Finally reaching the grassy summit of Green Knob, this is the amazing view you get to the East.

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In Depth Discussion of This View:
This is a very interesting and unique view, one which allows you to ponder several anomalies of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. On the left is the rocky Sam Knob, with its characteristic two summits.  Behind Sam Knob lies the grassy ridge of Black Balsam Knob.  To the right and below Sam Knob is Flat Laurel Creek as it cascades out of the high, relatively flat Flat Laurel Valley, with its grassy meadows, above and to the right of the cascades. These interesting high, flat valleys are common near the juncture of the Pisgah Ridge and the Balsam Mountains, including the Flat Laurel Valley, Graveyard Fields on the other side of it, and the little bench you walk through on this hike. The summits cloaked in the young conifers are Little Sam Knob on the right, and the Pisgah Ridge extending West from Black Balsam Knob.

These spruce-fir cloaked summits are interesting, but naturally there wouldn't be such a sharp cutoff as you go down in elevation.  It would look more like the forest in the previous shot than this - more of a gradual transition from spruce-fir to hardwoods.  Also, the spruces and firs would cover almost every summit above 5000' or so.  The cutoff below and above this is caused by humans - and in this shot it occurs right at a railroad bed that is now the Flat Laurel Creek trail.  Fires have shaped the forest in this area to a great extent, and they created the meadows in the Flat Laurel valley as well as the meadows on Black Balsam Knob.  Was the railroad bed wide enough to stop the fires and spare the conifers above it?

Whatever causes them, Sam Knob and Black Balsam Knob are both Balds - summits where few or no trees grow.  Despite this picture's appearance, there is no true timberline in the Southern Appalachians.  Sam Knob is a heath bald (mostly) where rhododendrons, mountain laurels, and blueberry shrubs grow, and Black Balsam Knob is a grassy bald, as is Green Knob where you are standing to see this.  The origin of these balds is interesting and intriguing.  Click here to find out more about Southern Appalachian Mountain Balds.