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Fire lookout · Pima County, Arizona

Mica Mountain

Pima County summit tower on Mica Mountain, dated to 1938 by one peakbagging page; listed as gone, with footings reported in a 2019 photo.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Listed as gone by the Forest Fire Lookout Association; a March 2019 photo shows only footings for the base

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Summit lies inside Saguaro National Park and is reached on foot by trail; a 2015 hiker signed the summit register. No closure found in the sources read

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
A 2015 trip report describes a hike from a small pull-off on East Redington Road, with 5,500 feet of gain over 10.5 miles one way

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerAermotor tower with a 7 ft. square cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
100 ft (30.5 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Saguaro National Park
Land
Unknown
Location
Pima County, Arizona
Coordinates
32.21978, −110.54339
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-az-mica-mountain

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.0 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1938 BuiltPeakbagging page gives a 100 ft. Aermotor tower with a 7 ft. square cab built in 1938; single source for the dateSource: peakbagging.com
  2. 1946 EventSurvey benchmark called Rincon Tower stood at the summit; the only datasheet found for the tower is dated 1946 under a different nameSource: peakbagging.com
  3. No record between 1946 and 2015
  4. 2015 EventHiker's February 2015 trip report found only forest views and the foundation of an old lookout tower on the peakSource: goatmanmike.com
  5. 2019 EventPhoto taken March 29, 2019 shows footings for the base, which the page says are all that remainSource: peakbagging.com
  6. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Mica Mountain rises about 20 miles east of Tucson, inside the Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park.1 At 8,668 feet, it is the tallest peak in the Rincon Mountains.1 Its summit once held a fire lookout tower.2,3

A peakbagging page describes a 100-foot Aermotor tower with a 7-foot square cab on the summit, and dates it to 1938.3 A survey benchmark called Rincon Tower also sat at the summit.3 The page found one datasheet for that tower, dated 1946, which carries a different name.3

By February 2015, a hiker's trip report found the summit offering only forest views, with the base of an old lookout tower still there.4 A March 29, 2019 photo on the peakbagging page shows the tower's footings, which the page says is all that is left.3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as gone.2

Hikers reach the summit on foot.4 The 2015 trip report describes starting at a small pull-off on East Redington Road, with 5,500 feet of gain over 10.5 miles one way, and a summit register that the writer signed.4 The latest description I found is the 2019 photo, and no source describes the summit since.3

Do not confuse it with Happy Valley Fire Lookout, a separate structure in Saguaro National Park.5 The park says the current Happy Valley lookout went up in 1968, and architectural historians judged it eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.5

  1. Mica Mountain, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mica_Mountain (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Arizona Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/az/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Mica Mountain (LO site), Arizona, Peakbagger, http://www.peakbagging.com/AZPhotos/MicaMtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Mica Mountain and Spud Rock - AZ (2.22.15), GoatManMike's Adventures, https://goatmanmike.com/mica-mountain-and-spud-rock-az-2-22-15/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Happy Valley Fire Lookout, U.S. National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/sagu/learn/historyculture/happy-valley-fire-lookout.htm (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, visiting details, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.