Hello fellow lookout enthusiasts, staffers, or readers alike;

It is nearing the end of 2025 and has been a while since I have posted on here. For lack of better words I have simply fallen behind. The reality is, despite being busy in many different ways, I have lacked motivation to write. I do plan on completing my backlog and I know there are no expectations for my own blog, but the longer I sit on it the less useful the information becomes. Anyway this is all just a quick post to say – hi, hello – I am still here and see that there is still traffic on this page.

A small update on this last season. We didn’t visit as many fire lookouts within our own state, but have found ourselves at more former sites than previous years. They can be just as interesting to us and tend to still have a decent view. One of our longer trips was a 10-day 1,768 mile road trip around Minnesota which consisted of visiting 23 fire lookouts within the state. That trip made up the bulk of the fire lookouts we have visited this year. Our second longer trip was an 8-day 50 mile backpacking loop through the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We did manage to check off some harder to reach lookouts in Oregon via backpacking trips, specifically Pearsoll and Mule Peak.

What’s to come in 2026? Only the forest service roads can tell us for sure. We are planning on a 2-week road trip but haven’t settled on which states or parks that will include yet. We are still in the speculative stage of planning beyond the dates. More than likely it will expand our fire lookout scope to another state but that is not the sole purpose of the trip. we will still continue to chip away at fire lookouts here locally but there are less and less every year.

I am most active on Instagram for now under the handle @takeahikedani if you want more day to day updates on where we have been recently.

I am also happy to stay connected via e-mail – especially if you notice any discrepancies of information, have condition updates, recommendations, or have questions on fire lookouts we have visited (e-mail: sullivan.danielle@yahoo.com).

Wishing everyone a happy holidays and new year!

-Danielle