[Eric Willhite]

[moonspots]

[brewermd]

Great video! Enjoyed watching the journey.

[NWtrax]

Cool spot, really nice work on the video!

[RodF]

Classic Olympic route-finding by following telephone insulators, Eric! Great video. Thank you for sharing your quest. I searched through Olympic National Park's "Building Log", a bound book in Park archives, and found this entry: Building #708, "A. Warning Station, Indian Pass, Boga.", built: "1942", structure: "frame", "177 sq. ft.", utilities (WSET): "none", value "$796", Const. by: "NPS-USFS-AWS funds". The entry is crossed out in red ink with the notation "Destroyed RS 8149N00565". On the same page, it list the "Geodesic Peak AWS" as destroyed under the same RS project number (also the Skater's Shelter on Lake Dawn). So this confirms that NPS burned it down. I haven't retrieved and don't have the exact date of that RS. It's one of several under which about a third of the roughly 1,500 inventoried structures in the Park were destroyed, including several resorts including Olympic Hot Springs. (Plus many miners, hunters and homesteaders buildings that were never even entered into the Park's inventory, so aren't listed. There were 2500 private inholdings within the Park when it was created.) This was a Park policy started under Sup't. Roger Allin and continued under Roger Contor to "cleanse" the Park backcountry of structures, to make it conform with their reading of the intent of the Wilderness Act, so future visitors might imagine no one had stood there before them. Visitors like you, and we your readers, actually find our experience enriched by finding telephone insulators or stove pipes, or knowing that we're standing where an AWS observer searched the sky, or a homesteader tilled his garden, or USFS built a trail, or a tribe caught and dried salmon every summer for centuries. We mourn the NPS' destruction of its own history, of our history. One of the wonderous elements of wilderness is that evidence of history can survive; NPS may burn it down but at least can't bulldoze and pave it over. Alas, this policy of deliberate destruction continues today (1935 CCC-built Elwha Campground Community Kitchen, 1930 Enchanted Valley Chalet, 1907 and 1920 Elwha Basin Trail and other elements of the USFS Trail System Cultural Landscape, all eligible or listed on the National Register of Historic Places). Any guess where they got water? They may have found a spring nearby.

[Pyrites]

Wow. Lookout Obscura. Horse pack supply to Indian Pass? Origination of name? Have you bumped up against payroll records in your research? Has ONP ever put out a history pamphlet about the AWS? Pretty decent out and back, including route discovery, in a day hike. Best. Pyrites

[Brushbuffalo]

Well done, Eric. You are a good researcher.

[lookout bob]

Great find, research and video Eric. You certainly have a knack for finding these remote locations. I'm so glad you are documenting them and sharing the information for us armchair lookout guys. Lovely music and certainly a lot of hard work went into your great video. Thanks!!!

[RodF]

[silence]

Amazing ... love the backstory, your story and the video .... well done!!!

[tinman]

Another good one Eric. I've lived in Forks for over 40 years and had never heard about that lookout compared to the others you have reported on and a couple you haven't been to yet. Great research as usual.

[Jaberwock]

Awesome! So glad you're still out cataloging these

[haydenslides]

Very cool...thanks for sharing!