Mount Sterling Fire Tower

Mount Sterling Fire Tower is a 60-foot steel lookout on the 5,842-foot summit in the eastern Smokies. Reaching it from Mount Sterling Gap is a destination hike, not a roadside stop: expect about 2.7 miles each way and roughly 2,000 feet of climbing on the ascent.

From the Gap, Mount Sterling Trail follows an old jeep road, passes the Long Bunk Trail junction at about half a mile, then switchbacks up to Mount Sterling Ridge Trail. Turn right there; the tower is roughly 0.4 mile farther. A long gravel road leads to the Gap, so check current road and trail conditions before setting out.

The Civilian Conservation Corps built the steel tower in 1935. Lookouts worked two-week rotations during spring and fall fire seasons, and a small cabin once stood near the summit. The tower is a remnant of the era when lookouts watched the Smokies for fires from isolated high points.

Mount Sterling's summit sits in Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest. The approach passes old red spruce with trunks nearly three feet across; spring beauty flowers along parts of the trail in early spring.

The mountain also marks an early chapter in the park's Fraser fir decline: the balsam woolly adelgid infestation was first noticed here in 1963. The insect later killed many Fraser firs across the Smokies.