Mount Mitchell (Attakulla in Cherokee) is the highest peak of the Appalachian Mountains and the highest peak in mainland North America east of the Mississippi River. It is located near Burnsville in Yancey County, North Carolina, in the Black Mountain subrange of the Appalachians about northeast of Asheville. It is protected by Mount Mitchell State Park and surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest. Mount Mitchell's elevation is above sea level. Mount Mitchell is ranked 31st by topographic isolation.
Geography
The peak is the highest mountain in the United States east of the Mississippi River, and the highest in all of eastern North America south of the Arctic Cordillera. Barbeau Peak is higher, but it is located in the very remote Canadian Arctic. The nearest higher peaks are in the Black Hills of South Dakota and the highland foothills of Colorado. The mountain's topographic isolation is calculated from the nearest discernible single higher point: Lone Butte, which is 1,189 miles (1,913 km) away, in southeastern Colorado.
History Mount Mitchell was the highest mountain of the United States from 1789 until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 when Mount Elbert became the highest mountain claimed by the United States. Mount Mitchell was also the most isolated peak in the United States from 1789 until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 when Mount Whitney became the most isolated.
The Cherokee people, who long occupied this area as part of their homeland, called the mountain Attakulla. European-American settlers first called the mountain Black Dome for its rounded shape. They later named it after Elisha Mitchell, a professor at the University of North Carolina, who first explored the Black Mountain region in 1835. He determined that the height of the range exceeded by several hundred feet that of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. The latter had been commonly thought at the time to be the highest point in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Mitchell fell to his death at nearby Mitchell Falls in 1857, where he had returned to verify his earlier measurements.
A road (NC 128) connects the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway to a parking lot where a steep paved trail leads through a conifer forest to the summit. The stone observation tower on the summit was torn down in late 2006. A new observation deck was constructed and opened to visitors in January 2009.
Geologic composition Mount Mitchell was formed during the Precambrian when marine deposits were metamorphosed into gneiss and schist. These metasedimentary rocks were later uplifted during the Alleghenian orogeny. The soils are well drained, dark brown and stony with fine-earth material ranging in texture from sandy clay loam to loam or sandy loam; Burton and Craggey are the most common series around the summit.SoilWeb , University of California-Davis California Soil Resource Lab, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Accessed: 11 January 2016.
Mount Mitchell is located along the Ashe Metamorphic Suite and is composed largely of metagreywacke rocks. These include, quartzite, marble, amphibolite gneiss and schist, and mica gneiss and schist. In addition to these metamorphic rocks, igneous rocks allow Mount Mitchell to deteriorate at a slower pace. These rocks can endure harsh conditions, resisting erosion, and allowing Mount Mitchell to continue to be the tallest peak in North Carolina. Three orogenies in particular led to the formation of Mount Mitchell, including the Taconic, Acadian, and Alleghanian. These orogenies occurred in sequential order to form the Ashe Metamorphic Suite, inclusive of Mount Mitchell.
Many studies have been done to identify exact temperature and pressure constraints the rocks of Mount Mitchell withstood during formation. One specific study performed by the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Asheville, North Carolina used three samples from the top peak (Slant Rock) of Mount Mitchell. Researchers focused on investigating mostly titanium in biotite, but also other minerals such as kyanite, sillimanite, rutile, and ilmenite. Conclusions were made from all three of the Slant Rock samples that they formed in medium to high temperature and pressure ranges due to the composition of kyanite and sillimanite in the samples that only form at higher temperature and pressure extremes. For kyanite and sillimanite to form, conditions have to be at or above 500 degrees Celsius and 0.4 GPa.
The configuration of titanium in biotite rock found in Mount Mitchell can be an indicator of the pressure and temperature the mountain was formed at. Researchers at the University of Asheville, North Carolina found that biotite rocks in Mount Mitchell use a specific process to obtain titanium. It primarily occurs due to proximity between the minerals biotite and rutile. When in close contact, biotite exchanges iron for titanium. Rutile obtains iron in the exchange, and biotite obtains titanium. At certain temperatures and pressures, titanium engages in this substitution for iron present in biotite. For example, as pressure increases, titanium substitution diminishes. Hence, identifying biotite with and without titanium can help us understand under which conditions that specific area of Mount Mitchell formed. Researchers can further examine this method of titanium substitution to enhance knowledge of the geologic formation of Mount Mitchell.
