Noticed the old fire towers along the AT are starting to disappear

I was hiking a section in Virginia last fall and realized three towers I remembered from ten years ago are just gone now. They used to be reliable spots to stop and get your bearings. I heard the Forest Service stopped maintaining them around 2012. Anyone know if there's a list of which ones are still standing?

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jennifer3582mo ago

Yeah the Forest Service basically pulled the plug on them years ago, which is classic government efficiency right there. I tried finding a list of remaining towers last summer and found like three different outdated PDFs that all contradicted each other. So basically just get out there and hope they're still standing until the day they're not, I guess. Kinda feels like we're losing part of the trail's history one rotten beam at a time.

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ryan9522mo ago

@jennifer358 wait, they actually pulled the plug on all of them? that's wild.

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