Trip Report.

Continuing on from Lake O’ Woods, we followed NF-33 up and over Agness Pass until it turned into pavement again. We stayed on the pavement until we passed the turn for Rock Creek Campground, NF-3347, off to the left. Our turn for NF-3348 was immediately after this on the right hand side. If you reach Island Campground, you’ve gone too far. But, more than likely, unless you plan to follow our route through the forest you will be accessing Bald Knob from Powers, OR. That means the road will be on the left hand side just after the Island Campground instead. The NF-3348 road is also paved and in decent condition, minus a few land slides partially covering sections of the road. There was enough room to maneuver around them without any issues. We turned onto the first major road off to the right, NF-5520. This was just past the trailhead for Coquille River Falls. We stayed on this road for a little over a mile and took another right onto NF-020. This road would take us the remaining 3 miles to the lookout or at least the gate for it. A good portion of NF-020 drives through private property, so be mindful of that when visiting. The road was narrow and didn’t offer much room for pull outs due to overgrown and brushy sides. Thankfully we didn’t meet any oncoming traffic here either. The roads were a bit rocky too, but nothing unmanageable in the Civic. It’s pretty obvious which sections are private given the clear cuts and lack of older trees.

We passed an open gate after re-entering the forest that made us think it was left open by renters. There wasn’t anywhere to pull out, so we continued farther up the road until we found a good spot to stop without blocking the road. We didn’t want to drive all the way up if someone was staying here especially since it was getting later in the evening. We started walking up the road and figured we had to be fairly close to the fire lookout. That was until we rounded a corner and found a more robust gate that was closed. This was the actual gate for the lookout. We assumed the first gate we passed was an older one that was used back when the fire lookout was actively staffed. There was a pull out before the gate that we briefly debated camping at for the night. Garnet offered to go back to get the car, but we ultimately decided it was too sloped for camping. We continued closer to the gate until we noticed the trailhead off to the left for the Panther Ridge Trail #1253. There was a nice flat parking area with enough room for a camp. We hadn’t seen any camp spots on our drive here and decided this was worth going back to get the car. There were some pull outs along the road we could have made work in a pinch for the night, but this was a much better option. Garnet graciously ran back to get the car before we made the final walk up to Bald Knob. While I was waiting I heard people talking in the distance, I assumed this must have been the renters staying at the lookout for the night. It didn’t take long for Garnet to retrieve the car.

We decided to set up camp after we continued our hike up the road. It was only a half of a mile from the gate to the summit. When we finally saw the lookout I was confused. It was still completely closed up for the season. I guess that is a better outcome than skirting around renters, but who did I hear talking earlier?? I never was able to figure that out. While we were taking pictures we discovered the trap door to the catwalk was unlocked and decided to get a better view. It looked like someone had been up here this year to paint some of the siding. We speculated they must have been doing some updates and maintenance before they opened it to renters for the season. We hung out on the catwalk for awhile since we knew we no longer had to search for a camp and it was only a short walk back to the car. We decided to take advantage of the service we had from here and ordered some items from the REI Memorial Sale. We don’t normally online shop while visiting fire lookouts, but we had talked about getting another camp table and knew the sale would be over before we had service again.

Our plan for the next day had been to move camps again to visit Eden Ridge, but both of us had noticed our gas level was a little lower than expected by the time we reached Bald Knob. Normally, we fill up before entering the forest or bring a gas can if we know we will be driving around more than usual between towns. We failed to do either of those things this time. I had filled the tank in Brookings before we headed to Quail Prairie at the beginning of our trip, but I should have refilled again in Gold Beach. There was plenty of gas in the tank to get us out of the forest from where we currently were. There was also enough to definitely get us to Eden Ridge the next day as well. The gamble would have been if we had enough gas to get to Eden Ridge and then back out. I’m not afraid of a little risk taking but this one didn’t sit right with me. It’s possible everything would have been fine but if we were wrong the outcome would be costly. There was no in between. We decided to spend our last day in the area around Bald Knob instead. We had a slower morning around camp and then hiked a little way along the Panther Ridge Trail #1253. This is definitely a little used trail and is slowly becoming a lost trail. While hiking a section that crossed the private property we missed a turn to stay on the actual trail. We ended up following an old road bed that we thought was the trail until it spit us out on NF-020. We were able to confirm this was the NF-020 road from a bearing tree. Once we realized our mistake we decided to accept defeat by hiking back up the road to our camp. It was an overall successful trip minus a few early season mistakes.

History.

The first structure was built on Bald Knob in 1914 as a simple shake shelter to house the lookout. A more robust building was added in 1918 after the shelter kept getting broken into during the winter by hunters. A gable roofed L-4 style lookout was built on the summit in 1931. It served as an Aircraft Warning Station from 1942 to 1943 during World War II. They added a small cabin during that time for the observers to live in. The lookout was badly damaged during the Columbus Day Hurricane in 1962. It was replaced the following year with the existing lookout which is a 20′ tower with R-6 cab. It is now a part of the recreation rental program. It is unclear on when they stopped staffing this lookout and added it to the program. A fire detection camera was added to the site in 2010.