Guide Outlines Hikes to Western North Carolina’s Lookout Towers

Story by Anna Oakes

For the best mountain vistas, you’re going to have to go up. Old fire towers that rise above the foliage provide spectacular 360-degree views—sometimes across several state lines.

In his new book, Hiking North Carolina’s Lookout Towers, Peter J. Barr provides detailed information—including maps, photos and hiking routes—for 26 towers in western North Carolina. Climb up these historic manmade overlooks for panoramas of the Nantahala National Forest, Great Smoky Mountains, Central Highlands, Blue Ridge Mountains and the North Carolina Piedmont.

Barr is director of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, a group of enthusiasts who restore and protect lookout towers nationwide.

“Fire lookouts in North Carolina are a dying breed,” Barr writes. “About a third of the lookouts that once stood in the state are gone forever. Others are so badly deteriorated that they are now restricted and face imminent removal.”

According to Barr’s guide, the United States Forest Service developed fire towers, or “lookout huts,” in the early 1900s to aid in fire prevention and control in millions of acres of federal forestland. The Forest Service erected wooden towers in North Carolina in the 1920s, followed by steel towers later. Watchmen staffed a vast network of fire lookouts across western North Carolina for more than 30 years.

In the 1960s, the Forest Service began turning to air patrols for fire detection and gradually abandoned its use of towers. Only two towers in North Carolina—the lookouts at Chambers Mountain and Toxaway Mountain—are staffed for four months during fire season.

“Their use for fire detection long finished, most towers have been abandoned and have fallen victim to vandalism and neglect,” Barr writes. “Today, their use for public recreation remains important.”

Barr’s 272-page guide divides North Carolina’s fire towers into five groups based on location: Nantahala National Forest, Great Smoky Mountains, Central Highlands, Blue Ridge and Black Mountains and Northwestern North Carolina and the Piedmont. For each tower, the guide includes information about the structure, historical and environmental facts about the site, a map of trails leading to the tower, directions to trailheads and difficulty of the hike.

The Flat Top Mountain tower at Moses H. Cone Memorial Park near Blowing Rock is among the fire towers featured in the book.

Barr will be at Black Bear Books in Boone for a book signing and slide show on Friday, May 30, at 7:00 p.m. For more info, call Black Bear Books at 828-264-4636. Hiking North Carolina’s Lookout Towers is published by John F. Blair in Winston-Salem. The cost of the guide is $14.95.

For more info about the Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter in North Carolina, click to www.nclookouts.com.