The Mount Harkness Fire Lookout stood atop 8,046-foot Mount Harkness, above Juniper Lake in the park's southeast corner. Built in 1930 of local stone and wood, it was destroyed in the 2021 Dixie Fire.
Details
- Type
- Peak
- Accessibility
- Limited accessibility
Overview
The lookout was built in 1930 on the summit of Mount Harkness, at 8,046 feet, in the stone-and-wood style typical of National Park structures from the 1920s and 1930s. The two-story building was a single-room cabin ringed by a wooden catwalk, with battered native-stone masonry rising from the ground to the upper windows. It once held an Osborne fire finder, a panoramic photograph, and a seismograph, and staff occupied it in summer to watch for fires. The Dixie Fire destroyed the lookout in August 2021.
Getting There
The shortest and most popular route climbs 1.9 miles and about 1,250 feet from the Juniper Lake Campground to the summit. The summit views reach from the Three Sisters in Oregon to the north, the Sierra Nevada to the south, and the Coast Range to the west.