Trip Report.

Day 5/9: Lookout Road Trip 2023

I got back to the car from our hike up to Mount Ireland (post) much later than my partner. He said he had been waiting for me for close to 40 minutes. I didn’t feel like I was going much slower than normal, but the back to back mileage must have been taking its toll. I felt it mostly on the downhill. We had to rethink our camping plans since the flat area near the trailhead was no longer viable. We decided to start heading towards Johnson Rock (post) and hoped to find a camp along the way. As we were backing out from the trailhead, my car’s heat shield caught on a small tree we had rolled over to get into the spot. This ended up bending it to hang lower than normal which caused us to scrape on the loose bits of gravel on our way out. It has never been the same since our Tower Point incident (post) and has been a reoccurring issue. It’s just a protective plate so it’s not a concern to my car’s functionality, but it is definitely an annoyance that I need to find a better solution for. This is just some of the joys that come with driving a low clearance vehicle to these kinds of places.

We backtracked on NF-73 towards Granite passing the junction to head into the Umatilla NF again. The NF-73 road skirts along the boundary of the Umatilla NF and Wallowa-Whitman NF until it makes a hard right turn to head towards Anthony Lakes. We stayed straight to continue onto NF-52 past the North Fork John Day campground. We briefly debated camping here since it was getting late, but ultimately decided to continue on to find a dispersed spot. A little ways past the campground we came to another junction where NF-52 continued left and NF-51 was to the right. We had planned to take NF-51 to connect to the Johnson Rock road, but we were met with a sign that said “Road Closed 3 Miles Ahead”. We optimistically headed on NF-51 anyway in hopes that it was an old road closure sign. Sure enough though, around the three mile mark, the road was completely closed. We cursed ourselves for not checking on road closures prior to the trip. We decided to pivot our plans to Tower Mountain instead and would check the road status once we had service again. This meant continuing farther on NF-52 until we reached the NF-5226 road. We eventually found a place to camp before the last bit of day light was gone, but we had to set everything up in the dark.

The next morning we headed up NF-5226 and kept our fingers crossed that we would make it all the way to the tower without any road walking. The research I found prior to our trip said that the NF-5226 road was best coming from the south and should be suitable for most. You have the option to access Tower Mountain and NF-5226 from HWY-244 in the north, but it is a much longer route. There is also access via a hiking trail, Tower Mountain Trail #3156, through the North Fork of the John Day wilderness that starts from the NF-52 road. The Wandering Yuncks have a trip report from June 2021 that describes the conditions of the trail in detail (post). We caught glimpses of the tower and where we were headed as we drove along NF-5226. It was a mostly decent road with only a few bumps, ruts, and narrow sections to mind. We parked at the junction where the road leads to the cabin and tower to walk the remaining distance.

We could see someone looking out of the tower from where we parked. Garnet had been in contact with the lookout attendant, Mike, prior to our visit via a group chat. He was aware we’d be coming within the next couple of days. We were a day early though given our change in plans. He gave us a wave as we started to walk towards the tower and asked if we were planning on coming up. We both said yes and started up the stairs. Half way up the tower I got a bit squeamish of the height and decided to take pictures around the base instead. Garnet ended up talking to Mike for well over an hour. I had been waiting at the base checking updates on my phone, but the service was slow and spotty. Eventually, I decided to suck it up and make the final push to the top of the tower. When I reached the cab, Mike said I looked like I was doing well for someone afraid of heights. It wasn’t so bad once I finally got up there, but it’s more a fear of falling than being high up. I didn’t ask as many questions as I normally would since I wasn’t sure what they had already talked about and I didn’t want to make him repeat himself. We asked if he knew about the NF-51 road closure, but he didn’t. He reached out to John, who is currently staffing Johnson Rock (post), but he wasn’t sure if the road was closed before or after the turn off from the north end. There was a wash out somewhere along the NF-51 road with some helicopter activity on the Grande Ronde. We were able to ask him about the road conditions and he said it depended on how adventurous we were. He said the worst of it was within the last 2 miles. He suggested calling the Ranger Station in La Grande to confirm access. While we were still visiting with Mike, a fire crew drove up and the foreman climbed the tower. It’s a pretty tight fit to have four adults in an Aermotor cab. She climbed to ask Mike about the trees that needed to be removed around the tower. They were going to replace the communication tower for the lookout and needed to clear a path for the equipment. We took that as our cue to head out and thanked Mike for his time.

Lookout Mike.

Mike Duffy has been a lookout on Tower Mountain for 14 non-consecutive seasons. He has also worked on Madison and Desolation Butte. He keeps in contact with Table Rock, Desolation Butte, and Indian Rock during his season. He is gregarious and will invite most people up for a chat in the tower if they are willing to make the climb. The area gets a lot of visitors due to the extensive ATV trails in the vicinity. His most asked question is about the wildlife he sees in the area. The most unique animal he has seen from the tower is a Lynx.

History.

The existing fire lookout on Tower Mountain is a 92′ Aermotor with 7’x7′ steel cab and was built in 1935. The living quarters were moved from the Lucky Strike lookout site sometime in the late 1940s. Prior to its move, the ground cabin was built on the Lucky Strike site in 1936. The surrounding area was burned by the 1996 Tower Complex that threatened the lookout, but was saved due to the efforts of our Wildland Fire Crews. Rex’s website also mentions there being a previous fire lookout on the summit in the 1920s. It states that this was a 60′ pole tower with 6’x6′ cab. This wasn’t mentioned anywhere else to confirm. He also states that Tower Mountain used to be Lookout Mountain until it was renamed in 1925. I wasn’t able to confirm this anywhere else either, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true. There is a Lookout Mountain in every forest, if not multiple.