Fire lookout · Santa Barbara County, California
McKinley Mountain AWS
Santa Barbara County cabin on McKinley Mountain, built 1935, later an Aircraft Warning Service station; Forest Service removed it in 1974 after high winds.
- Gone
- Open to the public
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Forest Service removed the cabin in 1974 after high winds destroyed it; a 2013 account says some remains are at the top
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. On foot up a steep half-mile use trail from McKinley Saddle, in the San Rafael Wilderness
- Road to the top?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- The road effectively ends at McKinley Saddle, at the western Mission Pine trailhead; a steep half-mile use trail climbs west to the top
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Type unknowncabin in a sandstone-encircled clearing east of the official peak
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Also served as
- Aircraft Warning Service postDuring the Second World War it was staffed to spot and report aircraft.
- Built
- 1935
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Forest Service
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Santa Barbara County, California
- Coordinates
- 34.70250, −119.84539
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-ca-mckinley-mountain-aws
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 a typical height for a lookout like it.
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
- 1935 BuiltCabin built in 1935, per records cited by a 2011 blog and a 2013 trail accountSources: craigrcarey.net, songsofthewilderness.com
- No record between 1935 and 1974
- 1974 RemovedForest Service removed the cabin after high winds had destroyed itSources: craigrcarey.net, songsofthewilderness.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.
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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
McKinley Mountain stands at the edge of the San Rafael Wilderness in Santa Barbara County.1,2
A 2011 blog post says records indicate that a cabin was built on the mountain in 1935, and a 2013 trail account gives the same year.2,3 It stood in a sandstone-ringed clearing east of the official peak.2 The cabin was later also used as part of the Aircraft Warning Service, a civilian watch service of World War II.2,3,4 The 2011 blogger reasoned that spotting aircraft was not the cabin's first job.2
The Forest Service removed the shack in 1974, after high winds had destroyed it.2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's California list marks the site as gone.1
A 2013 trail account says some remains can still be found at the summit.3 The road gives out at McKinley Saddle, and from there a steep, informal half-mile trail climbs to the top.2 We found no source that describes those remains in detail, or says whether the site is open to visitors.
- California Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/ca/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Lookout! No. 5: McKinley Mountain, Craig R Carey, https://www.craigrcarey.net/2011/07/lookout-mckinley-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Trail Quest: McKinley Mountain, Songs of the Wilderness, https://songsofthewilderness.com/2013/02/22/trail-quest-mckinley-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Aircraft Warning Service, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_warning_service (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, wartime use, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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
- Lookout! No. 5: McKinley Mountain (Craig R Carey) (opens another site)
- Trail Quest: McKinley Mountain (Songs of the Wilderness) (opens another site)
- Aircraft Warning Service (Wikipedia) (opens another site)
- FFLA California lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.