P Ranch

Type: 72′ steel tower
Status: Abandoned
Elevation: 4,190 feet
Visited: May 15, 2012

While visiting the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge with my sister I visited two lookouts. The first was the 72-foot-tall lookout tower at P Ranch. I don’t know if this was ever used for spotting fires since there aren’t many trees out here. It may have been used for wildlife watching. Here is the view from the River Trail, which we walked first thing in the morning. Notice all the buzzards!

An hour later the skies had cleared up (and the buzzards were gone!).

The tower clearly hasn’t been used in years since the bottom set of stairs has been completely overtaken by vegetation.