Snowmobiling, The Early Days

[volcano buster]

Excellent detail on scion collection.
I have been doing that for over 30 years in western Montana, northern Idaho and now western Oregon. I don't do much work on sleds anymore but had a trip up in the coast range 3 years ago to collect noble fir to establish a new orchard.

I used to have to spur climb trees to get up in them as shooting wasn't an option. This tree was big enough I still had to take my pole pruner up to reach up above where I was comfortable climbing (100' up).

 

[Aerosled]

That's an interesting photo volcano. I did a little spur climbing 50 years ago but nothing like that in your photo. We had an old crank telephone line (Farmer system) up to the lookout on the Naches Ranger District. The districk packer was the one that maintained it. He decided he needed some help and taught me the basics.

It was all small poles out in the open areas and trees where it went through the timber. The only limbs I had to cut were small ones that had grown sense the tree was last climbed. He had a small hatchet that was razor sharp, so needed to be very careful not to chop near the belt and not on the off side. I don't think I ever got more than 25 or 30 feet off the ground.

The Lookout puppy sleeping under the phone.

 

[Aerosled]

More from the Naches Ranger District, Naches, WA 1982

Crossing Deep Creek on the way to Twin Sisters Lakes and Tumac Mountain 1982. Two years before it was designated the William O Douglas Wilderness.

My brand new 340 Yamaha Enticer. Climbing out of Deep Cr on the way to Twin Sisters.

Dropping into the Crater On Tumac.

Looking down into the Crater.

Near Rocky Saddle Pass above Milk Lake.

Close Call near Canteen Flats. Right Hand Fork of Rock Creek below.

 

[Aerosled]

A little off topic history in the Ahtanum area west of Yakima, WA.

Some exerts form "Of Men and Mountains" by William O Douglas. It would have been in about 1918 he slid down the west end of Darland Mountain to the South fork of the Tieton River on a frying pan.

"There is a narrow hogback saddle that connects the eastern end of Darling's (That's what Douglas called Darland Mt.) top with the western end...as we crossed it we saw great diifts that covered the trail. They were 15 to 20 feet deep...Brad and I stopped near tne spot where the State Forest srvice lookout tower now stands...Down the western slope of Darling Mountain was a snow field almost a mile long and dropping perhaps a thousand feet or more in elevation...We had no skis but we did have a frying pan apiece...Why not use them as toboggans? Brad asked. The idea was to sit in the frying pan, hold the feet up, lean slightly backwards, and, keeping the handle to the rear, use it as a steering rod."

Panoramic Photos:
Forestry students from Oregon State College (OSU now) and the University of Washington took these photos from over 800 Lookouts and proposed lookout sites in Oregon and Washington. See the panoramic camera and good write up about it here https://www.wildlandnw.net/the-osborne-panoramas/

The camera, called an Osborne Recording Transit weighed 75 pounds. The lens rotated 120 degrees so three photos covered a 360 degree view.

If there was a road they drove their personal car or a forest service pickup. If no road and it was less than a four mile hike they packed the camera on their back. It weighed 75 pounds. If more than four miles they took a pack horse.

Darland Looking southwest

Looking southeast

Looking north

There was originally a copula style lookout on Darland. It was moved to blue slide when the tower was built on Darland in1942

darland Mouintain lookout 1961

Sedge Ridge, up the Ahtanum, 10/6/1934. The same day Robert Reinhardt took the photos on Darland. There was no road to Sedge Ridge LO then so R.R.S. (Reino R. Sarlin) took horses.

Darland Mountain and Sedge Ridge were both Washington Department of Forestry (Now the DNR) Lookouts. The US Forest Service took all the photos and included State Lookouts that supplemented the coverage of the National Forest. That's why it says Snoqualmie NF on these.

Sedge Ridge looking north

Looking southeast
Notice the camera man's saddle horse and pack horse.

Looking southwest

Attachments

 

[Aerosled]

Sedge Ridge Lookout. Photo by Tom Bigley. He was on the Ahtanum DNR fire crew the summer before his senior year in high school. The regular lookout was suffering from "Combat fatigue", so Tom volunteered for the job. He later became the Lookout on Raven's Roost and then Little bald Mountain. Even later he became a navy pilot and in the early 1970s would detour his navy patrol plane over little Bald Mountain Lookout where my wife was the Lookout. They corresponded then and sometimes we still hear from him.

 

[cascadesnowjunky]

I didn't realize there was ever a lookout on Sedge Ridge, very cool. Was it out on the west end somewhere?

