Andrews Bald is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains

Great Smoky Mountains

The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge Physiographic Province. The range is sometimes called the Smoky Mountains or the...

, located in the Southeastern United States. It has an elevation of 5920 feet (1,804.4 m) above sea level, making it the highest grassy bald in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North...

.http://www.cs.utk.edu/~dunigan/landforms/balds.php The mountain is one of two grassy bald

Appalachian balds

In the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States, balds are mountain summits or crests covered primarily by thick vegetation of native grasses or shrubs occurring in areas where heavy forest growth would be expected....

s maintained in the range by the park service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

. The other is Gregory Bald

Gregory Bald

Gregory Bald is a mountain on the western fringe of the Great Smoky Mountains. It has an elevation of 4,949 feet above sea level. The mountain's majestic summit makes it a popular hiking destination....

, in the western Smokies.

Andrews Bald is a double peak situated along Forney Ridge, just south of Clingmans Dome

Clingmans Dome

Clingmans Dome is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. At an elevation of , it is the highest mountain in the Smokies, the highest point in the state of Tennessee, and the highest point along the Appalachian Trail...

. The mountain appears in the Clingmans Dome quad on USGS

United States Geological Survey

The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...

 topographical maps. Andrews Bald is the 62nd-highest mountain in North Carolina http://www.mountainpeaks.net/hiking_north_carolina.html, and is located entirely within Swain County.

Unlike Gregory Bald, the bald area of Andrews doesn't cover the summit, but spreads out around the south slope. How and why grassy balds form is a mystery. While cattle grazing maintained the balds throughout the 19th-century, the forest slowly started reclaiming them after the formation of the national park in the 1930s. In the early 1980s, the park service polled park visitors regarding the state of the grassy balds, and the response was overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining the balds atop Gregory and Andrews.
Andrews Bald is probably named after Andres Thompson, an early settler who used the mountain for hunting. A cabin once stood on the southwest slope, near the tip of the present bald area. Herders' shacks were not uncommon in the high-elevation grazing areas of southern Appalachia

Appalachia

Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...

 during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so the cabin may have been a seasonal residence.

The Forney Ridge Trail

Forney Ridge Trail

The Forney Ridge Trail is an American hiking trail, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park of Sevier County, Tennessee. The trail descends from just beneath the highest summit in the national park, Clingmans Dome, along Forney Ridge and passes through Andrews Bald The Forney Ridge Trail is an...

 crosses Andrews Bald, passing to within a few feet of the summit, and traverses the entire bald area en route to Springhouse Branch. The trail intersects the Appalachian Trail

Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the Appalachian Trail or simply the AT, is a marked hiking trail in the eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is approximately long...

on the slopes of Clingmans Dome, and can be accessed from the Forney Ridge parking lot. The bald area is just under two miles (3 km) from the parking lot.

External links

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park Trail Map - Large file in .pdf format.
• Grassy balds in (and near) Tennessee - Tennessee Landforms
• NPS History of Grassy Balds in Smokies
• Andrews Bald hiking information