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Fire lookout · Lake County, Oregon

Gearhart Mountain Lookout Site

Lake County, OR lookout site: a 1930 Forest Service lookout, a 1935 L-5 cab and a 1950s tower reported gone; a 2020 blog describes a closed, decaying lookout nearby.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. A 2020 blog says the abandoned lookout is closed to visitors for safety reasons and is not maintained; the blog places the Palisade Rocks trail in the Gearhart Mountain Wilderness

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The register and firelookout.com say the tower is gone; a 2020 blog describes an abandoned, closed and decaying lookout about a third of a mile up an old road from the Palisade Rocks trailhead. The sources do not say whether it is the same structure

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Trailhead at the end of National Forest road 012, rough but passable in July 2020, with no facilities. The blog says the old lookout is closed to visitors

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-5 cab (1935), replaced in the 1950s by a 10-foot treated timber R-6 towerThe designs: L-5, R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1935
Height
12 ft (3.7 m)
Elevation
7,950 ft (2,423 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.47914, −120.85250
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-gearhart-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 3.5 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. 1926 FireA Klamath Forest Protective Association lookout on the summit reported the Lakeview fire (1926 newspaper quoted on the Forest Lookouts page); unclear whether it stood on the later lookout's spotSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1930 First staffedForest Service lookout opened July 1, 1930 with Lester Collins in charge (Lake County Tribune, quoted on the Forest Lookouts page)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1935 BuiltL-5 cab built about two miles southeast of the summitSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  4. 1937 StaffedTwo Camp Bly CCC enrollees stationed at the lookout as an emergency station, occupied only in extremely hot weatherSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1950 Replaced by a new structureCab replaced by a 10-foot treated timber R-6 tower in the 1950s (exact year not given)Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1950 and 2011
  7. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered June 4, 2011 as US 1026, OR 384; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  8. 2020 EventBlog describes an abandoned lookout near Palisade Rocks as closed to visitors, not maintained and decayingSource: calipidder.com
  9. 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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Forest Service had a lookout on Gearhart Mountain by 1930. The Lake County Tribune reported in July of that year that it had been open since July 1, with Lester Collins in charge.1 The same page quotes a 1926 newspaper report of a Klamath Forest Protective Association lookout on the summit that reported the Lakeview fire.1 It is not clear from these sources whether that earlier post stood on the same spot as the 1930 lookout.

The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says an L-5 cab was built in 1935, about two miles southeast of the summit.2 Firelookout.com gives the same 1935 date.3 The register says the cab was replaced in the 1950s with a 10-foot treated timber R-6 tower, and Firelookout.com lists the same tower.2,3

In September 1937, two enrollees from the Camp Bly Civilian Conservation Corps camp were stationed at the lookout.1 A note on the same page describes it as an emergency post, used only when the weather was very hot.1

A National Geodetic Survey station description quoted on the same page says that, because no azimuth mark had been set, the roof apex of the lookout cabin was used instead.1 It describes a 10-by-12-foot building about 15 feet high, 4 and a half miles southeast of the survey station.1

The register says the tower is now gone.2 Firelookout.com agrees.3

A 2020 hiking blog describes an abandoned fire lookout about a third of a mile up an old road from the Palisade Rocks trailhead.4 The author says it is closed to visitors for safety reasons and describes it as unmaintained and deteriorating.4 It is not clear whether this is the structure the register lists as gone.

The blog places the Palisade Rocks trail in the Gearhart Mountain Wilderness, in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, and reaches the old lookout from the same trailhead.4 The register lists the lookout site in the Fremont National Forest.2 The trailhead is at the end of National Forest road 012.4 In July 2020 the blog found the road a little washed out and rough, though a pickup could reach the trailhead, and it reports no facilities there.4 Because the lookout is closed for safety reasons, do not climb it.4 No source we read describes what remains of the 1935 cab site itself today.

  1. Gearhart Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Oregon), https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/gearhart-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Gearhart Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/gearhart-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Gearhart Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/gearhartmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Palisade Rocks, Gearhart Mountain Wilderness, Calipidder, https://www.calipidder.com/2020/07/palisade-rocks-gearhart-mountain-wilderness/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Gearhart Mountain Lookout 1942
Gearhart Mountain Lookout 1942 (1942)Photo: Mary Harbison Sindle, Howard Verschoor collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, 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: height, 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, 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

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