Beech Mountain Fire Tower

Beech Mountain Fire Tower is a steel lookout on the 839-foot summit of Beech Mountain, on Mount Desert Island’s west side. It is the only fire tower left on the island. You reach it on foot from Beech Mountain Parking Area; there is no road to the summit. The open granite around the tower gives you a broad view even when its stairs are closed, so the walk still has a payoff.

Two loops from the parking area reach the summit. The shorter Beech Mountain Loop is about 1.2 miles; allow roughly one to two hours with time to stop. The 2.1-mile Valley Trail and South Ridge loop is a longer outing, passing through the rocky Grotto, where the path threads among boulders below a steep cliff, then climbing stone steps and open ridge. Return by the Beech Mountain Loop for the more scenic descent, with Long Pond views. The footing is uneven and rocky, so shoes with grip help. Bring water and a snack rather than planning on a purchase at the summit.

On a clear day, the summit looks toward Long Pond and Echo Lake, across the west side of Mount Desert Island, and out to the ocean and offshore islands. Acadia Mountain and Bernard Mountain are among the nearby peaks. Sunset and autumn foliage are especially popular times to visit. For a photo, include the tower’s steel frame against the sky, then walk onto the west-side granite ledges and use a little rock in the foreground to show Long Pond below.

The first lookout here was a wooden tower built by Civilian Conservation Corps workers and used from 1941 to the mid-1950s. It played a critical role in fire warnings during the 1947 fire. As the wood structure deteriorated, a helicopter carried the present steel tower to the summit in 1960 in a project called Operation Beech; it returned to service in 1962. It has not been manned since 1976 and joined the National Historic Lookout Register in 1993.