Chapter 7: UpUp40 Fire Lookout

UpUp40 Lookout Tower is located up in the mountains about 10 miles due south from the town of De Borgia. Getting to the lookout involves driving 17 miles up a narrow, winding, twisting dusty dirt road to the top of the mountain. Fortunately the road was in very good condition and the rental car handled it with no problem. One nice thing about this lookout is that you're able to drive right up to the base of the tower. This means there's no long hike in. On the bad side you had to carry everything up the 63 steps to the top of the 40 foot tower (I counted them). However, the view from the catwalk around the tower was fabulous. You probably could have seen forever if it hadn't been for the smoky skies. It wasn't as smoky here as in Missoula, but the haze was definitely noticeable. When we were in the lookout and looked out the windows, all we could see was sky. It felt strange to have to go out on the catwalk and look down if you wanted to see the trees.

Just like McCart lookout, we had to bring all our water with us. Unfortunately, this tower was not as well equipped as McCart had been. We had assumed it would be and had brought a lot of food to cook, such as pancakes and omelet ingredients. Unfortunately we had no frying pan or pancake flipper with us, nor were there any cooking pots, pans, or utensils in the tower. So we had to cook all our food in our small 4 inch diameter backpacking pot.

It was a long 17 mile drive up a dusty dirt fire road to the top of the mountain and UpUp40 lookout tower. The 41 foot tall tower was built on top of a 20 foot tall rock pile making the tower seem even taller! All you could see was sky when you looked out the windows.

^ You had a LONG way to go if you had to take a late night trip to the bathroom! We got an old plastic bucket at a local grocery store and used it as a chamber pot at night.

^ This is the inside of UpUp40 lookout tower. It was very spacious, a bit bigger than McCart tower. However, the bed was smaller making for close-knit sleeping. Also this tower was not as well equipped as McCart.

We stayed there two nights and on the day in-between we did a xxx mile day hike along the UpUp Ridge Trail (trail #250) to the top of nearby Gold and Eagle Peaks. We drove about xx miles from the tower back down the fire road to the trailhead. From there it was a steady up hill climb around the base of Gold Peak and then up to the top of Eagle Peak. From there we had a great view of Ward Peak and Hub Lake about 1.5 miles down in a valley. We turned around and took a different path back that took us to the top of Gold Peak. There we found the ruins of an old lookout. From there we bushwhacked down the side of the mountain till we met up with the trail again and followed it back to the trailhead and the car.

^ This is the view from Eagle Peak looking at Ward Peak just beyond. Down in the valley below is Hub Lake

^ Here's Diane standing next to the rock cairn marking Eagle Peak. In the right hand distance is the top of Ward Peak.	^ This is Gold Peak. There are remains of an old lookout tower on top of the rock pile just to the left of the tall skinny rock cairn.

There was a poster in the tower advertising special UpUp40 Lookout Tower T-shirts available at the Savenac Tree Nursery in De Borgia. So naturally, the next day, after our long drive back down the mountain we drove 10 miles out of our way back to De Borgia to the tree nursery. Unfortunately, it was closed for the season! Dang! Since we had gone out of our to find the place we figured we'd drive around a bit to check it out. That's how we ran into the caretaker, CD (aka: "Coon Dog"), who had worked there for about the last 20 years. He was a very colorful character who told us all about the nursery, better than any tour guide. Basically, the place used to be used to grow trees that were used for replanting efforts out in fire damaged forests. He even had two "seconds" UpUp40 T-shirts that he gave us for nothing. Talk about Montana hospitality!

After leaving the nursery we had to hightail it to the town of Three Forks (~250 miles away) where we had reservations for that night, our last night in Montana. Along the way to Three Forks we remembered that we had forgotten to get a certain souvenir refrigerator magnet we had wanted when we had been in Ennis several days ago. Soooo . . . . on our way to Three Forks we took a slight 100 mile round trip detour back down south to Ennis just to buy an $8 refrigerator magnet !

When we finally got to Three Forks we checked in at the Broken Spur Motel. Since the car was VERY DUSTY and DIRTY from driving on so many dry dusty dirt roads we took the car across the street and treated it to a high pressure hose car wash. I didn't want the car rental people to see it so filthy when I returned it. Along with washing the outside, we also washed inside the doors and wiped down the whole interior with a damp towel. When we were done, the car never looked better !

The next day we drove the final 35 miles to Bozeman airport for our flight back home after another great outdoors adventure in Montana.

The End