 

[Aerosled]

I was up there one time. In my jeep in 1967. It was still there then. It is 1.7 miles south southeast of the Ahtanum Ranger Station and 10.7 miles due east of Darland mountain. Zoomed in on google earth you can see a building there now. It is some kind of radio communications facility. It's on private land.

 

[Mr.DOO]

1971, Probably the last photo ever taken of Blue Slide Lookout still standing. In the Ahtanum area west of Yakima, WA

Someone had cut the cables during Elk hunting season the fall before. There were high winds the week before this photo was taken.

Wil-Lee's Cafe, Goose Prairie, WA 1972

Calispell peak, Colville National Forest 1977.

Cabin on Calispell Peak.

Graves Mountain Lookout Off Sherman pass, Colville NF

Awesome
pics

 

[Jay]

best thread I've seen in a long time.

 

[RMK-King]

Keep the pics and stories coming! Love seeing this kind of stuff from the old days.

 

[Aerosled]

Sliding near Winthrop, WA 1976

Lane Creek west of kettle Falls, WA 1976

Tree well, Barnaby Butte, Kettle Falls Ranger District, 1976

Jumping, Two Top Mountain, West Yellowstone, 1974

Ahtanum area west of Yakima, WA, 1987. Tenday creek is the drainage on the right. Straight ahead on the horizon is the Goat Rocks and about four miles ahead below a glacier is Warm Lake. It was named by William O Douglas. He learned to swim there about 1918. Until then he was afraid of the water. When he was still a small boy recovering from Polio in Yakima, a big kid that was a bully threw him into the deep end of the pool at the old Yakima YMCA and he almost drowned. Warm lake is at about 6300 feet elevation but is surprisingly warm on the surface due to being in an alpine meadow exposed to the sun. It was there one day that it was the first time he felt comfortable getting into deep water. He did, and he taught himself to swim there that day.

 

[Aerosled]

Keep the pics and stories coming! Love seeing this kind of stuff from the old days.

Okay here's the full story on how Little Bald Lookout on the Naches Ranger District got burned down.
It was 1980. There had been some rain so the Lookout was given the day off. It didn't rain over on The Washington State DNR lookout on Clemems Mountain about 13 air miles to the east so she was still up. She called the Naches District dispatcher on the radio. She could see a small smoke directly over the top of Little Bald Lookout.

The dispatcher told her to just watch it and call again if it got larger. She called back in a few minutes and reported that the smoke was getting larger. Again the dispatcher told her to just keep watching it. He figured it was probably a small hold over lightning fire on Old Scab mountain about three miles west of Little Bald and in line with Clemens' azimuth. It was high elevetion, wet, and nothing much to burn on up there but some moss. It could wait.

Clemens called a while later and reported she could see flames now and could see that it was the lookout that was burning. Naches sent a fire crew up then. It's about an hour drive. They arrived on scene in time to hose down what was left of some smoldering timbers.

The cause was suspected to be a propane leak from a gas refrigerator that was recently installed.

Little Bald Lookout, 1970, RIP

Little Bald, Sept 30, 2020. The garage is now a snowmobiler's warming shelter. The photographer taking a photo down the cliff was the Lookout here 1970-1973.

 

[Aerosled]

Charles Hubbell was a world famous aviation artist born in 1889. In 1939 he started producing calendars of his best paintings. Each year had a theme. In 1950 the theme was "The New Breed". This is the month of August painting. "The New Towerman".

A Cessna 140 flying over a small forest fire. My two, hobbies are aviation and snowmobiling. Thus the name...Aerosled.
I have this Charles Hubbel print framed and hanging in my home.

Airplanes were beginning to replace lookouts for fire detection. By the 1960s the US Forest Service considered the abandoned lookouts as an attractive nuisance and started burning them. Miner's ridge in the upper Bumping area on the Naches Ranger District was built in 1933-34. In 1968 when I came to work on the district fire suppression crew it was being used as emergency lookout. In about 1970 the Bumping River prevention patrolman went up to the lookout and found that someone had broken in and threw the Osborn Fire finder over the ledge toward Root lake.

In 1973 the district was given the money to burn Miner's Ridge. The money had a "Completion Target" attached. In late fall the garage was burned. The sliding door tracks and roller hardware were taken off first and saw use as a sliding tail gate for the horse truck. An accomplishment report was sent to the "Head shed" saying that the lookout had been burned.

The plan was to go up on snowmobiles after the snow had fallen and burn the lookout. The District Fire Control officer was transferred before the snow fell. At his going away party he said "The first one to Miner's ridge, burn it.

April 1974. The windows had been taken out the fall before. Mount Rainier in the background.

