Fremont National Forest

Bald Mountain L.O.

Oregon Lookouts

Location.

Fremont-Winema National Forest

Status.

Active; Currently standing

Estimated drive time from Portland, OR.

5 hours

Date visited.

June 30, 2022

Elevation.

7,396′

National Historic Lookout Register.

Yes

Trip Report.

Day 6/10: Lookout Road Trip 2022

My partner and I packed up to head towards Bald and Walker Mountain for the day. If we finished early enough, we planned to head into the Umpqua NF for our final leg of the trip. We weren’t in as big of a rush this morning since we were only a few miles from Bald Mountain already. We didn’t want to arrive too early and disturb the lookout attendant. We were already situated off of NF-2516 and headed farther north towards the NF-036 spur. The road briefly passes through a section of private residence before re-entering the forest. It was good that we hadn’t tried to find a camp even closer to the lookout the night before. Where we had stopped turned out to be our best option. The forest had turned into another thicket of Lodgepole Pine once we passed through the private area. It was so thick in sections that it felt like we were walled in by trees on both sides. The NF-2516 road is well maintained gravel all the way from Silver Lake Road to HWY-31. From NF-2516, we turned left onto NF-036. If you’re coming from HWY-31, it will be off to the right. We were able to drive all the way up to the gate in my Civic. The NF-036 spur is soft and dusty, but passable. The gate is just after a tight switchback in the road which offers enough room for parking a few cars. We pulled into a pull out just before the gate and prepared to walk. We always like to make sure that we’re not blocking the gate and pulled far enough off the road for additional vehicles to pass. Normally, we don’t meet any traffic in these areas but you never know. This proved to be in good practice since we ended up having a large propane truck drive up during our visit. This only happens every few years to refill the tanks on the summit.

From the gate, it is another mile of road walking to the lookout. This was a pleasant morning walk to the summit. The road starts to open up to views before you reach the lookout and is lined with a variety of trees. We were able to locate White Bark Pine, Ponderosa Pine, and Lodgepole Pine. When we reached the summit we could hear the lookout attendant talking to someone on the phone. We figured Ed mentioned to them that we would be visiting, but didn’t want to assume at the same time. We decided to take photos around the base of the lookout and take in the view while we waited. Eventually, the lookout attendant was finished with their call and came out on the catwalk to greet us. Similar to our interaction on Sugarpine, he asked if Ed sent us and we asked if he was Ron. It felt like we were getting passed along on a fun field trip of the area from one lookout attendant to the next. Ron invited us to join him on the catwalk and gave us a brief history of the tower. He was very gregarious and had a lot of knowledge about the surrounding forest. He mentioned he had just wrote a book about forest management and it’s relationship with fires. It’s called Axe-It First. This is why he was on the phone when we arrived. It was published that morning and he had been thanking those that assisted him in the process. We all talked for a long time, 2 hours to be exact, about our current state of things and what needs to change for things to get better. He realized quickly he was preaching to the choir. Ron had many stories to share and was happy to share them with us. So much so that it was hard to find a break in the conversation to even leave. His wife eventually called him and he had to step away to answer. We thanked him for his time and said our good-byes. We wanted to visit for longer, but we knew we needed to keep moving if we wanted to make it to Walker Mountain and the Umpqua NF.

Lookout Ron Rommel

Ron Rommel was born in 1950 and is currently 71-years old. He’s originally from Portland, but currently resides in a community just outside of La Pine. His background is in Forestry and he used to do tree inventory for the Forest Service. He has also worked in manufacturing and has a business degree. He has been a lookout on Bald Mountain for 4 seasons and is employed through the Walker Range FPA. Ron currently works the lookout on Wednesdays and Thursdays. He said he started staffing the lookout when his friend asked if he knew anyone who could help his wife out. She had been staffing the lookout for 30-days straight with no relief. Ron was interested and offered to help. When he first started, it was just the two of them alternating. The lookout is now staffed by three different people. He has communication with 7 different lookouts from Bald Mountain; Odell Butte, Sugarpine Mountain, Round Mountain, Hager Mountain, Green Mountain, Spring Butte, and East Butte. He published his book, Axe-It First, on June 30th. It is what he dubbed a call to action for our government and general population on our current fire management. Although I haven’t read it yet, it is on its way in the mail. I promised him I would help spread the word.

History.

Bald Mountain, also known as Baldy, was first scoped for a fire site in 1907 when they planned on building a trail to the summit. In 1918, a telephone line was strung to the summit where they planned to add an observation station and firefinder. In 1927, they finished building a road on the mountain. A year later they constructed a 40′ steel tower with 12×12 live-in cab. This was a unique design from Aermotor and only a few were constructed like it. In 1941, they removed the old lookout and replaced it with the current one that stands today. It is a classic L-4 cab with treated timber tower and stands just below 30′. This site was originally managed by the Klamath FPA, then the Forest Service, and now the Walker Range FPA. It is still actively staffed every season.

Bear Butte L.O.

