Type: 80′ steel tower Status: No longer staffed Elevation: 6,025′ Visited: June 11, 2021 After visiting East Butte I drove through the rain over to Fox Butte. From Road 23 I turned onto 550. There’s a geocache up on the…
East Butte
Type: 20′ L-4 tower Status: Staffed Elevation: 6,400′ Visited: June 11, 2021 During a camping and hiking weekend in central Oregon I visited several fire lookouts. East Butte is a staffed lookout in the Deschutes National Forest. From Road 18…
Spring Butte
Type: 41-foot-tall tower with 16′ octagonal cabin Status: Staffed Elevation: 5,462′ Visited: June 19, 2020 While camping in the area we drove up to the Spring Butte Lookout. The gate was open and we were able to drive all the…
Trout Creek Butte
Type: 86′ steel Aermotor tower Status: Abandoned Elevation: 5,546′ Visited: May 31, 2020 The road up to Trout Creek Butte is in good shape and passable by any vehicle. Much of the summit burned in the 2017 Milli Fire: However,…
Black Butte Cupola Being Restored
Volunteers with Friends of the Metolius have been working with the Forest Service to restore the old 1923 D6 cupola on Black Butte in the Deschutes National Forest. When I hiked up there in 2016 it was looking a bit…
Black Butte
Type: D-6 cupola (1923) and 35′ tower (1995) Status: Cupola is abandoned; Tower is staffed Elevation: 6,436 feet Visited: July 16, 2016 After attending the Sand Mountain anniversary celebration at the Fish Lake Historic Site, I decided to go for a…
Odell Butte
Type: 30′ tower with R-6 cabin Status: Staffed in summer Elevation: 7,033 feet Visited: July 28, 2013 Greg and I went to visit the lookout on Odell Butte after camping with friends near Waldo Lake. The road to the top…
Lava Butte
Visited October 2, 2011 Since we were in Bend for the weekend we decided to take a jaunt up to the lookout on Lava Butte. It is staffed every summer and visitors aren’t allowed up in the lookout, but the…