Black Mountains (North Carolina) - Geography

Geography

The Black Mountains form a J-shaped semicircle that opens to the northwest. The Blacks rise southward from the Little Crabtree Creek Valley in the north to the steep 6,327-foot (1,928 m) summit of Celo Knob. A few miles south of Celo, the crest drops to 5,700 feet (1,700 m) at Deep Gap before rising steeply again to the summit of Potato Hill in the north-central section of the range. The crest continues southward across the north-central section, which contains 6 of the 10 highest summits in the eastern United States, including the highest, Mount Mitchell, and the second-highest, Mount Craig. South of Mount Mitchell, the crest drops to just under 6,000 feet (1,800 m) at Stepp's Gap before rising again to 6,520 feet (1,990 m) at the summit of Mount Gibbes. On the slopes of Potato Knob, just south of Clingmans Peak, the Black Mountain crest bends northwestward across Blackstock Knob before dropping again to 5,320 feet (1,620 m) at Balsam Gap, where it intersects the Great Craggy Mountains to the southwest. The crest then turns northward across Point Misery and Big Butt before descending to the Cane River Valley.

The northern section of the Black Mountains are drained by the Cane River to the west and the South Toe River to the east, both of which are part of the upper Nolichucky River watershed. The southwestern part of the range is drained by the upper French Broad River which, like the Nolichucky, is west of the continental divide and thus its waters eventually wind up in the Gulf of Mexico. A few of the streams in the southeastern section of the range are part of the Catawba River watershed, and are thus east of the continental divide.