Mount Sterling (Great Smoky Mountains)
Coordinates: 35°42′09″N 83°07′20″W / 35.702368°N 83.122246°W
Mount Sterling is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Haywood County, North Carolina, located in the southeastern United States. It reaches an elevation of 5,842 feet (1,781 m) above sea level. The summit is topped by an abandoned fire tower that gives stunning views of other nearby peaks.
Mount Sterling crowns Mount Sterling Ridge, a 7-mile (11 km) ridge that gradually descends northward from the flanks of Big Cataloochee Mountain (on the Balsam Mountain crest) to the Pigeon River Valley. The ridge divides the Cataloochee area to the east from the Big Creek Valley (which represents the fringe of the Cosby area) to the west. The community of Waterville, North Carolina is located in the Pigeon Valley at the ridge's northern extreme. Geologically, Mount Sterling consists mainly of Precambrian metamorphic sandstone of the Ocoee Supergroup, formed nearly a billion years ago from ancient ocean sediments. The summit of Mount Sterling is surrounded by a stand of Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest.
According to early residents in the Mount Sterling area, the mountain was named after a 2-foot (0.61 m) wide streak of lead in the bed of the Pigeon River at the mountain's northern base. These early residents mistakenly thought the lead was silver. The Big Creek campground, at the northern base of Mount Sterling Ridge, occupies what was once the community of Mount Sterling, North Carolina.
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