At 6,621 feet (2,018 m) in elevation, Guyot is the fourth-highest summit in the Eastern U.S.,[3] and the second-highest in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Ramsey Cascades, one of the park's most spectacular waterfalls, spills down a sandstone cliff near the bottom of Guyot's western slope.

Human settlement never expanded deep into the eastern Smokies, so the area around Guyot and adjacent peaks suffered substantially less disturbance than the mountains in the western or central parts of the range.

Mount Guyot is composed of Precambrian rocks of the Ocoee Supergroup, formed from ocean sediments approximately one billion years ago.

Guyot itself was formed during the Appalachian orogeny over 200 million years ago, when the North American and African plates collided, thrusting the rock upward.

[10] While Buckley's measurements were often wildly inaccurate, Guyot conducted an expedition the following year, recording more accurate elevations and giving preliminary names to various peaks along the crest.

I know but few men who have ever followed this part of the divide ...[14]Kephart goes on to relate the account of James Ferris and his wife, two naturalists who bushwhacked their way across the crest of the Smokies to Mt.

According to Mrs. Ferris: The Tennesseeans seem afraid of the mountains, and the Cherokees of North Carolina equally so; for, two miles (3 km) from camp, all traces of man, except surveyors' marks, had disappeared.[15]Mt.

Guyot remained isolated until the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed a segment of the Appalachian Trail across the mountain's western slope in 1935.

A 15-mile (24 km) section of the Appalachian Trail stretches from Newfound Gap to Tricorner Knob, near Guyot's south slope.