One valley, catalogued three times
An All-American Road across North Carolina and Tennessee whose overlooks gather around one valley, one gap and three people's names.
Seven lookouts are on the roster for the Newfound Gap Road Byway. Three of them carry the same name: Deep Creek Valley Overlook, Deep Creek Valley Overlook #1 and Deep Creek Valley Overlook #2. The first two are recorded about fifteen feet apart. The third is a third of a mile from them.
Three records for one valley, and two of them fifteen feet apart.
Six together, one alone
Add Charles A Webb Overlook, Ben Morton Overlook and Newfound Gap Overlook, and six of the seven lookouts sit inside about two and a fifth miles of each other in a straight line. The farthest-apart pair among them is Webb and Morton. Everything else is closer.
The seventh, Carlos Campbell Overlook, is more than six miles from the nearest of the others. Fort Harry, a historic site on the byway, sits almost exactly on the straight line between it and Newfound Gap Overlook, about three miles from each.
Three overlooks named for people
Charles A Webb. Ben Morton. Carlos Campbell. Three of the seven lookouts are named for a person rather than for anything seen, and none of the three names says what the view is of. The other four say it plainly: the valley, three times, and the gap, once.
That leaves a roster with only two subjects. There is Deep Creek Valley, and there is Newfound Gap. Everything else on it is a person's name.
The peak without an overlook
Mount Weaver is the one summit the byway passes directly, listed at 1,589 metres and about a tenth of a mile from the route. It is under a mile from Newfound Gap Overlook in a straight line, and no lookout on the roster takes its name.
Other named summits are close. Chimney Tops is listed at 1,440 metres about half a mile off the route. West Point, at 1,937, is under a mile and a half off. Mount Le Conte, at a little over 2,000, is just under two miles off. None of them has an overlook on the roster named for it either.
Where the lookouts are not
On the North Carolina side, the Mountain Farm Museum sits on the byway almost eight miles in a straight line from Charles A Webb Overlook, with no lookout between. In the other direction, past Fort Harry in Tennessee, Carlos Campbell stands alone. The rest of the views are gathered in the middle, around the overlooks named for the valley and the gap.
What that makes the drive
Seven overlooks on this road come down to two places: one short stretch where six of them gather around Deep Creek Valley and Newfound Gap, and Carlos Campbell on its own, more than six miles away.
Six views inside a little over two miles means you are not really the one choosing between them.
Stop at Newfound Gap and give the valley overlooks their turn, one after another. Take whichever of them the weather leaves you, and let that be the view.