Type: 10′ wooden tower with ODF cab
Status: Not staffed
Elevation: 6,091 feet
Visited: May 28, 2023
On our second day of Memorial Day Weekend hiking we re-visited Soda Mountain, which we first hiked in July 2017. You can read about the hike itself over on my adventure blog.
The summit is still crowded with communications equipment:
We were lucky enough to have the place all to ourselves. There wasn’t even anyone staffing the lookout. On our 2017 visit this one was still being staffed. But now it is all closed up and has a camera for remote monitoring:
This photo from June 2020 shows that the cameras were originally mounted on the structure:
John Sparks
The shutter over the door was not in place so I could see through the window. The interior bore no signs of a lookout that is still being staffed. No bed, no stove, no firefinder:
Later I contacted the BLM and they confirmed this lookout is no longer staffed, but said that even though it is BLM land, the lookout was actually operated by the Oregon Department of Forestry. I contacted ODF for more info, but never heard back.
There were a lot of clouds, so the views were only partial. View of Mt. Ashland:
Mt. Shasta is out there somewhere:
There were flowers in bloom up here including balsamroot:
And a whole bunch of phlox:
