Fire Tower of the Week: Dickinson Hill Fire Tower

This week's fire tower is Dickinson Hill Fire Tower on Dickinson Hill, in Grafton, Rensselaer County.

At a glance

• Elevation: 1,760 feet
• Round trip: 2.7 miles
• Difficulty: Easy to moderate (about 1.3 mi each way from North Long Pond Road; roughly 200 ft gain, sources vary)
• Trailhead: Recommended: parking area along seasonal-dirt North Long Pond Road (just north of where Fire Tower Road meets it), in Grafton Lakes State Park; from there about 1.2 miles up the rough Fire Tower Road (via the Long Pond and Fire Tower Connector trails) to the service-road gate, then a final ~750 ft up the service road to the tower (roughly 200 ft total gain by terrain data; sources vary). Alternative: drive Fire Tower Road from County Route 87 to the service-road gate at 42.79517, -73.41300 (N42 47.710 W73 24.780), but parking there is very limited.

Dickinson Hill Fire Tower — the last fire tower in Rensselaer County, just east of Grafton Lakes State Park, about 2.75 miles northeast of the hamlet of Grafton. A 60-ft Aermotor LS40 erected by the Conservation Commission in 1924 to watch the forests around the Tomhannock Reservoir (the City of Troy water supply, which is why Troy helped fund it). Last staffed in the early 1970s (sources give 1972 and 1974) and later held by the NY State Police as a radio repeater. The Friends of Grafton Lakes State Park agreed in 2010 to restore it; work began in May 2011 and the tower reopened to the public on June 25, 2012. Now on the National Historic Lookout Register and OPEN to the public. The summit is wooded — there are no views except from the 60-ft cab, which gives a spectacular sweep: the Adirondacks, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Taconic Range along the NY/MA line to the east, and the Helderbergs to the south and west. A picnic table sits in the clearing by the tower. Managed by NYS Parks (Grafton Lakes State Park); no DEC GeoPDF. Open year-round. Firsthand color (Walking Man 24/7, 2021): an easy walk east on an old, largely level abandoned town road, with old stone walls near the park boundary and fire-tower interpretive signage along the way; snowmobile-packed in winter. The cab view is a full 360 degrees — Washington County and the distant southern Adirondacks to the north, the Taconic ridgeline (and a State Police communications tower) to the east, southern Vermont to the northeast, and the Catskills to the southwest on a clear day. Long Pond, just past the lot, makes a short add-on.

Bring a layer, since it's always colder and windier at the top, and stay off the tower in thunderstorms.

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