I first visited Goat Peak Lookout in 2020 just for fun, but returned the

following year to record the site for the SHPO and to take note of

the work needed to be done following the Cedar Creek Fire

Also on that trip, we recorded the Buck Mountain Lookout,

which is just over the Loup Loup Summit and now in

the hands of the Colville National Forest

Once we moved to the Methow Valley, the Lookout Mountain

Lookout became one of our favorite local jaunts with a two
mile trail just above town & viewshed overlooking the
Sawtooth subrange; then in 2024 the Methow Valley
handcrew and I hauled new lumber up to the
tower on our shoulders for necessary repairs

The First Butte Lookout Tower still remains but the ground

buildings burned in the 2021 Cub Creek II Fire, after

which we made a visit to update the site record

 

Sometimes my job with the Forest Service involved aiding with
historic lookout structure repairs and upkeep - here Chris Estrada
mentions some of that supply purchasing, organizing & storing
with grant money obtained for the MVFFLA, as well as work
on the Mebee Pass Lookout, for which I made a trip over to
Rockport to pick up the new hand-crafted shutters and then
painted with a few coats to protect against the elements
before they were flown up to the lookout via helicopter

 

2024 was also a major bear year for me! A solo bear foraging near
War Creek in April; signs of bear seen during a tracking course in
June: a log ravaged for its bugs & a meadow-adjacent den site; the
8-bear weekend: a mother & 2 cubs on the ridge below Desolation,
a mother & 2 cubs on the East Bank Trail, and a mother with 1 cub
alongside Gold Creek Rd the next day; bear prints in the sand along
the Chilliwack River, followed by spooking a browsing bear up on
Copper Ridge later that day; & finally, our last work project of the
season surveying print-riddled dozer lines on Chelan Ridge.

Aaron Wells led our team of volunteers in a 5-needle pine
monitoring project up the Cutthroat drainage in July
of 2023; he just published our findings for the WA
Native Plant Society; see more info here:
WBP Project - Elfinwood Ecology
My photos from the project here

 

The good stuff starts a little over 4 minutes in

Slides discussing the diet of wolves of the Methow (Okanogan),
compared with cougars and/or wolves of NE Washington

Tracks from the Lookout Pack, our local group of Gray Wolves,
while skiing with Lily in 2022, then while running with Lily
in 2023 - both times up Lookout Mountain Road itself

In August of 2024, we saw and heard (howling every morning)
evidence of the Chopaka Pack in the Pasayten Wilderness
around Spanish Camp, just shy of the Canadian border

Then in October of 2024, I had the extremely fortunate experience
of encountering what I presume to be a single member of the
Lookout Pack. This time I was trail running solo in the
rain on a Sunday afternoon up a drainage off the
Twisp River. A kind of obsession has begun.

Washington Gray Wolf 2023 Annual Report

Lookout Pack Monthly Updates