Oregon Lookouts

Location.

Fremont-Winema National Forest

Status.

Abandoned; Currently standing

Estimated drive time from Portland, OR.

5-hours

Date visited.

June 29, 2022

Elevation.

5,527′

National Historic Lookout Register.

Yes

Trip Report.

Day 5/10: Lookout Road Trip 2022

From Sugarpine Mountain, we continued southeast on NF-86 until we reached NF-76. This road is also considered County Road 676 or Silver Lake Road. We turned left towards the community of Silver Lake and stayed on this road until we could visibly see Bear Butte. The roads off to the left before you reach butte are not marked. You will need to turn left on to one of these roads before your pass the butte. There should be a road that parallels NF-76 and has two different access points. It can be hard to see and we had to turn around to make sure we were picking the right roads. Once the road turns away from NF-76, you will want to take a right at the second un-marked road. This road should take you to a large cinder pit with a view of the lookout. We ended up parking at the junction with this road and walking to the cinder pit. I personally didn’t feel like running into any additional road surprises for the day.

There are no formal trails to take you to the summit, so from here you will have to get creative. We headed to the right of the cinder pit and gradually climbed the slope at an angle. Eventually, we met up with the old road bed that used to circle the butte and followed it to a communication tower. Unfortunately, I don’t do well in soft terrain or rock scrambles. I accepted that this was most likely as close as I’ll ever be to Bear Butte L.O. and let my partner continue on without me. From the communication tower, he headed straight up the slope. He said he was able to find an old game trail from here that led to the rocky top. There are no longer any stairs to get to the structure and you will have to rock scramble the remainder of the way.

After we slid our way back down the side of Bear Butte, we continued east on Silver Lake Road. We re-entered the forest by turning right on to NF-2516 just past Antelope Flat. We were able to find a small camp a little ways down this road in a nice grove of Ponderosa Pine. This road would take us all the way to the needed spur for Bald Mountain in the morning.

Pictures of Bear Butte cab courtesy of my partner

History.

Bear Butte was established as a lookout site in 1930 with a cabin stationed below and a firefinder set atop the butte. In 1949, a 9×9 wooden lookout cab was added to the summit. It was abandoned in 1966 when state radios were placed on Yamsay Mountain and Bald Mountain. It’s in bad shape, but has been standing strong for 70+ years.

Horsefly Mountain L.O.

Oregon Lookouts

Location.

Fremont-Winema National Forest

Status.

Active; Currently standing

Estimated drive time from Portland, OR.

6-1/2 hours

Date visited.

June 28, 2022

Elevation.

6,466′

National Historic Lookout Register.

Yes

Trip Report.

Day 4/10: Lookout Road Trip 2022

We started our morning on Dog Mountain and woke up a little after the sun had rose. It’s hard to sleep in when you’re on a mountain side with the sun in your face. We would be moving farther north today and needed to get up anyway. We packed the car and sleepily rolled our way down the mountain. We headed back out to Bly the same way we had came the day before and proceeded on to Horsefly Mountain. There was a brief pit stop at the Bly Ranger Station again to see if their water spigots were on. Unfortunately, they were not. We had checked a few State Parks and County Parks on our way to Dog Mountain the day before as well, but all were off. Our next planned water refill wasn’t until 3 to 4 days from now in a completely different National Forest. After researching online, we realized the entire Klamath County had been declared in a state of emergency due to drought. This declaration prompted the county to restrict public access by shutting off water fill stations to conserve as much water as possible. If we had known before entering the county, we would have had the fore thought to refill at the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument before leaving. Obviously, this is only a minor inconvenience for us to the larger issue at hand. Our solution was to buy 4 gallons of water at the gas station before heading on to our next stop.

I spy no lookout onsite

As the crow flies, Horsefly Mountain is only 9 miles south of the community of Bly. We headed out of downtown Bly via Elder Street and turned left onto NF-3752. Based on the map we planned to take NF-3752 to NF-3815 to NF-011 since it was a mostly four number route. But, the trip reports from Peakbagger had a description of a different route. They mentioned the roads were good via NF-3752 to NF-3814 to NF-105 to NF-3815 to NF-011. If you’ve been on enough Forest Service roads you will know that the rule of thumb is two number roads are great, four number roads are good, and three number roads are trash. Obviously, this isn’t a hard fact but it is a good foundation when looking at routes within the forest. We were wary of the connecting NF-105 route, but turns out luck decided our route for us. As we were heading down NF-3752, we noticed that there were recent heavy equipment tracks along the edges of the road. The road itself seemed to have recently been regraded with only minor rocks and potholes to avoid. Apparently, it was more recently regraded than we thought because we were soon met with the grading machine slowly making it’s way along NF-3752. We were right at the junction with NF-3814 and the grader was blocking the road to continue any farther in the other direction. NF-3814 it is! We drove along this road until we came to the first major road leading off to the left. This was NF-105. There was a sign standing at some point but it is now worn out and on the ground. We were happily surprised to find NF-105 was a decent road and had minimal hazards to avoid. You should be able to reach the gate as along as you keep right at all the junctions along this road. The first junction is with NF-3815 but is unsigned. The second junction is with NF-011 and does have a sign. All the roads ended up being drivable in a low clearance vehicle with minimal caution. From the gate, it is only a few hundred yards to the lookout.

