Cowee Bald

After our two waterfall hikes (below) we felt we needed one more short hike to round out the day.   Cowee Bald was a tempting target with it’s prominent location at the north end of the Cowee Mountains and it seemed like it might be a good place to watch the sunset over the Smokies.

Melanie at the Cowee lookout tower
Melanie at the Cowee lookout tower

Forest Service road 70 is the key to getting up Cowee Bald.  It’s sort of hard to find in the maze of roads north of Franklin.  Once found it’s a long way up with some fairly steep gravel grades.  There’s a gate about a half mile from the summit so we parked there and hiked up to the lookout tower which unfortunately was locked halfway up.

View from Cowee Bald
View from Cowee Bald

Due to towers for cell phones, radio transmitters and such the view north is non-existant.   The view in other directions isn’t bad though.  This is looking south towards Franklin, NC. and Dillard, GA.