Table Rock Mountain

The heather

In 1816 Thomas Nuttall climbed Table Rock and collected a small, needle-leaved shrub on the summit that became Hudsonia montana, mountain golden heather. Every population known today is in Burke and McDowell counties. By the Fish and Wildlife Service’s account, botanists looking in the 1960s and 1970s couldn’t relocate it, and it was written off as extinct until it turned up again in the late 1970s. It was listed as threatened in 1980. There are six known populations today, most along about eight kilometers of Jonas Ridge between Table Rock and Shortoff Mountain, and one more on Woods Mountain.

The plant lives on bare quartzite ledges in full sun, on a few inches of sandy, gravelly soil where open rock gives way to sand myrtle heath. It needs fire. The Service’s 2024 review cites a study putting the right interval at six to eight years, and reports an older suggestion that lightning once burned this ground every five to ten. Too long without fire and taller shrubs close over it. Too many boots and it’s crushed. Across all its sites the count has swung widely, from 2,801 plants in 1982 to 10,278 in 2009 and back to 2,947 in 2023. On Table Rock it went from 215 to 3. The review recommends banking seed, Table Rock first.

The rock

The gorge here is about 1,500 feet deep and walled with quartzite. Bryant and Reed’s 1970 Geological Survey map of the Grandfather Mountain window identifies the cliffs of Table Rock and Shortoff as quartzite of the Chilhowee Group and describes a Tablerock thrust sheet, a slice of Shady Dolomite and Chilhowee quartzite and phyllite. Quartzite weathers to sand, poor and dry. That’s the ground the heather is built for. The Sherpa guide describes the top as a tilted pile of huge fused boulders with sand myrtle, mountain laurel and blueberry wedged into it against the wind.

Going

The Forest Service’s Table Rock site has short trails along the gorge rim to the summit and to the Chimneys, and climbing guides work there under Forest Service permit. The parking area is closed every year from January 2 to April 1, and the picnic area and lot were closed for storm damage at last check, with the trails still open. The Service also posts a separate closure notice covering Table Rock Mountain and the Chimneys, so check before you drive up. On top, stay on bare rock and off the plants at the ledge edges. Three heather plants don’t leave much room for mistakes.