0 Reviews
0
out of
5
Clingmans Dome presents that dilemma of so many peaks made accessible via a road to the summit. You could earn Clingmans Dome, doing it the hard way by making the 11-mile climb up Forney Creek or by taking the Appalachian Trail to the top, but why?
You can get a stellar 360-degree view of the entire half-million-acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the summit tower, even if it is choked with tourists on cell phones. It’s almost as bad as the summit scene atop Mount Everest. Thus, Clingmans Dome is less a conquest than a rite-of-passage. It’s there, everybody does it, and so, inevitably, will you.
Clingmans Dome presents that dilemma of so many peaks made accessible via a road to the summit. You could earn Clingmans Dome, doing it the hard way by making the 11-mile climb up Forney Creek or by taking the Appalachian Trail to the top, but why?
You can get a stellar 360-degree view of the entire half-million-acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park from the summit tower, even if it is choked with tourists on cell phones. It’s almost as bad as the summit scene atop Mount Everest. Thus, Clingmans Dome is less a conquest than a rite-of-passage. It’s there, everybody does it, and so, inevitably, will you.
© Joe Miller/The Mountaineers Books. All Rights Reserved.
