What Horace Kephart can teach us about solitude, simplicity, and stillness

This article was originally published in 2020. We are sharing again in honor of Horace Kephart’s birthday, September 8, 1862. “Mountains! Think of them; speak of them; look upon them!… Here they are in all their majesty and abundance.”  These words were written in 1905 by Isaiah Kephart, who supported his son Horace in a […]

Horace Kephart, “a student, first, last, and always”

In early 2009, during the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Libby Kephart Hargrave, the great-granddaughter of noted Smoky Mountain writer Horace Kephart, offered a complete manuscript of an unpublished novel, written in the 1920s by her ancestor, to the director of Great Smoky Mountains Association for possible publication. The novel, […]

Trailside Talk: Did Charlie have a bunion?

Charlies Bunion will never be mistaken for one of the Great Smoky Mountains’ majestic peaks. It is rugged and ragged—a sort of obstructive bump on the landscape near Mount Le Conte, its much more impressive neighbor. But the Bunion is worth a look, either onsite or from nearby trails. And in a park noted for […]