Despite Mount Mitchell’s status as the tallest peak east of the Mississippi people keep trying to make it just a little taller. The observation platform recently dedicated by North Carolina’s state park system is at least the fifth tower to have been built on the mountain’s summit.

Although the platform was finished over the winter, the new structure has been getting an extended review as the weather warms and the busy summer season approaches.

Asheville-area residents could not get to the new platform easily until May 15, when workers opened one lane of a Blue Ridge Parkway section in the Craggy Gardens area that had been closed for a year and a half after a slide.

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