We shoveled the snow out and put the shutters back on to trap the heat.

Better days. RIP

 

[Aerosled]

I took this photo in 1968. Bald Mountain Lookout six miles northeast of the Naches Ranger Station just above the head waters of the left hand Fork of rock Creek. Built in 1955 and removed in 1971. We called it Big Bald to distinguish it from Little Bald. It was put up for bid and the winning bidder wanted to move the cab to his property somewhere and have a really cool cabin with a view. He drove a crane all the way up there and when he lifted the cab off the tower legs he dropped it. It broke into a million pieces so he just burned it.

This 44 foot steel tower was near the site of the wooden tower. Built in 1931.

This is an Osborn panoramic photo looking northwest from Big Bald Mountain. It is very interesting because it was taken from the ground in 1929, two years before the steel tower was built and the panoramic Photo project didn't begin until 1933. Also, on the left end of the photo it says it's the "Rainier". That's what this forest was called in the early early days. in 1898 it was the Mount Rainier Forest Reserves. In 1905 the forest Reserves were transferred to the USFS and in 1933 Divided between the Columbia NF (now the Gifford Pinchot NF), the Snoquqlmie, and the Wenatchee. There used to be some of the old green and white porsilen trail signs around that said Rainier National Forest.

Looking North. These would have been taken from the Steel tower. At 40 degrees jeepers should recognize what they call the funny rocks, or is it the moon rocks, I've never figured out which is which. Then at about 25 degrees the bare ground with a grove of trees in the center is the other. That grove of trees has an opening in the center that is protected from the wind. It's quite large and a good place to take shelter in a snow storm. We called it the "Restaurant" because it's a good place to eat lunch on a cold windy day.

Looking southeast you see the old cabin. Big bald was Tom Bigley's fourth lookout job. He said when he was on Big bald in 1957 the steel tower and the cabin were still there.

Bald Mountain looking southwest.

 

[TjCj]

Funny Rocks are at 40° , Moon Rocks are at 25° ; )

 

[Aerosled]

Thanks TjCj. We called those at 25 degrees the Moon Rocks in the late 1960s too but I don't think the Funny Rocks had that nickname yet. Now I just need to remember that. I've got some more interesting Bald mountain area stuff to post but I need to give my old brain a rest. Maybe I can get to it tomorrow.

In the picture above with the jeeps at the lookout the light blue one is mine. It had a 215 aluminum oldsmobile V8 and a Warn overdrive. It was really good in the hard spring snow because it wouldn't sink in so easy like the heavy jeeps. My buddy's jeep, the other one in the photo, had a 289 Studebaker V8. It was a heavy SOB.

 

[summ8rmk]

Truly awesome story's and pics, thx for sharing!

Sent it

 

[Aerosled]

Here's a part of the Washington State Parks snowmobile trail map so you can get your bearings for where the following photos are. Note Bald Mountain, Devil's Slide, and Manastash Ridge.

Lookouts often had what they called patrol points. They were points within walking distance of the lookout. From here the lookout could see areas not visible from the lookout due to the lay of the terrain. Some even had a base where an Osborn fire finder would be placed for the fire season. One such patrol point for Bald Mountain Lookout was near Devil's Slide.

Osborn Fire Finder.

Looking southwest from Devil's Slide Patrol Point. At 242 degrees and about half way between the top and the bottom of the photo you can see some cliffs. That's Devil's Slide. The groomed snowmobile trail on the map goes through the meadow you see just to the left of Devil's Slide.

A google earth view fore some perspective. You can see the jeep road going through the meadow. Note how the meadows have shrunk due to lack of fire in the past 120 years of so.

Looking north. Milk Creek drainage in the foreground and Manastash ridge in the distance. At about 350 degrees you see a slight dip in the ridge top. That dip is Rocky Saddle Pass.

There's an old foot trail from Bald Mountain to Quartz Mountain. Most of it has been oblitered by a jeep road. If you can find it, a piece of the old foot trail is still visible and goes right up to Rocky Saddle.

I took these photos in 2014. The trail going up through the rocks

Old Porcelain sign.

Rocky Saddle Pass.

 

[mtncat1]

great pictures thanks for taking the time to share them

 

[cascadesnowjunky]

These pictures are not sled related but area related. These were taken last year in eagles nest. I seen them from the top of Darland and ask my boy if he wanted to ride down below clover flats campground then hike up and take a look and so we did. Three different mountain goats, I had only seen the two in the rocks from the top but when we hiked up to look down on them we seen the other in the trees on top. Pretty neat to see them in the wild, the pictures are not great, all I had was my phone.