Trip Report.

Day 3/9: Lookout Road Trip 2023

We continued our drive along HWY-26 heading east until we reached the Austin Junction with HWY-7. We turned left onto HWY-7 for a short time before making another left turn onto CR-20, Middle Fork Road. If you follow the signs for Bates State Park, you’ll head in the right direction. We briefly stopped at the campground to refill our water reservoirs and rinse off some of our sweat from the hike up to Dixie Butte (post). We continued on CR-20 until we passed the rentable Sunshine Guard station. The turn for NF-45 is only a little ways after this off to the right. There is a sign here that noted Indian Rock L.O. at 15 miles away. The rain had been heavy up until we made our turn onto NF-45. Once we started gaining elevation it cleared off to a nice view. The NF-45 road is in great condition but narrow. You wouldn’t want to meet someone heading down in some of the sections. There are two more signs for Indian Rock along the NF-45 road at the junctions with NF-4560 and NF-4550. Both note the lookout at 8 miles away. I’m not sure which one is the most accurate though since we weren’t tracking the mileage on the odometer. As you get closer to the lookout you will start to see signs of the 2022 Crockets Knob Fire. We stayed on NF-45 all the way to the junction with NF-537 off to the right. There is a sign for Indian Rock L.O. at this junction as well that states there’s only 2 more miles to go. We set up camp for the night instead of continuing all the way to the lookout, but it would be our first stop in the morning.

The NF-537 road is also in good condition with 6 water bars to bump over. There was only one section that had some rutting due to drivers using it in wet conditions. There’s a campground just below the lookout, Head O’ Boulder campground, that offers 3 or so camp spots with picnic tables, fire rings, and a vault toilet. There is also a trailhead here that branches into a few different trails that lead into the Vinegar Hill-Indian Rock Scenic Area. Fun fact: we had attempted to visit Indian Rock once before during a camping trip to the Vinegar Hill area in August 2020. I wasn’t convinced that we would make it up the NF-45 road and we attempted to access it via one of the trails instead. Looking at the map now, I’m not even sure which trailhead we were trying to reach. We somehow ended up on the wrong road just below the one we needed and tried to cross country hike to the trailhead. It was very close on the map, but the going was steep and in between was a thicket of lodgepole. Needless to say we didn’t even make it to the trailhead. We stopped at the campground to have breakfast bars and watch the birds since we were still a bit early for a reasonable visiting hour. This is an actively staffed lookout and should only be visited during working hours if possible. We waited until just before 9AM to drive the remaining distance up NF-537 to the base of the trail. It’s only a 0.2 mile hike with 128′ of elevation gain to the lookout according to Strava. As we were prepping for the short hike up, we could hear the lookout attendant yelling for their dog. Before we knew it we were greeted by a very large white, black and grey speckled dog. He was excited to see us and very friendly. He led us up the trail only stopping a few times to block the way for us to pet him. Occasionally, he grabbed my hand with his mouth as if to hold hands and direct me. All the while his owner was calling for him to return. He didn’t pay her any mind until we got closer and she started heading down the trail to grab him. She wasn’t very happy with her dog. She mentioned she wasn’t even on the clock yet and still trying to have breakfast when he took off down the trail. We felt terrible that we arrived too early even though she said we were fine.

We decided to give her some space to finish breakfast and hiked the rocky ridge out to an overlook point. We spent time picking out surrounding peaks and different fire lookouts we could see from the area. Eventually, we headed back towards the lookout to take some more pictures before heading on. The lookout attendant came out to greet us this time and wanted a redo from our previous interaction. She apologized for possibly coming off rude earlier and for her dog. We apologized for coming too early as well. Everyone agreed no apologies were needed though. We talked for a long time, almost 3 hours, with the lookout about her history in fire lookouts, the different places she’s lived, her rescue animals, and stories of the area. If you’re lucky, you might even get a chance to see the resident mountain goats that frequent the area. They weren’t there during our visit, but she pointed out the damage they had done to her catwalk. She talked about the 2022 Crockets Knob Fire and how close it came to her tower last year. I was surprised to learn she was able to come back to finish off her season in September after it had been mostly contained. This fire was also the reason the road had been in such good condition. They already had all the equipment onsite for the fire and decided to do the much needed road maintenance while they had the time. I guess prior to this it was a long rocky road that took an hour and a half to drive even in a truck. It’s a good thing we didn’t attempt to drive it in 2020. She also talked about how lookouts will stay on the same fire lookout when they feel they have found their mountain. Indian Rock was her mountain and she believed Stacy on Dixie Butte (post) had also found her mountain there. She reconfirmed that no one was staffing Mt. Ireland (post) for the season yet, but they hoped a previous long term staffer might return in the future. We eventually had to find a break in the conversation since we still needed to pack up our camp and head on to Desolation Butte (post). It was already past noon and we needed to hurry if we wanted to stay on schedule. We thanked her for her time and headed on to our next destination.

Lookout Karen.

Karen has been the lookout attendant on Indian Rock for the last 7 seasons. She is accompanied by her three rescue dogs Yurik, Atlas, and Max. She’s originally from Florida but has lived in many different places such as California, Wyoming, and Oregon. The first lookout she staffed was Indian Mountain which she only staffed for 1 season. She also staffed another lookout in the black hills of Wyoming for 11 seasons. If I remember correctly, this was the Cement Ridge lookout.

History.

The first structure built on Indian Rock was a D-6 cupola style cabin in 1929. This stood for many years until it was replaced in 1957 by the existing lookout. The existing lookout is considered a wooden R-6 flattop ground cab and still stands today. It is actively staffed every season. The lookout was threatened by the Crockets Knob Fire in August 2022 and had to be wrapped in heat resistant fabric. It survived with minimal damage.