Cow grazing the lonely wheatfields
Magnifence near Goldendale, Washington
Image Title: "Mt. Adams,
Lonely Cow"
Mt. Adams is the Northwest's
second tallest peak at 12,276 feet, and is widely visible from
many parts of Northern Oregon, both east and west of the Cascades.
In the old
days, 1929-1937, sulphur mining was done on
the summit. The operation was finally shut down in 1959. There
was a trail up the relatively gentle south side that pack animals
used to haul supplies, at the rate of about 168 mule packs trains
per summer during the height of the mining before World War II....
A Forest Service lookout cabin also existed for many years on
the summit but was only manned for a short time, 1921-1924-- to my
knowledge, it was the very highest lookout in all of America at
the time..... A visitor in 1943 reported that at that time it
was "a beautiful cabin and probably saved a few lives."
In recent years, the
cabin is still in fairly good condition, but is usually so buried
in snow that many who visit the summit do not even see or recognize
it. It's a wooden structure somewhat larger than the average cupola-type
lookout of the era (click to see
an example). This was because the mining operation twice built
onto the lookout to create room for its men. If you go onto Google
Earth and zoom in on the summit plateau, off on the extreme left
side of that summit area is a small picture icon all by itself.
It's labelled something about "panorama"-- click on
that, and double click to enlarge it fully. It is a magnificent,
high-resolution panorama that includes the old lookout cabin,
almost fully melted-out.
E-mailer: brucej@oregonphotos.com
-- click for a direct link to communicate with me about ordering
a premium Chromira print of "Mt. Adams, Lonely Cow."
Size is 8x12, price is $26, plus shipping.
See
Mt. Adams as seen from Portland, Oregon downtown
See more Pacific Northwest Lookout Towers
Visit Goldendale Observatory's website
Back
to Southern Washington Cascades Main page
Back to OregonPhotos main page, over 375 pages of
unique images, and over 375,000 words of unique content
Page Last Reviewed 11/27/2021