Les Jones

Travel > Mt. Cammerer Firetower Hike (Great Smokies)

I plugged in the scanner this weekend and started going through old photos. This is from a trip in 1999 or so, judging from the other pictures on the roll of film. Now I remember. I was working at U.S. Internet at the time, because I remember telling Cecil about my plans for the trip, and he couldn't believe I would go hiking in that heat. I needed some backpacking therapy, even though it was mid-summer and eleven kinds of hot. I got up around 5:00 AM, made straight for the trailhead, and got to camp by 10:30 before the temperatures got unbearable. I rigged up a water bag and showered off, then lazed away the rest of the day.

The shortest route to Mt. Cammerer is a 10.4 mile roundtrip hike beginning near Cosby Campground, hiking up Low Gap trail, then following the Appalachian Trail to the trail spur that leads to Cammerer. That route also has the least elevation gain, about 2000 feet. I visited Mt. Cammerer as part of a two-day backpacking trip, spending the night at Cosby Knob Shelter on the Applachian Trail.

The fire lookout is of the Western style, being built on rock. Fire lookouts in the Eastern United States are generally built on metal or concrete towers to lift them above the lush tree cover. Because it's on a rocky summit surrounded by scrubby heath, the park service was able to build the Mt. Cammerer lookout directly on rock. The park quit using the Mt. Cammerer station in the 1960s.

This is a view from inside the tower, looking out. The interior was surprisingly dark. At the time I was there, the windows were intact. From some of the descriptions I've read of the tower's delapidated state, I can only assume that someone had done some maintenance work.

Looking out over Eastern Tennessee from the observation deck. This was an intermittently cloudy day, and the dark areas of the ground are cloud shadows. The Hiking Trails of the Smokies describes all of the landmarks visible from the lookout, including Bays Mountain, Stone Mountain, Snowbird Mountain, Mount Sterling, Max Patch, Naked Place, Balsam Mountain and Mount Guyot.