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Interestingly, this mountain bears Guyot's name although he was presumably not the first person to reach its summit. While an aboriginal ascent is debatable, the frontier between NC and TN was first surveyed in 1821-- a full decade before Guyot himself began a systematic topographical study of the region. Today, despite the passage of well over a century and a half, this peak is still remote. The venerable Appalachian Trail passes along the high flanks of Mt. Guyot, but leaves the summit save for those hikers willing to ditch their packs and forge through a dense Frasier Fir forest via an overgrown manway. And for such intrepid souls, tagging the USGS benchmark is the primary reward, as views are non-existant; but, on the other hand, expending the energy to reach the top is worth something else: the satisfaction (and bragging rights)of bagging the rarely visited second highest peak in the US's most heavily used National Park.

Thanks to Travis Sutton Byrd for this description.