Davis Lookout

On a cloudy Monday September 29, Joyce, Kendra and I hiked to the Davis Lookout in the Salish Mountains in the Kootenai National Forest.  This lookout was in the same general area as the last lookout we hiked to: McGuire Lookout.

Distance roundtrip: I estimate 4 to 4.5 miles
Elevation gain:  from the topo map I estimate 800 or a bit more feet.
Lookout elevation: 6051 ft


We again followed the directions in Kendra's copy of the Fire Lookouts in NW Montana book.   The route description and some photos are the same as I found later on the following summitpost web page:
http://www.summitpost.org/davis-mountain/727113

But... when we reached Forest Service 3532 it was gated shut.  What?!    (This route is marked in purple in the map below.)

Not only one lock fastened the gate, but two locks.  We were locked out.

We didn't have a map so we couldn't look if an alternate route existed.  Time for plan B.   As we drove to the plan B lookout we passed the Murphy Lake Ranger Station.  We stopped in.

We learned FS road 3532 (like the other roads marked in yellow) was closed each year from July 1 to  December 1.  When did the book and summitpost author(s) hike to the lookout? June 29.  No mention that the road could be closed.

Alternatives?

1. Trail #212. This trail originates at the end of FS Road #7156 just south of Swamp Mountain. It would be very possible to combine Davis Mountain with Swamp Mountain.  The trail is 6.5 miles to Davis Mountain.  13 miles RT - too far for Kendra to hike while she is undergoing radiation treatment.


2. Trail #279 (Warland Ridge trail) which approaches from the southwest. Approximately 2 miles long (one-way). To get to this TH, drive 17.2 miles on #36, then turn right on FS Road #835. Drive 3.56 miles on #835 to #4424. Turn right on #4424 and drive 3 miles to the TH on the right side of the road. You can also access Warland Peak to the west via this trail...on the left side of the road.

The woman at the ranger station said trail 279 had not been maintained and she didn't know the trail condition.  There could be a lot of blow down. If the trail was similar to the McGuire Lookout trail, the trees wouldn't be thick. We should be able to get around dead-fall for two miles.

Again the gravel forest service roads were in very good condition.  On the map above our driving route is in red.  Trail 279 is marked in blue.

Aerial view

At mile 3 on FS 4424...

is the start of the trail.

Don't worry.  There is an easy place to park your vehicle off road near the trail.


At times the trail could be easily seen as a path through the grass.  Other times the trail was marked by lots of rock cairns.  The trail was easy to follow with little second guessing as to where the trail was located.  We only encountered three or four trees down across the trail.  It was easy to walk around them.

After the first little climb I looked to the NW and think I saw the McGuire, Little Sutton and Sutton peaks where we had hiked last week.

A short distance later we could see the fire tower barely above/among the trees.  What we didn't know is that the trail did not take the shortest distance from point A to B, even though it looked that way on the map (I added the little 'hook' on the end when I marked the trail in blue on the earlier map).

From the lower red X we hiked down a hundred to two hundred feet, then hiked up along the side of Davis Mountain to about the red X on the right.  Then we hiked the fat spine of Davis Mountain to the lookout.  This is why I think the trail is a little over 2 miles long, though on the map the trail goes fairly straight and appears to be no more than 2 miles.

The topography is not that steep so I don't know why a trail wasn't created in the shortest distance possible, unless they wanted the longest shallowest switchback on record. It is a good thing we saw the lookout at this point, else when we walked among the tall trees along the spine we would have questioned if we were on the right trail.  As it was, the walk along the spine was long enough we wondered if we would ever get to the lookout.  And once we were on the spine we lost the views of the valleys until just before reaching the tower.

The present 60' steel tower with 7x7' cab and ladder, along with the accompanying log cabin, were built about 1931, and have been abandoned for several years.

The cabin was pretty cool. Kendra would like to live here. The log walls were in good shape even if the rest of the cabin was not. The three trees next to the front porch must have been 'planted' by birds.  More photos of the cabin, and the outhouse with no view,  are at the link at the end.

The tower's ladder was removed from the bottom two sections of the tower (about 12 ft).

I rattled the tower's "x" on one side and the metal wobbled more than I expected.  Another reason not to try to shimmy up the tower to the ladder.

This tower reminds me of my friend Jeff.  He bought an old fire tower in northern MN and then erected it on his property.  His tower is similar, and may be almost as tall, though his cab on top may be smaller.

For more photos, follow this link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/109566462412251958234/albums/6065132053819826705?authkey=COuzqMXa1sWucg
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McGuire Lookout

On a nice warm and sunny Wednesday September 24 I hiked to the McGuire Lookout with Joyce, Kendra, and Glenda.  Kendra has a book about selected fire lookouts in NW Montana and has a goal to hike to most of them.  She and Joyce had visited about a half dozen lookouts before inviting me to join them to see McGuire Lookout.

Distance round trip to the lookout: 5.3 miles.   Our meanderings on the trail to the NW of the lookout made the trail 6 miles round trip.
Elevation gain to and from the lookout: 808 ft

Background from the Kootenai National Forest brochure and elsewhere: 

On a summit in northwestern Montana, about 19 miles southwest of Eureka at an elevation of 6991 feet, perches McGuire Mountain Lookout.

