Blown Away by Fire Tower Experience

We recently spent a night at the Squaw Mountain Fire Tower to celebrate my Sweetpea's birthday.  Between the remote location, views, and incinerating toilet (more on that later), I was as excited as a kid heading to Disneyland.  If you were a raven in the clear blue skies that day, you may have even witnessed a little happy dance when we arrived.

It's only a two-mile hike up to the tower (one mile in the summer), but at least 1,000-foot elevation gain.  Since we read that you can only get there by snowshoes or cross-country skis in the winter, we took snowshoes, although they really weren't needed this time.  Looking like complete tourists, we snowshoed up the mountain with loaded packs.  We are NOT backpackers.  Even for just the one night, we carried 35-45 pound packs.  You have to bring your own food and water, and they recommend winter camping gear.  Since we are both photographers, we just couldn't leave home without the most basic of camera gear - (2) digital SLRs, (3) lenses for SLRs, (1) medium format camera, (4) lenses for medium format, (1) pinhole camera, a full-sized tripod, a gorilla-pod, and loads of film (some that expired 42 years ago).

The sky was deep blue and it was unusually warm for January in Colorado.  Stunning views surrounded us on the way up.  When we approached the summit, we passed the last two people we would see until almost noon the next day.  The mountain was ours.

It was uncharacteristically calm at the summit when we first arrived.  After dropping off our packs, we bouldered around the top ridge.  Shortly, the strong breeze that we expected at 11,000 feet caught up to us.  We made our way back to our 14'x14' home for the night.


The fire tower was surprisingly clean and well-stocked.  On a future visit, we may even take our chances and dine on the leftovers from previous guests.  We could have feasted on penne pasta and marinara, pancakes, tuna, chana masala, and even beer!  Since there is only a small window facing South in the downstairs room, we cooked our dinner and headed upstairs to enjoy it with a view.  The upstairs room is surrounded by windows, and it is actually difficult to decide which way to face, since it is spectacular in all directions.

By dinnertime, the summit breeze had become a stiff wind.  Overnight, that wind rivaled tornadoes.  It doesn't help that we had read the history of the fire tower in the provided guide book, and discovered that the roof had to be replaced after it had blown off during a storm.  Neither one of us got any sleep that night, but I have new respect for the windows and new roof!  You can watch the ceiling shake from side to side, while the windows actually lifted up in the frames.

We set the alarm to wake up before sunrise, but it wasn't necessary.  When the room started to brighten, my Sweetpea nudged me and pointed to the East.  Under a thick band of clouds, the sky was blazing orange on the horizon.  We have hundreds of pictures of the view from the following hour, but almost every one of them is marred by reflections in the windows.  Finally, I decided to brave the wind and ran around the catwalk snapping pictures as fast as I could.

I promise, it was a blizzard

Once the rising sun slipped behind the clouds, we tried again to get some sleep.  I must have dozed off, because when I woke up it was a blizzard outside.  The wind was as strong as ever, and fat flakes were zipping past the windows - sideways and upward.  This continued for most of the morning, and we were cursing ourselves for not bringing the coffeepot upstairs.  The only way to get between floors is to go outside, go completely around the building on the narrow catwalk, then down a flight of stairs and around the corner.  The guide book warned against venturing out to the catwalk during high winds, for risk of blowing over the rail, so we stayed put.  I was wondering if we would have cell phone signal to contact our petsitter to let her know that we would have to stay another night.

Sketchy scramble to the "incinolet"

Finally, Mother Nature paused between breaths and we were able to go downstairs for coffee and breakfast.  Afterwards, we were packing up our gear and preparing to hike back to the car when a head popped up into view.  Nicole with the Forest Service had hiked up to check on the place in between storms.  Luckily, this also meant that we wouldn't have to deal with the required maintenance on the incinerating toilet (the "incinolet", according the guide book).  I have to admit, my excitement to use the incinolet had waned after reading mixed reviews in the guest log.  I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the outhouse actually was for our visit.  Nicole said that she wouldn't go as far as saying that it smelled like a campfire, but that was what I thought.

Even with the schizophrenic weather, we both agreed that it was one of the best things that we have ever done.  It definitely ranked in one of the top three places that we have stayed.  Five-star hotels have nothing on a hundred-billion-star fire tower on top of Squaw Mountain.

View of the Big Dipper out one of the windows

For more pictures, click here.