Burnt Timber Lookout

Fri. 1 July:  Burnt Timber Lookout

Imagine hiking up Moose Mountain on a sunny Canada Day and not meeting a single person.  Ridiculous!  Yet here at Burnt Timber Lookout, I found a gentler version of Moose Mountain, and had it all to myself.

The trick was getting there.  From Calgary it’s a 205 km drive, first north to Sundre, then southwest along the Red Deer River road, which becomes a dusty gravel road.  Finally you head out into the Panther River wilderness for the final 22 km to the trailhead.

I had little confidence that I would be able to drive all the way up the access road, but it turned out to be easy.  Turning off the forestry road at Mountain Aire Lodge, I found a good road along the Panther river, with a number of horse ranches hidden in the trees.  Luckily Shell also had a number of active wellsites along the road, and so they had maintained it, as it turned away from the river and climbed over a low pass into the Burnt Creek valley.  In fact, I was able to drive all the way to the old fire access road gate.

Burnt Timber lookout operated until 1986 and was demolished three years later.  But for some reason, the switchback trail up to the top of this mountain was not allowed to become overgrown with deadfall, and is still today in good condition for hikers.  The lower part of the steep trail was becoming washed away gradually, but higher up, it was in good shape.

It is just over 5 km up the mountain – or to be exact, up, down and up the mountain!  For some reason not entirely obvious, having reached the lower part of the ridge, the trail then dropped back down into the forest before climbing once again to the summit.  This might have been the easy way of avoiding a steep hillside, but I don’t think it would have been impossible to avoid the 300 foot descent around the edge of the hillside. 

Not that it mattered.  It was a pleasant stroll with lots of enticing glimpses of the snowy Front Ranges and green open foothills to make it a grand trail for the hiker.

Once up out of the trees onto the open slopes, this became a spectacular trip, with unobstructed views of the mountain wall to the left, and the rounded summit of the lookout mountain ahead.  There was one snowdrift which covered the trail on the open hillside, but the quad tracks simply headed straight up to the flat summit.  Here a strong NW wind was blowing and it was freezing.  I quickly put on wind jacket, wooly hat and gloves, yet it was still cold up there. 

The views were stunning.  There were some impressive mountains in this part of the Front Ranges, including Mt. Oliver (9,745 ft.) with its vertical walls.  Visibility was good, and this lookout hill commanded a view far out across the foothills to the prairie.  The guidebook said that you could see Calgary from here.  It seemed improbable.  Yet with my telephoto lens on the camera, I thought I could see the city on the far southern horizon, and so I took a few pictures.  The result was dramatic.  Although not visible by the naked eye, the camera long shot revealed the city clearly on the horizon, over 105 km away as the crow flies.

There were just a few foundations and bent metal rods on the summit to indicate the location of the fire lookout.  It must have been an amazing experience living up here on this remote mountain top.  Judging by today’s conditions, it was very probably a cold and windy place to live.

I reluctantly dropped back down off the summit, and strolled further along the lower ridge before turning back down the long trail.  There were no bears in sight but I spotted a black bear paw print, not recent I thought.  It was warm in the trees, with that strong smell of pines in the air.  The return journey back down the hillsides was straightforward.

Not only did I have this mountain to myself, I saw no other vehicle along the Panther River road, until I came to the forestry road.  It was a dusty return along the northern side of the Red Deer River, as several large horse trailers and campers passed by.  One rafting company had taken a school bus and blocked out the “S” and the “H” on the front so it read “Cool Bus”, which I thought was very fitting.

Instead of simply driving down the now quite busy Hwy 22, I found a good paved route further west on empty country roads, all the way to Water Valley.  This would be a good place to have a hideaway retreat.  Looking back I could see the flat prairie with the mountain wall behind it.  Somewhere in there was the lookout mountain with its birds eye view of this city of over a million people which I now rejoined for some Canada Day celebrations.

Statistics
Burnt Timber Lookout
Fri. 1 July
Total Dist.	10.6 km (hike)
Height Gain	2,100 ft.
Max. Elev.	7,610 ft.
Time	3 hrs. 52 mins.

Other Stats.
Start hike:       8.01 am Arr. Top:         9.48 am Dep. Top:      10.17 am Ret. to car:    11.53 am 414 km round trip	Temp:  +9 to +13 deg.C Sunny, NW wind was v. cold at top.  Good visibility.