{"id":1298,"date":"2023-06-29T10:33:28","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T17:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2023-08-01T09:50:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-01T16:50:37","slug":"return-to-soda-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/2023\/06\/29\/return-to-soda-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Return to Soda Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Type: 10&#8242; wooden tower with ODF cab<br \/>\nStatus: Not staffed<br \/>\nElevation: 6,091 feet<br \/>\nVisited: May 28, 2023<\/p>\n<p>On our second day of Memorial Day Weekend hiking we re-visited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oregonhikers.org\/field_guide\/Soda_Mountain_Loop_Hike\">Soda Mountain<\/a>, which we <a href=\"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/2017\/07\/06\/soda-mountain\/\">first hiked<\/a> in July 2017. You can <a href=\"http:\/\/cherylhill.net\/blog\/2023\/06\/02\/soda-mountain-2\/\">read about the hike itself<\/a> over on my adventure blog.<\/p>\n<p>The summit is still crowded with communications equipment:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52939989347_0d0e6487e6_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940967413_9aff4664b3_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We were lucky enough to have the place all to ourselves. There wasn&#8217;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:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940977370_0c2e603da4_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940978250_411e0b2018_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940892675_880656e6fd_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940586776_d804f88121_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This photo from June 2020 shows that the cameras were originally mounted on the structure:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oregonhikers.org\/field_guide\/Soda_Mountain\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oregonhikers.org\/w\/images\/f\/f9\/Lookout_on_Soda_Mountain.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>John Sparks<\/em><\/p>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940978405_9aba28b06f_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>There were a lot of clouds, so the views were only partial. View of Mt. Ashland:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940979655_5d46dc20e4_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52941049253_5c5f01dc44_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Mt. Shasta is out there somewhere:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940588096_d636efa0c6_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There were flowers in bloom up here including balsamroot:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940979695_8fb8780568_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And a whole bunch of phlox:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940506016_6812df8e94_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940651599_c06c635071_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52939903987_bd4bdd4d3f_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"533\" height=\"800\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52940649449_7c3cbccdd4_c.jpg\" alt=\"Soda Mountain Hike\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Type: 10&#8242; wooden tower with ODF cab Status: Not staffed Elevation: 6,091 feet Visited: May 28, 2023 On our second<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/2023\/06\/29\/return-to-soda-mountain\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Return to Soda Mountain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oregon-department-of-forestry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1392,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions\/1392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherylhill.net\/firelookouts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}