Mail Tribune News -Spend summer days atop lookout mountain

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2001-07-07

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Spend summer days atop lookout mountain FOR RENT: Rustic room with a view, table w/two chairs, one-person bed, stool, broom, fire extinguisher and outhouse, $40 a night. The U.S. Forest Service is taking summer reservations for the Bolan Peak fire lookout high in the Siskiyou National Forest. Bolan Peak is one of several lookouts no longer used for fire management that the Siskiyou forest staff will be making available to the public this summer. There are no plans yet to rent out unstaffed fire lookouts in the Rogue River National Forest this year. Like many fire lookout sites, Bolan Peak, rising to 6,242 feet above sea level, provides a spectacular view. It's about 30 miles southeast of Cave Junction near the southwest tip of the Red Buttes Wilderness. This will mark the first summer that the building will have been rented out. "We've already had people asking about renting it," said Mike Keown, a recreation planner with the Illinois Valley Ranger District. "We haven't even advertised yet. That's all been by word of mouth." Built in 1953, the 14-by-14 building was refurbished last year. It sits atop a rock base on the peak; there is no tower. The peak originally was made into a fire lookout in 1917 during World War I. It served as a lookout until the mid-1990s. "We no longer needed to use it for fire management," Keown said. "It made sense to refurbish it and rent it out. There has been a push within the Forest Service to provide rentals for the public." For additional information on the Bolan Peak lookout or other rentals in the Siskiyou, visit the forest Web site at www.fs.fed.us/r6/siskiyou Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA