Trip Report.

Day 1/9: Lookout Road Trip 2023

We turned right on NF-21 from the Aldrich Mountain (post) road to continue through the forest to Fall Mountain. This lookout is a rental and we figured we would see people while visiting. The NF-21 road is paved and follows along Murder’s Creek for most of the way. It turned to gravel with washboard once we left the forest boundary and it became a county road. We came out to a junction with CR-63 at the community of Logdell and turned left. We were only on this road for a short while before taking another left onto Geary Creek Road. This is the back way to Fall Mountain since most people come from John Day and HWY-395. The Geary Creek Road forked once we entered the forest again to NF-333 and NF-4920. The NF-333 road is deceiving and looks like the main road, but we turned left to continue onto NF-4920. The NF-4920 road will take you all the way to the NF-067 spur and continues down to HWY-395 where most people access it. It was a decent road in both directions albeit a bit less used from the way we came.

I had it in my mind for some reason that the spur road to the lookout was in bad condition and we decided to park at the junction to walk the remaining distance. It always feels like a weird move to drive up to a rental anyway. The road is just shy of one mile and my Stava app calculated it at 0.93 miles with 396′ of elevation gain. We realized quickly the road was definitely drivable to the Civic with only a few sections that might give the lower clearance some trouble. The walk was worth it though since we saw two Pileated Woodpeckers that we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. This would be a theme for the trip, we’d continue to see a ton more woodpeckers and do a ton more road walking.

Once at the fire lookout we were surprised to see no vehicle onsite. The renters must have cancelled, gotten lost, or were driving from a very far distance. The sun was already starting to set and it was a Saturday after all. When I had checked the reservations prior to our trip it had been completely reserved. We’ve been lucky this year, so far, to visit a few rentable lookouts without the renters. It was odd that no one was here, but we were happy to not have to worry about intruding on anyone’s space. It gave us time to enjoy the sunset before heading back to the car. We weren’t sure where we were going to camp for the night and hadn’t seen any dispersed spots along this road yet. We headed down via NF-4920 towards HWY-395. We opted to camp at the Starr Campground where HWY-395 and NF-4920 meet. There were only a couple other campers here on a weekend and we had our pick of the spots. We did pass one dispersed spot back along the road but it sounded easier to utilize the picnic tables at the campground after a long day of driving.

History.

The lookout on Fall Mountain was constructed in 1933 and still stands today. I found some conflicting information online about the style of the tower and found it hard to determine which is the most accurate. Ron Kemnow’s site lists that it was originally built as an Aladdin Jr. 14’x14′ cab on a native round timber tower. It was accompanied by an Aladdin style 16’x18′ wood framed garage. A structural inspection done in 1968 noted the tower height at 30′ and that the legs had been replaced around 1954. Other sites note the cab as a 14’x14′ L-4 style. The NHLR and Forest Service note the tower height at 18′ but Rex’s site mentions that it is a 15′ pole tower. It is currently apart of the rental program, but it is unclear when it was added.