[3] The Roan Highlands contain the highest quality remaining stretch of Fraser fir forest throughout the tree's entire range.

High Knob is the highest point in Tennessee outside of the Great Smoky Mountains[10] and is the 15th-highest peak in the eastern United States.

The distance to the horizon (ignoring the effect of atmospheric refraction and natural obstructions) from Roan High Knob is approximately 164 miles (264 km).

Unlike its sister peak, High Bluff is steep, rising sharply toward the summit with a rapid 1,000-foot (300 m) drop on its northwest side.

[13] While High Bluff's actual summit is closed to the public, an observation platform sits some 20 feet (6.1 m) below it and offers a 180-degree view of the valley to the northwest.

The Appalachian Trail (following the state border) crosses its summit, first passing through a sparse tree line on the mountain's northwestern slope before emerging in the bald area near the top.

It has an elevation of about 6,185 feet (1,885 m),[17] making it one of the highest grassy balds in the Appalachian Mountains[10] (Black Balsam Knob, located southwest of Asheville, is slightly higher at 6,214 ft.[18]) The bald area atop the mountain covers several 100 acres (40 hectares), with patches of trees and shrubbery in some places.

The summit is adorned by a rock pile and a bronze plaque placed to honor the memory of a local highland farmer named Cornelius Rex Peake.

Roan gneiss, another type of metamorphic rock found on the mountain, was formed roughly 800 million years ago.

Among them were John Bartram, who crossed the Roan Highlands in the late 1730s while studying the botanical make-up of what is now the southeastern United States.

In 1799, John Fraser explored Roan Mountain, collecting specimens of rhododendron and noting the existence of the fir tree that now bears his name.

During this march, Cornwallis dispatched a band of Loyalists under the command of Major Patrick Ferguson to raid western Carolina.

To counter Ferguson's threat, a group of frontiersmen from the mountains of what is now East Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia assembled at Fort Watauga, located in present-day Elizabethton.

While most returned home afterward, some Overmountain Men continued southward to link up with Daniel Morgan's forces and contribute to the American victory at Cowpens in 1781.

On the first night of the march from Sycamore Shoals, the Overmountain Men stored the Patton black powder in a dry cave known as "Shelving Rock" to protect it from the rain.

[33] In 1826, Josh, Ben, and Jake Perkins—three brothers from Crab Orchard, Tennessee—were searching for ginseng on the North Carolina side of Roan (possibly evading an arrest warrant in Tennessee) when they noted deposits of iron ore near Cranberry Creek.

As forests in the lower lands were cut down, loggers began moving into the more mountainous areas in search of timber.

In 1857, two such tourists recalled their visit to the mountain in an article written for New Harper's Weekly: The sweep of the vision in every direction is unlimited, except by the curvature of the earth or the haziness of the atmosphere.

The first idea suggested is that you are looking over a vast blue ocean, whose monstrous billows, once heaving and pitching in wild disorder, have been suddenly arrested by some overruling power.

[37] It was experiences such as this that no doubt persuaded former Civil War general and mining tycoon John T. Wilder to construct a 20-room spruce log lodge atop Roan Mountain in 1877.

Quickly seeing the value in providing a summertime escape from the hot, humid lowlands and overcrowded cities, Wilder began construction on a much larger hotel atop Roan in the early 1880s.

In addition to herding livestock on and around the balds, his family has made significant efforts to restore many of the medicinal plant species that have been hunted to near extinction in the area.

To the west, the trail swings around Roan High Knob just over one mile (1.6 km) to Tollhouse Gap, where it turns north.

This road leads to the Cloudland Trailhead, which crosses the Rhododendron Gardens and ascends the western slope of Roan High Bluff to the observation platform just below the summit.