Newport, Tennessee

Explore Halls Top Fire Tower

1 Miles Total - 200 ft gain - Out-and-Back Trail

Originally added by Jared Beeler

Beautiful views of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Halls Top Fire Tower is a special untouched spot in the Cherokee National Forrest. The road that leads you into the CNF is known as Halls Top Road just a few miles off of Interstate I-40. This road will take you 4.4 miles to the next turn onto Stone Mountain Road this road is 2.1 miles to the gate before the tower.

On the way to the tower about 1 mile down Stone Mountain rd there is a great pull-off spot to set up tents and hammocks and a great place to make a fire at night with a well established fire pit. Also on Stone Mountain Road is an old cemetery from early settlers on the mountain some ranging back to the late 1700s. The cemetery area also has some small walking trails to explore. Once you reach the top of Stone Mountain Road at the gate you will need to pull your car off the gravel road and hike the rest to the top, in the case that the gate is open then you can just drive straight to the tower. Around the tower are other places to camp and to hang hammocks. While climbing the tower you must be very careful because it was built in 1934 and has not been renovated since so some of the steps may be rotten away.

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Ness Nations

Explore Halls Top Fire Tower

5 months ago

Need an off-roading capable vehicle

Cool area. They have removed the first row of stairs to the fire tower. Wanted to give others a heads up on the type of vehicle needed because I wish we would have known before going.

Emma LaFleur

Explore Halls Top Fire Tower

11 months ago

not as expected

we attempted to make the tower for sunset, but when the gps lost signal and left us in a very remote location on the way up, with unpaved roads for miles, we turned around. we decided not to get lost in the dark with no signal so we turned around and never made it there. the drive up was a bit difficult and we couldn’t quite map it. read the directions to get there prior to the trip, since there is not signal for the last half hour of the drive.