NOTICE: As of July 22, 2024 this area is currently closed due to the active Boneyard Fire.

Trip Report.

Day 8/9: Lookout Road Trip 2023

We headed back to NF-24 from Tamarack Mountain (post) and turned right to continue through the forest. We stayed on NF-24 until we reached NF-180 off to the right. We decided to park here to wait out the heat of the day. Ant Hill was only a little bit farther up the road, but it was so hot that the air was thick with heat even in the shade. We ate lunch and killed time by napping in our camp chairs or reading until we could feel the day starting to cool down. We walked the remaining distance up NF-180 to the junction with the decommissioned road NF-182. You could easily drive to this junction as well, the road is in decent condition. There is no sign at the NF-182 junction to indicate the turn besides a “closed to all motorized equipment” sign and a post with rocks. It’ll be off to the right once the road starts to curve and opens up to a view. The NF-182 road is closed to motorized traffic and you will need to walk from here. Though there is no gate or berm to stop someone from driving up. We could see tire tracks leading up the road despite the sign. Obviously, don’t be those people. No one likes those kinds of people. The NF-182 road will wind you around until you reach the summit of Ant Hill. There are no views from the summit except for just below it on the road. From where we parked our car at the junction with NF-180 and NF-24, the Strava app calculated the road walk at 1.30 miles RT with 136′ elevation gain.

Day 9/9: We drove home without incident. This trip might not have gone as smoothly as we initially hoped, but we still successfully made it to all our destinations with only a few additional scrapes added to the car. Somewhere along the way I visited my 100th fire lookout as well. I can’t say for sure which one it was since it’s dependent on your definition of an official fire lookout. One could make arguments for or against some of the ones I have listed and for that reason I am not going to claim one specific lookout as my official 100th visited. We can celebrate once I reach my 100th visited in Oregon, but even that might come with a few asterisks in place.

History.

The first lookout structure was built on the summit in 1935. It was a pole timber tower between 16′ to 24′ with an L-4 cab. I’m unsure of the exact height. It is listed on the Former Fire Lookout Site register due to the tower being dismantled and removed in 1956. I personally would consider this an existing lookout site due to the 10′ open platform tower that still stands today. There is no information on when this structure was built or if it was utilized for fire detection. The only mention of it I could find was on the geocache site. It states this structure was built from recycled material of the previous lookout. It reminds me of the lookout structures utilized on Green Butte (post) and Craft Point (post).