I helped build the trail that leads to the summit from just south of the old lookout site. In 1965 my wife was the USFS lookout, and I was a fire fighter, with other chores as required. There had been a good snow pack the winter before, and the trout fishing near the headwaters of Deep Creek, particularly just where Dismal Creek joins it, was excellent. I often caught a couple fish for supper or breakfast after work, before driving up to the lookout. We had worked on other lookouts before and after-Riverbed Butte North of Bly, and finally Abert Rim-but Crane Mountain was our favorite.

Still think it was a damned shame that the Forest Service destroyed most of those lookouts in the 1970's.

I made a journey back there last July (2014) and apart from the fact that the on-going drought has reduced the streams to little trickles I was disgusted with the condition of even the main forest roads.
I talked with the District Ranger in Lakeview, and he admitted that he hadn't been up there in years:
not enough money in the budget for sight-seeing, let alone road maintenance and the kind of fire
prevention work I used to do.