Up Up Lookout

July 17-20, 2020

Our stay at Up Up Lookout in Montana’s Lolo National Forest was originally supposed to be the first part of a longer trip that included Missoula, backpacking in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and visiting both Glacier and Waterton National Parks. And then the pandemic hit. We decided a busy national park was not a good idea this summer, and it turned out that the entire east side of the park (which was the only part we had planned on visiting) was closed anyway. We had also planned to cross into Canada to visit Waterton Lakes National Park, and we obviously couldn’t do that. We scrapped nearly our entire itinerary, but since the Forest Service didn’t cancel our lookout reservation, we incorporated that into a revised trip.

Up Up Lookout

On Friday we drove to the lookout from Portland and arrived just before sunset. After exiting the freeway and driving 11 miles on forest roads, there is a gate about three miles before the lookout, although OHVs have created a big detour through the forest to get around the gate. (We would read in the logbook that previous renters had a lot of problems with unwelcome visitors driving in.)

Gate

The parking area below the lookout:

Parking area

We were delighted to discover a nice picnic table and fire ring here. This was most welcome since we planned to do all our cooking down by the car instead of lugging our stove, food, water, pots, utensils, etc. up the tower.

Picnic area

Picnic table

The toilet is just down the road a short ways:

Toilet

From the parking area there’s a nice path:

Path

Then some stairs:

Stairs

And of course more stairs to the top of the 40′ tower:

Morning light

Up Up Lookout

Up Up Lookout

The inside of the cabin was REALLY nice. They did a restoration a few years ago and everything was in really great shape. The furniture was all beautifully finished and the paint on the cabin wasn’t chipped and peeling like it is at many lookouts.

Inside

Inside

Inside

Inside

The bed is a single but there were cots available so we set one of those up, although it was quite tricky to figure out:

Cot

We were dismayed to see that someone had vandalized the railing outside the front door:

Vandalism

It’s always cool when the old firefinder is still in place:

Firefinder

There are views in all directions. South:

View from Up Up Lookout

Looking west:

Looking west

Looking east:

View to the east

Looking north:

Looking north

We decided to have a small campfire the final night:

Campfire

We saw some nice sunsets during out stay, especially the last night:

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

When I made this reservation in January I picked dates that worked, which just happened to coincide with a new moon. Always nice when that happens since it means good star-gazing. The fact that Comet NEOWISE was visible was a big bonus:

Comet NEOWISE

Comet NEOWISE

Starry Skies

Starry Skies

Milky Way

The lookout had these very nice gas lamps that gave a cozy glow:

Light

Numerous people mentioned in the logbook about seeing wildlife around the lookout. Several people mentioned seeing moose! We only saw birds and a golden mantled ground squirrel. We very much enjoyed our stay here!

We did two hikes while staying here: Hazel and Hub Lakes one day and Eagle Peak the other day, both of which I highly recommend.

By the way, after our lookout trip we headed to the Selkirks. Here are those posts: