Pinnacle Mountain Fire Lookout Tower now open

Back in April of 2010 officials from Cherokee National Forest announced a project to rehabilitate the historic Pinnacle Mountain Fire Lookout Tower near Johnson City, TN. In late October of this year, the tower was officially reopened during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The 40-foot tower is located atop 3520-foot Buffalo Mountain on the Unicoi and Washington county line in the Cherokee National Forest. It was built by the Civil Conservation Corp in the early 1930s, and served as a fire sentinel for the Cherokee National Forest until 1989.

Another component of the rehabilitation project was the development of a 5-mile trail, known as the Pinnacle Fire Tower Trail, that connects the Pinnacle Mountain Fire Tower to a trailhead on property owned by the Town of Unicoi near the base of Buffalo Mountain.

The Pinnacle Mountain Fire Lookout Tower is one of only three federally managed fire towers that remain in the northern Cherokee National Forest. Meadow Creek in Cocke County and Camp Creek Bald in Greene County are the other two.

For more information on the project, please click here. For more information on the tower, including photos, please click here.


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com