We were once again met with a lookout open for the season, but with no one currently occupying it. We assumed this was a similar situation to Parker Mountain, where we had shown up on their day off or they had yet to start their season. Given the upcoming holiday, we were still a bit surprised. We climbed the tower to get a better view since we couldn’t see anything from the ground. The catwalk was locked up, but we were still able to see a few points of interest between the trees. Our timing on this portion of the trip was a bit flexible. We planned it that way since we weren’t sure how much road walking we would have to do to get to some of these lookouts. Things seemed to be going in our favor, driving wise at least, and we had additional time in the day to move on to the next lookout. We hoped to have similar luck at Calimus Butte.

History.

In 1932, the Klamath FPA built an open platform tower on the southern portion of Horsefly Mountain. This site was built to assist Yainax Butte with cross shot views in their blind spots. It was quickly replaced by a more substantial structure in 1934 by the CCC. The new lookout was a 14×14 L-4 cab with 37′ timber tower and accompanying 16×18 wood framed garage. The current structure was built in 1961 when the previous lookout was considered unsafe for continued use. This lookout is an R-6 cab with 41′ treated timber tower and continues to be staffed every season.

Boys & Girls LOL
Anyone know what this is?

Dog Mountain L.O. (Fremont NF)

Oregon Lookouts

Location.

Fremont-Winema National Forest

Status.

Unknown; Currently standing

Estimated drive time from Portland, OR.

7 hours

Date visited.

June 27, 2022

Elevation.

6,936′

National Historic Lookout Register.

Yes

Trip Report.

Day 3/10: Lookout Road Trip 2022

Our last stop for the day was Dog Mountain L.O. on the Fremont-Winema NF. This is another one we expected to be staffed during our visit. From Bly, you can either cut across the forest via connecting Forest Service roads or take the highway. It seemed that most who visited this lookout previously came in from Lakeview. Some of the trip reports even mentioned it was a good road for low clearance vehicles all the way to the summit. I was skeptical to say the least. I felt the pavement would be the quickest way and we headed out of Bly on HWY-140. There are a few different routes you can take from here. We ended up turning onto Tunnel Hill Road that eventually turned into Westside Road. We stayed on this road until we reached Dog Lake Lane. Take a right. As the name of the road indicates it will take you all the way to Dog Lake. There is a campground and day use area here. You should be able to see the fortress of a lookout from the road as you drive in. Once past the reservoir the road turns to gravel. We turned on the first major gravel road off to the right. This is supposedly NF-3752 but I didn’t see a sign. We briefly stayed on this road and then turned right on to NF-406. I didn’t see a sign for this road either but it appeared to head in the right direction. Some indicators that you’re on the right road; there will be a cattle guard and it will be at a junction with NF-085 off to the left (this road is signed). From this junction, it is about 5-1/2 miles to the summit. The NF-406 road will take you all the way. You will want to bear right when you reach the junction with NF-052 to stay on the correct path. The road is exposed and narrow as it winds up and around. We hoped not to meet anyone on it. There is no gate for this lookout and you can, in fact, drive all the way to the summit. Even in a low clearance vehicle.

There was no other vehicle here and the lookout seemed to still be locked up for the season. We found this odd since most sources noted it as staffed. We looked around through the windows and it was still stocked like a lookout in use. There was a fire finder, desk, and chairs along with some other items that indicated someone had been up there more recently. But, on the other hand, there was a visible Lookout Fire Report sheet that was last used in June 2020, the toilet seat was broken in the privy, and a wood rat had made its home in between one of the shutters. There was also a fire alarm beeping in the living quarters below that needed the batteries changed. Our guess was that it might have been recently moved to emergency status or had a staffing issue. We decided to camp on the summit for the night since no one was there. Someone else drove up a little after we set up our camp. We panicked and thought it might be the lookout attendant, but they was only there with their dog for a brief time and didn’t say a word to us. The views from here were commanding. We could see all the way to Lassen Peak in California. It was one of my favorite camps of the trip.

History.

Dog Mountain started with a simple Alidade and has been used as a lookout site since 1918. Possibly earlier. A standard D-6 cupola cabin wasn’t added until 1926. An accompanying 16×18 wood framed garage was added in 1934 by the local CCC. In 1947, a new 14×14 Aladdin style house was constructed as a lookout with no catwalk. It was maintained into the 1980s. The Forest Service didn’t consider replacing it until an inspection report in 1995. The site was also noted as being used for a long-term weather station. In 1997, the lookout that stands today was built by Hargrove Construction as a replacement. They built a unique 2-story house with living quarters on the first floor and the lookout office with catwalk on the second. It reminds me of a log cabin.