Mount Collins

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park stretches across 800 square miles, with nearly 95 percent of its land covered in forest. These ancient mountains, which are among the oldest on Earth, are built from rocks more than 200 million years old with their jagged peaks worn down into the soft, rounded ridges that are present today. These ridgelines are traversed by the Appalachian Trail which climbs to its highest point at Clingmans Dome (6,643 feet) and straddles the border of North Carolina and Tennessee in the park. From the ridges you will often see a distinctive blue haze that lingers over the valleys.  It is a natural mist that is created when plants release water vapor and organic compounds into the air which gives the area its trademark “Smoky” Mountains name.  Unfortunately, the majority of the people that visit the park never visit the backcountry and see some of the best wilderness in the Southeastern U.S.

Mount Collins is named after Robert Collins, an Oconaluftee, North Carolina resident who guided Arnold Guyot (the first to measure the mountain’s height) across the crest of the Smokies in the late 1850s. The mountain has an elevation of 6,188 feet and is less than three trail miles from the highest point on the Appalachian Trail at Clingman’s Dome.  On this hike, we started at Newfound Gap and climbed for five miles and approximately 2000 feet to the Mount Collins Shelter via the Appalachian Trail. The shelter is situated in a spruce-fir forest and sleeps about twelve on two platforms in the original stone structure. A porch extension was added to the original building in time for our trip in 2012.