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Fire lookout · Clackamas County, Oregon

East Zigzag Tower Site

Also known as East Zigzag Mountain

Clackamas County, OR ground L-4 cabin on Zigzag Mountain, Mount Hood NF; built about 1932, gone by 1969; only the foundation was noted in 1970.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1969; a 1970 survey note says the lookout house was destroyed and only its foundation remained

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabground L-4 cabin, gray one-room frame building about 13.5 ft squareThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,971 ft (1,515 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Clackamas County, Oregon
Coordinates
45.35066, −121.81539
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-east-zigzag

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 3.7 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. 1932 BuiltGround L-4 cabin built about 1932 (firetower says 'in 1932', firelookout.com says 'about 1932')Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1932 and 1964
  3. 1964 ClosedForest Lookouts page: the lookout deactivatedSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1969 RemovedGone by 1969; the sources do not say how it came downSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. 1970 EventSurvey-mark recovery in 1970 notes the lookout house destroyed and the foundation remainingSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1970 and 2010
  7. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered August 24, 2010 as FFLOS US 386, OR 32; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  8. 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The East Zigzag lookout was a ground-level L-4 cabin rather than a tower.1,2 It stood on the east end of Zigzag Mountain in Clackamas County, Oregon, inside the Mount Hood National Forest, about six miles west of Mount Hood.1,2,3

The cabin went up around 1932.1,2 The Forest Service owned it, and a survey description from the site calls it a gray, one-room frame building about 13 and a half feet square.3

One lookout page says the lookout was deactivated in 1964.3 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register and firelookout.com both say the cabin was gone by 1969.1,2 A survey-mark recovery in 1970 reported the cabin destroyed, with its foundation still in place.3

We found no source that describes the site today. The 1970 note is the last physical description we came across, and it is the only one that mentions the foundation.3 The same page describes the route in: a 1.5-hour pack, with a well-marked trail from where truck travel ends. It does not say whether the area is open to visitors, so anyone who wants to see the spot should check with the Mount Hood National Forest first.3

  1. East Zigzag Tower Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/east-zigzag-tower-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. East Zigzag Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/eastzigzag.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. East Zigzag Mountain - Forest Lookouts, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/east-zigzag-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of East Zigzag Tower Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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.