No, we will not be doing this hike early enough to capture the sunrise from the fire tower as someone did in the pic. We will save that for another day. This is a Sunday morning hike, that will allow you to tackle the Chimneys on Saturday and do this on Sunday. Both of these hikes are short hikes. However this is no short easy walk in the park hike. This is a very strenuous hike. We will take our time climbing to the top. This and the Chimneys are two good weekend challenging hikes to do back to back. The views will make it worth it.

Mount Sterling Tower is a 60-foot tall, metal and wood observation deck perched above a dozen flights of stairs. The Mount Sterling Tower was manned several months out of the year by watchers who lived in a nearby cabin for two-week tours. Sterling is one of only three towers left inside the park, and is the highest true fire tower in the eastern U.S. Built in 1935, Sterling hasn’t been manned since the ‘60s.

This low ridge trail begins at Mt. Sterling Gap on Cataloochee-Big Creek Road. It is rated extremely strenuous because of a 2,000-foot climb in 2.3 miles along an old jeep trail to a ridge .5 miles below the Mt. Sterling Firetower. This fire tower is one of three remaining in the Park.

There are several excellent lookouts from the trail prior to reaching the main ridge, but the view from the tower is unequalled in the Park. The view includes the Pigeon River Gorge (below), the Unaka Mountains, the main ridge of the Smokies, the Black Mountains (east), and the end of the Southern Appalachians.

Take a look at the various links below about the hike and the tower.

This is the trail map for the hike http://files.meetup.c...

Some history of the area and review of the hike.

Review of Mt Sterling Hike

This has a review of the tower and additional pics.

Pictures from Mt. Sterling

Meeting place Big Creek Campground at 8:00 a.m. this will put us at the trailhead by 8:30 a.m. This change will save you driving time on the road from the original instructions. You should have an email with more details. The directions below will take you to the trailhead, but you should follow the signs to Big Creek Campground once you take exit 451

The original directions of taking exit 20 from I-40 should be disregarded and the following directions used. This will save you considerable driving time.[/b] http://maps.google.co...