SUMMARY of BOOK
The book tells the story of each mountain fire tower in the words of the fire observers who staffed them. Some observers have died, of course, as the first fire towers were constructed in the early part of the 20th century. Spouses, relatives, friends and forest rangers were also interviewed for this book. The author spent many months of traveling throughout the Adirondack mountains tracing down the people who worked on the fire towers, who lived in the cabins on the summits (the observers) and the forest rangers who oversaw the observers and helped with trail conditions or fire tower maintenance.
MY THOUGHTS
This is a well developed history book of the fire towers that are in the southern district of the Adirondacks. Most of them I have climbed. Several of them are no longer standing. None are in operation any longer as planes and other technology have taken over observing for fires in the forest. The towers that still stand are reachable by hiking trails (most of them). Some of the mountains are well worth climbing even if the fire tower has been removed.
Because I completed the fire tower challenge in 2015 ( I began hiking it in about 2003) I climbed up 18 out of 25 Adirondack fire towers (Not all are listed in this particular history book), and I climbed all 5 of the Catskill Mountains fire towers that were part of the challenge and that are located south of our capital city (about an hour - 2 hours south from my house) this book was very interesting to me because I enjoy learning about the history of what I have climbed.
In my opinion this book is appropriate for any age above a 6th grade reading level.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate this a 10.
4 comments:
Hi Faith. Sounds like a very interesting book, especially since you climbed most of them. Hope you have a good weekend. :-)
A very interesting book! I climbed a fire tower near Cobleskill when I was in my 20s. Never did any hiking though. I remember the Adirondacks as beautiful. I've always loved the mountains and love living at the foothills of the Smokies here in TN.
Neat!!
That would be an interesting book especially because of the very fact that you have hiked to and climbed a lot of them.
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