Fryingpan mountain firetower
Living in Chattanooga puts us not far from a lot of the south’s favorite weekend destinations. Asheville is around 3 hours away and the perfect mix of scenery, photography opportunities, fun shopping, and great food!
The last weekend of March we found ourselves there for a long weekend away. Only plans we had were on Saturday some friends would be joining us to go to the Biltmore Estate. We left on a Thursday so we could have some extra time to do some other things around town.
We started out with a lunch stop at Culver’s in Knoxville. We don’t have a Culver’s in Chattanooga so it’s always a treat when we get it.
Afterwards I wanted to stop by a local coffee shop I had found on Instagram a few hours earlier - The Golden Roast.
With lunch done and a successful coffee stop it was time to go to Asheville. If there’s an alternate route to a place we usually take that instead of the interstate. Especially if it’s day time and we’re not in a huge hurry. So on this day we took some backroads and eventually made it to Asheville in the afternoon.
First we got checked into our hotel and relaxed a bit. Then we started to decide on a spot to go watch and photograph the sunset. We picked a nice hotel that was convenient to the Blue Ridge Parkway because we knew we would be driving on it some.
It was around 6:00pm and sunset would be around 7:30pm so we decided to get on the parkway and see where we ended up. We knew we had time for a short hike, and we knew what the roadside overlooks had to offer. But on this afternoon we wanted something different.
So Fryingpan Mountain Tower it was. An iconic spot along the parkway that we had passed many times before.
The trail is 1.5 miles roundtrip and is really a gravel road that leads to the tower which was used as a lookout for forest fires. It’s 70 feet tall and was built in 1941.
The trail was uphill for the most part. Along the way it was all wooded. There’s a sharp turn about halfway and then you can start to see the tower. There’s a final uphill climb at the end and then you’ve reached the top.
We passed a few people on the trail, and once we got to the top there really wasn’t that many people around. It seemed like most of them were starting to leave. So we ended up having the tower to ourselves for most of the time. Kyle went up first. It took me a little longer to decide if I really wanted to climb this thing. Usually I’m up for anything, but the wind was making the tower a little shaky and I wasn’t really sure about that at first. He took my camera up and started taking pictures while I watched from below. Eventually I decided that the whole reason for the walk was to climb the tower and see the views so up I went.
And the views didn’t disappoint. From the first steps, the 360 degree views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway begin.
We have been by here many times when on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but finally getting the opportunity to come to the top was really fun.
Golden hour is definitely the perfect time to be up top. That golden light made for some neat pictures of the tower.
Once the sun had set and blue hour began we started finishing up our time there.
It was getting chilly and we wanted to get back to the car before it was completely dark.
Luckily the walk back is downhill and not very far.
If you find yourself close to Asheville and looking for somewhere to watch and photograph the sunset we highly recommended Fryingpan Lookout Tower. It’s a little less than an hour from Asheville and there’s beautiful scenery along the way. The drive takes you by Mount Pisgah, one of the prettiest spots along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Once we got back to Asheville we were starving and it was getting late. We stopped in at the Village Wayside restaurant located in the old Southern Railway passenger depot in the Biltmore Village. Afterwards we went back to our hotel for the night to rest up for the next day.