Chimney Tops

Chimney Tops is a mountain ridge whose jutting rocks have nearly vertical holes in their tops, giving them the look of natural chimney flues and inspiring the name used by mountain people, while the Cherokees called the mountain Duniskwalguni, meaning ‘forked antlers.’ The half-billion-year-old Chimney Tops, made of slates, schists, and phyllites, sit atop even older Thunderhead sandstone, a tough, erosion resistant rock, and because the chimney rock of the Anakeesta Formation is softer than the sandstone, rain, hail, and ice over hundreds of millions of years fashioned its chimney-shaped likeness. The rugged bare rock rises above forests that cloak most Great Smoky Mountain ridges, but its scant soil supports only shallow-rooted plants such as rhododendron, mountain laurel, red spruce, and eastern hemlock. On adjacent slopes, eastern hemlocks have been killed by tiny non-native insects called hemlock wooly adelgids, which feed at the base of hemlock needles, cut off nutrients, and starve the trees to death; park managers hope to save some hemlocks with insecticides and biological controls, but millions will be lost. A steep, rocky two-mile trail leads to Chimney Tops and a panoramic view of the Sugarlands valley.

Tennessee · United States