Type: L-4 ground cabin
Status: Rental
Elevation: 7,536′
Visited: July 3-5 13, 2024
Six months ago I reserved Bald Butte Lookout for 4th of July Weekend. But a heat wave arrived in early July and the forecast called for brutally hot weather through the entire holiday weekend. Greg decided to stay home. I wanted to stay home too, but I had several hikes to research for my book down that way, so I stuck to the plan.
After a long drive I finally arrived at the base of Bald Butte and turned up Road 450. The 1.4 mile drive to the summit is pretty rough with deep ruts and exposed rocks. Doable in my Outback with good tires, but I wouldn’t want to try this in a low clearance vehicle:
There’s a weathered sign just before reaching the lookout. The bottom part flips up to indicate the cabin is occupied, but the letters are so worn away it’s unlikely a visitor would even notice:
The interior of the lookout with sad broken cots:
For some reason there’s a gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling on all four sides of the cabin:
A 2017 publicity photo from the Forest Service shows a bed frame with a mattress. It’s unclear why that was removed and replaced with cots:
The cabin was FULL of flies. It felt too daunting to try and get rid of them all, so I ended up sleeping in my Outback:
There were several broken window panes:
This place could use a good cleaning and a fresh coast of paint and a lot of TLC. Despite that it’s a lovely setting:
There is a fire pit nearby. It had a “no fires” flag in it, not that such a warning would stop anyone:
Not sure what this old concrete footing is from. Maybe the old garage?
Sunset was lovely!
There is very little light pollution out here and the stars were amazing:
Almost all of the surrounding forest burned in either the 2018 Watson Creek Fire (started by an ATV) or the 2021 Bootleg Fire (started by lightning), so the views include thousands of burned trees:
That’s Gearhart Mountain to the southwest. Pretty much the entire Gearhart Mountain Wilderness burned in 2021, which makes me sad. I never got to see it before the fire:
Looking west at Saddle Mountain and Mt. McLoughlin:
Looking northwest with Shake Butte in the foreground and Mt. Scott in the background to the right:
Mt. Bailey and Mt. Thielsen, with Yamsay Mountain at far right:
Before leaving on Friday I took a walk down Road 450 to the west:
Although the summit wildflowers had already peaked due to the hot dry summer, along the road I found some nice blooms:
Here’s a video from my stay:
If You Stay Here
- Don’t approach from the north, driving Road 28 south from Silver Lake. It looks like the Forest Service paved it once a long time ago and hasn’t done anything to the road since. The pavement is eroded in many spots and the road is full of potholes. The Forest Service provides driving directions from Paisley using Road 3315 and that is definitely a better route.
- As mentioned above, the 1.4 miles of Road 450 to the summit are in bad shape. There were logbook entries from people who claimed to have done it in a minivan or Prius, but I would not recommend attempting this in a low-clearance vehicle. Approach from the south, from Road 3411. Road 450 continues west then north beyond the peak and connects with Road 28, but don’t try to drive up that way. It’s not maintained and there are trees across the road.
- The cabin contains a cabinet, gas cook stove, gas heater, table and chairs, and two cots. During my visit the cots were in terrible shape. The Forest Service replaced them a few weeks after my visit, but they will probably only last a season or two before they’re broken again. Due to the heat wave I did not need the heater, but several logbook entries reported that it was tricky to use.
- This cabin is infamous for its fly problem. When I arrived there were hundreds of them flying around the hot stuffy cabin, and hundreds more dead on the floor. I would recommend bringing any and all tools you can: fly swatter, fly spray, fly strips, etc.
- The toilet is spacious and in good shape. If you leave the door open you’ll get a great view while you’re in there.
- Past visitors reported quite a wildflower show on the summit in early July, but south central Oregon was DRY DRY DRY during my visit. During my travels around the forest on this trip I witnessed flowers that had come and gone several weeks ago (earlier than normal) and lots of brown. Roads were super dusty.
More information
Forest Lookouts
Rex’s Forest Fire Lookout Page
National Historic Lookout Register
Peakbagger
Panorama Photos
Geocache
History
An L-4 14×14′ ground cabin lookout was built on Bald Butte Lookout in 1931. A 16×10′ garage was built in 1934.
The last year the lookout was staffed was 1964. In 1994 volunteers with the Passport in Time program restored the lookout, built a new toilet, and constructed an asphalt path between the the cabin and the toilet (which was advertised as being wheelchair-accessible) so it could become a rental.
In 2016 the cabin underwent some restoration work and received a new roof: