The Appalachians

Looking southwest from the observation tower high atop Mount Mitchell in Yancey County, North Carolina, USA. At 6,684 feet, Mount Mitchell is not only the highest point in the Appalachian Mountains; it's also the highest peak in North America east of the Mississippi river.

The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system or range of mountains located in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago.  The range is primarily located in the United States beginning in Alabama and Georgia but extends 1600 miles north into the southeastern region of Newfoundland, Canada.

A gigantic collision of the world’s continents initially caused the formation of the Appalachians.  When the mountains were originally formed, they were much higher than they are today; in fact they were more like the present-day Rocky Mountain range located to their west. When the Atlantic Ocean was still in its infancy, the Appalachian Mountains were being ravaged by the forces of erosion. For more than 100 million years now, erosion has systematically whittled away at the mountains, leaving only their innermost parts standing. The erosion process continues today and is constantly altering their landscape.

These days, folks from western North America, love to point out that most of the High Plains, at the base of the Rockies, are as high as or even higher than most major Appalachian summits, but now you know that the Appalachian Mountains were not only once comparable in size but are some where around 400 million years older than the glorious Rockies as well, which shows, first hand, what a mere 400 million years of erosion can do.

The Appalachian Mountains are made up of mountains, ridges, and valleys such as the Great Smoky Mountains that run from Tennessee to North Carolina. You might say the Blue Ridge Mountains are the backbone of the system; they extend from Georgia to Pennsylvania. Then also included is the highest mountain on the eastern coast, Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina.

It was not until about a hundred years after the first English settlements on the Atlantic coast had passed, that the Appalachian ‘barrier’ was overcome by westward expansion. The first gateway to the west, came to be called the Cumberland Gap, which is a narrow mountain pass that was first used by wildlife, Native Indian tribes, and finally by settlers moving west.         

In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, who was an English naturalist and scientist, led a small group of explorers to the Gap after hearing about Native American descriptions of the pathway through the Appalachian Mounts, in opposition to over the mountains. Walker called it “Cave Gap”, and named the river north of the pass the Cumberland River. Then in 1769, Daniel Boone explored the area but is wasn’t until  1775 that he blazed a 200 mile long trail known as Boone's Path or Boone's Road through the gap into central Kentucky, thus forever opening the door to the great American west.

Today, when compared to the world's great mountain ranges, the Appalachian Mountains may be rather undistinguished. Comparably low and gentle, some folks would hesitate to call them “mountains”, though they may seem high to the many “lowlanders” who populate their rolling foot hills; admittedly they are no match to the lofty, snowy peaks of the Himalaya, Andes, or the great Alps.

But after you get past their relative lack of height and ruggedness as seen today, the most important characteristic of the Appalachians when compared to other mountains, especially those in western North America is their extensive forest. There are only a few minor and scattered exceptions; where in the entire range of the Appalachian Mountains is not cloaked with a deep, thick, dense forest.

And let’s not forget the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, which is a 2,167 mile (3,488 kilometers) long footpath along the ridge tops and across the major valleys of the Appalachian Mountains stretching from Maine to north Georgia. The trail meanders through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. It’s often called the 3^rd leg of the “Hikers Triple Crown” and requites on average about 6 months of your time. In 2010 there were only 527 individuals who were documented as having completed the full trek.

Sources ...

http://freeoutdoors.com/blog/hiking/triple-crown-hiking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Mountains           
http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/appalachian.mt./app.Mt.facts.html               
http://www.peakbagger.com/range.aspx?rid=16                   
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/VolcanicPast/Places/volcanic_past_appalachians.html   http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/VolcanicPast/Places/volcanic_past_rocky_mountains.html http://www.virginia.org/Listings/OutdoorsAndSports/CumberlandGapNationalHistoricalPark/   http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/back0204.cfm                http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2011/11/hiking-appalachian-national-scenic-trail-it-takes-more-heart-heel8951