The lookout was built in 1923. It has a view of Lake Koocanusa five air miles to the west and the surrounding mountains and ridges.

Other historic remains include a root cellar, two outhouse holes, a Forest Service trail accessing the site, an early 1920’s campsite, and painted rock alignment spelling out “MCGUIRE”. The rock alignment is considered historical because the Forest Service began marking its location points this way in 1929 to aid aerial fire patrols.

In 1923, at the cost of $805.87, the Forest Service built the current McGuire Mountain Lookout. Lightning protection was added in 1931. The building was estimated to have a 20-year life. It is an excellent example of the first standardized Forest Service design, the D-6. The D-6 design is a square, wood frame building designed to rest on the ground with pyramidal cupola with windows all around which serve as an observation tower.

The lookout is a square 12' x12' wood frame building, designed to rest on the ground with pyramidal roofs and on top a pyramidal-shaped cupola, with windows all around, which serves an an observation tower. The main floor served as a living quarters for the fire guard. The cabin is equipped with a modern wood stove, 2 twin size bed boards (no mattresses), table, bench, shovel, bucket and cleaning gear. This cabin is very rustic. The building is not wired for electricity and has an outdoor toilet. Water sources are limited in the area and there is no water at the lookout.

The main floor served as living quarters for the fireguard. The fireguard also needed to patrol around the breaks of the mountain to view the Flat Creek watershed to the north. The patrol, including viewing times at three points took fifty-five minutes round-trip.

The end of the era of intensive fire lookouts use came in the 1940’s. As a result, the McGuire Mountain Lookout was abandoned in 1944. It stood vacant until 1983 when the Forest Service began restoring the building. Renovations were completed in 1998 under a PIT Project, making it eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. In 1996, windows replaced the boards in the cupola and the lookout was painted its original green with white trim. Today it is part of the Forest Service cabin rental program.

The lookout is open from June 1 to September 30 (weather permitting).
The cabin rents for $25.00 a night with a 14 day stay limit.

There are a number of ways to drive to the trail head.  Coming from Kalispell we drove through 'downtown' Trego, Montana and continued south on Fortine Creek Rd until we came to Edna Creek Rd (or FS 433) and then turned right onto that road.  Fortine Creek Road is paved and about 5 miles of the Edna Creek Rd is paved.  The rest of the roads are gravel but are in excellent condition with no potholes or rocks until the last 1.3 miles where the road got a little rocky.  But it was not bad.  Kendra drove a Prius and with its low ground clearance it had no trouble on the roads.

Google maps has the time from Trego as 1 hr 15 minutes. While we didn't time the drive it didn't seem like it took us even an hour to drive the route due to the good condition of the roads.  The only thing to watch out for is that there a number of roads in the area and we encountered several major intersections so use Google maps to get a list of the steps if you don't have a copy of the book's route description available.

An example of the many roads.  The short section from the intersection down by "Google" is the one that is a little rockier to drive.  The trailhead (plus a decent area on which to park off the road) are located on the saddle between McGuire Mountain and Sutton Mountain.

The trail takes the long way to the lookout and curves around from the west.  "McGuire" are rocks near the lookout and not an altered image.

There was no sign at the trailhead. We found a paper and plastic sign torn up into pieces at the base of a post.  The trail is nice and the forest along the trail is is open.

The trail goes up 200 to 300 ft then goes down a few hundred feet before going up again.  So the 808 ft of elevation gain is not straight up to the lookout but is gained going to and back from the lookout. The hike is easy.

The rock pile (there are four of them at each corner of the lookout) had cables between them and the lookout.

Near the trees in front of the lookout are some benches to sit on around a fire ring.  The outhouse is a short way down the hill and we also found the remains of the old root cellar.   As you can see, since the lookout was abandoned for fire detection use, trees have started to grow up around the lookout.

While the views are not spectacular as with other lookouts I have been to, nonetheless they are nice of the Salish Mountains.  The lack of large elevation change in the views hide the fact that the lookout is at an elevation of 6991 ft.

There is a trail that goes NW.  We followed it for a while in hopes of seeing more views to the NW and of Lake Koocanusa.  None where to be had.  The walk was nice and for some reason a number of large piles of rocks were placed at various points along the trail.  We came to an area off the trail where a very large section of the ground and rocks were disturbed.  Our guess it was due to a bear searching for grubs.

Someone placed a geocache at the lookout site. I didn't know about it until later when looking up info about the lookout.

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC581QE_mcguire-mtn-fire-lookout 


The forest service had conducted controlled burns earlier and on our drive out we could see and smell smoke from where the afternoon breeze had encouraged smoldering.  There was a large canvas(?) container along the road filled with water ready to pump from if needed.

More photos are at this link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/109566462412251958234/albums/6064383768758275585?authkey=CMDSxOPL86TuWA

A short video from the summit is at this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUr_pElZ2wo&feature=youtu.be
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