[5] A 45-foot (14 m) tall concrete observation tower at the summit, built in 1959 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, offers a panoramic view of the mountains.

The forest on and around Kuwohi has experienced a large die-off of Fraser fir caused by non-native insect balsam woolly adelgid.

[6] Bebb's original design consisted of a massive stone tower topped by a circular platform and fire observation cab, accessed by a concrete ramp.

After John B. Cabot, head of the park service's Eastern Office of Design and Construction, convinced him of the ramp's usefulness, Wirth decided the stone tower would not be necessary, stating a single central support column would suffice.

The 7-mile (11 km) Clingmans Dome Road, which is open annually from April 1 through November 30,[4] begins just past Newfound Gap and leads up the mountain to the Forney Ridge Parking Area, 330 feet (100 m) below the summit.

[10] The short, steep trail provides a small visitor information center and park store staffed by the Great Smoky Mountains Association.

The trail offers a glimpse of the often hostile environment of highland Appalachia, passing through the spruce-fir forest and its accompanying blowdowns and dead Fraser Firs.

The western terminus of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which connects the Smokies to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, is located atop Kuwohi.

The enchanted lake of Ataga'hi ("Gall Place"), the waters of which could cure wounded bears, was believed by the Cherokee to be located somewhere between Kuwohi and the headwaters of the Oconaluftee River to the east.

"[17] The Tribal Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians passed the legislation, submitted by Hill and Crowe, during its regular session on July 14, 2022, thus lending the Tribe's support for the name change effort.

[18] On August 2, 2022, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to support the name change, after consultation with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

The lower northern flanks of Kuwohi are underlain by thick layers of sulfidic, quartz-garnet-muscovite phyllite and schist, which occur within the metagraywackes and metaconglomerates.

Adjacent to and south of its summit, thin, southward-dipping, and discontinuous beds of garnetiferous (locally graphitic and sulfidic) metasiltstone occur within the Copperhill Formation.

[21] The Copperhill Formation is part of the greater Ocoee Supergroup, a body of clastic metasedimentary rocks formed 560 million years ago.

The sediments that originally comprised the Ocoee Supergroup accumulated in a string of narrow, deep-water basins that stretched along the entire southern-central Appalachian margin from Tennessee, North Carolina, to Georgia.

[21][22][23] Although a dense forest understory covers most of the mountain, outcroppings of the Copperhill Formation can be found on Kuwohi at the Forney Ridge Parking Lot at the end of Clingmans Dome Road.