Clear Lake Cabin Lookout

At Clear Lake Butte a rope and pulley lift firewood and gear from the ground to a cabin forty feet up a timber tower. The cabin is a single room, 14 feet by 14, with a wooden catwalk on all sides. Inside are a small single bed, a wood stove for heat, a table and chair, a propane cook stove, and solar lights. A shed stocked with firewood and an outhouse with vault toilets stand at the foot of the tower. The firewood is for indoor use only. There is no water on the site. Guests carry in all water for drinking, cooking, and washing, along with their own bedding, food, towels, and toilet paper, and they carry out their trash. Pets are welcome, and there is room for a tent besides. The Forest Service warns that the steps and catwalk become slick with rain, snow, and ice, and that the tower may sway in strong winds.

Fourteen feet square on a fir-covered butte

The butte is a gently sloped hill covered with fir trees on the south side of Mount Hood. Recreation.gov gives its height as 4,454 feet, and firelookout.com gives the lookout’s elevation as 4,458. The butte stands near the northwest corner of the Warm Springs reservation, with Mount Hood to the north and Mount Jefferson to the south. From the catwalk the view takes in Clear Lake, Timothy Lake in the distance, and a long reach of Eastern Oregon.

The tower keeps two calendars. From November 1 through May 31 it is rented by reservation as a winter cabin. In summer it is staffed and still used to spot fires. Recreation.gov counts it as one of three Forest Service watchtowers on Mount Hood. The Forest Service’s own page says one of several.

The road from Skyline Sno-Park

The winter trip begins at Skyline Sno-Park, where Highway 26 meets Forest Service Road 42, 12 miles south of Government Camp. Parking there requires an Oregon Sno-Park permit, sold in the Portland area and at CJ’s on Highway 26, west of the Road 42 junction. From December 1 through April 30 the gate is closed, and the lookout can be reached only on skis, snowshoes, or snowmobile. Winter driving conditions can set in during early fall and last late into spring.

The route follows Road 42 to the 240 spur road and on to the lookout. The Forest Service gives the distance as 3.5 miles one way, while its directions give about 3.2. The climb is about 900 feet. The agency calls it a good path for moderate skiers and allows three and a half to four hours. At the top, one combination opens the tower, the woodshed, and the gate. Nearby, a ski tour circles spring-fed Little Crater Lake, and the mountain lakes and streams hold fish, though many may be frozen.

A hundred-foot tower and a flat roof

The Forest Service built the first lookout here in 1932, a wooden observation tower 100 feet tall. Firelookout.com records that a crow’s-nest tree lookout also stood to the southeast, and its ruins are still present. In 1962 the wooden tower was replaced by the present one. The Forest Service gives its height as 40 feet, and firelookout.com describes it as a 41-foot treated-timber tower.

On top sits an R-6 Flat Top cab. The design originated in the Pacific Northwest and was introduced in 1953 as the last generation of fire lookouts in the region. Its flat, tarred roof was meant to end the cost and danger of reshingling the roofs of earlier lookouts. The window shutters of earlier lookouts were dropped, plywood came into use, and an extra foot was added to each side, to 15 by 15 feet by the Forest Service’s account, though the same agency gives the room at Clear Lake as 14 by 14.

The lookout is listed on the National Historic Lookout Register. The fees paid for winter nights go directly to its maintenance and preservation.