We decided today, was the day we were going to go off the beaten path, and blaze our own why up a Mountain. The challenge, to find the old fire tower ontop of Flagstaff Mt.

The trees around the base of the mountain having been selectively cut in the past five to ten years, removed all signs of the old wardens trail. We decided to find the logging road off from the Loop Road, that is south of the mountain and north of Flagstaff Lake. The turn is easy to spot because of a very friendly face painted on a pile of rocks.

The logging road ended in what appears to be an old staging yard, from here all the roads leading on, were grassy paths. We parked and approched the mountain with a compass, GPS on a smart phone, bright pink flagging tape, and a whole lot of gusto!

Following an old skid road and the track of the GPS, we climbed. The skid road ended at about 1/2 mile and from that point on we traveled through some very thick spuce and hemlock. The trees thickened the trail became steeper. On two occaisions we were able to get views south over Flagstaff Lake and to the Bigelows. After about a mile we found a rocky spot and straining our eyes through the thick tree growth we were able to glimpse the tower. At times the trees were so thick it was actually easier to crawl than to walk. At last we reached to tower, only to find that the bottom section of the ladder had been removed. Climbing on the tower was do-able, climbing up to the top difficult. The attempt was made just the same.

At the top of the mountain there is a beautiful loop cut to the tower. As we traveled around the loop we found a wide, clear, amazing trail going down the northwest slope. We could have taken that trail down and back to the truck but, we needed to go back the way we came, because we set out to make our own way to the top, and therefore we would take our own way down.

The weather was hot, the trail was dry, and the bugs were hungry.

Happy Trails