Environment
The mountain's summit is coated in a dense stand of Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest, which consists primarily of two evergreen species—the red spruce and the Fraser fir. Most of the mature Fraser firs, however, were killed off by the non-native balsam woolly adelgid in the latter half of the 20th century. Additionally, at the beginning of the twentieth century, logging became a common practice and eradicated much of the populations of the red spruce and Fraser fir. Following logging, an intense wildfire arose and transformed the landscape dramatically. The presence of forest fires reconfigured the soil, such that what remained of the red spruce and Fraser fir could not readily repopulate. The high elevations expose plant life to high levels of pollution, including acid precipitation in the form of rain, snow, and fog. These acids damage the red spruce trees in part by releasing natural metals from the soil, such as aluminum, and by leaching important minerals. To what extent this pollution harms the high-altitude ecosystem is debatable.Steve Nash, Blue Ridge 2020: An Owner's Manual (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), pp. 25-28, 61-63.
Despite adverse conditions affecting the populations of these tree species, conservationist groups have emerged to help re-establish in particular, the red spruce. The Southern Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative (SASRI) began working directly on Mount Mitchell with Sue Cameron representing their leader. Their plan was to re-establish the red spruce in the Black Mountains, allowing the conifer forest to return to its original density. After investigating maps indicating spruce distribution, Sue Cameron decided that Camp Alice was a favorable site to perform red spruce plantation. The Fish and Wildlife Service was a contributor to this project, and began walking the site, placing flags down where trees could be installed. 327 trees were loaded and transported to the site; thirty-eight people gathered to help plant the trees in the ground. The many volunteers contributing to this effort included twenty-one volunteers originating from the North Carolina High Peaks Trail Association, five volunteers from Warren Wilson College, six volunteers from the Service's Asheville Field Office, five volunteers from North Carolina State Parks, and one volunteer from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. This effort to restore an integral part of Mount Mitchell's ecosystem required partnership and community assistance to ensure a smooth process.
Red spruce trees have multiple ties within the existing wildlife and ecological community of Mount Mitchell. The Carolina northern flying squirrel is an endangered species that can only be located in high-elevation regions of Southern Appalachia. Red spruce trees provide both shelter for this species in their branches, as well as food for the squirrel in the soil of its roots. Mycorrhizal fungi grow alongside plants such as the red spruce, creating a mutualistic relationship as they both benefit through the reciprocal transfer of nutrients and water. The Carolina northern flying squirrel consumes truffles, which are the fruiting bodies that mycorrhizal fungi produce. This allows for the dispersement of fungal spores. In this way, the presence of red spruce trees allows for a system where species can depend on each other. Additionally, the presence of red spruce benefits two other species currently being protected by the Endangered Species Act. These are the spruce-fir moss spider and the rock gnome lichen. These species depend on high-moisture environments, which these forests, with heavy fog conditions provide. Aiding the growth of these forests, permitting them to become healthier and more interconnected with the environment allows for micro-climate shifts that can counter climate change and create a region that animals can depend upon.
While the mountain is still mostly lush and green in the summer, many dead Fraser fir trunks can be seen due to these serious problems.
Wildflowers are abundant all summer long. Young fir and spruce trees do well in the subalpine climate, and their cones feed the birds along with wild blueberry and blackberry shrubs.
The second highest point in eastern North America, Mount Craig at , is roughly a mile to the north of Mount Mitchell.
Climate
The summit area of Mount Mitchell is marked by a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb), with mild summers and long, moderately cold winters, being more similar to southeastern Canada than the southeastern U.S. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from in January to in July. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the state occurred there on January 21, 1985, when it fell to , during a severe cold spell. It is also the coldest average reporting station in the state at , well below any other station.
Unlike the lower elevations in the surrounding regions, heavy snows often fall from December to March, with accumulating in the Great Blizzard of 1993 and in the January 2016 blizzard. Due to the high elevation, precipitation is heavy and reliable year-round, averaging for the year, with no month receiving less than of average precipitation. The summit is often windy, with recorded gusts of up to .
Mount Mitchell recorded a new state record of of precipitation in 2018, which is also the highest total rainfall recorded during a calendar year anywhere east of the Cascade Range in the Contiguous United States.
Fauna