By Karen Lloyd-D’Onofrio, Development Officer
Rocky Mountain Conservancy is proud to announce a new phase in a long-term project to preserve the Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout located on the west side of the park.
The 1930s era tower is the last remaining fire lookout tower within Rocky Mountain National Park and sits atop a natural rocky outcrop on Shadow Mountain at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet. Each year, nearly two thousand hikers make the five-mile rugged hike up the mountain to visit the tower.
In the past, the Conservancy has funded repairs to the tower’s stairway and balcony (1996), followed by a historical structure report (2020/2021), and a construction design plan for rehabilitation options (2022/2023). To date, the Conservancy and its donors have committed around $300,000 to preserve this iconic structure.
The Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its rustic-style architecture of locally sourced rocks and logs and cultural history but needs critical repairs to improve safety and accessibility. The construction phase of this multi-year project begins this summer.
The Conservancy’s Conservation Corps will work alongside the park’s historic preservation crew to stabilize the masonry stone foundation and remove the rotting stairway and railings leading to the upper floors.
Although many habitats need occasional wildland fires to remain healthy, increasingly hotter and larger wildland fires, like those witnessed in 2020, have had devastating effects on our communities and ecosystems.
These devastating fires, in part, have evolved from the fact that fire had been intentionally excluded from our landscapes for nearly a century. From the 1920 till the late 1960s, fire suppression was a key strategy in the National Park Service’s (NPS) fire management policies, with fire lookout towers playing a major role in carrying out that strategy. The Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout, built by a local contractor in 1932, emerged from this fire management philosophy.
NPS’s embrace of fire suppression was driven by a series of devastating wildfires that hit several western national parks, including Glacier National Park. Charged with preserving wilderness and scenic landscapes for visitors to enjoy, park foresters argued that wildfires went against the park’s values and wasted valuable resources like timber.
During the Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout’s early years, male rangers staffed the tower for several days at a time. They looked for signs of fire, sent daily reports, and handled maintenance tasks. After WWII, married couples began serving as seasonal residents. The tower remained in use until the late 1960s, when the NPS moved away from strict fire suppression and towards the introduction of prescribed burns. The tower has been closed to public access since 2015 due to deterioration.
The Conservancy is an important partner in the preservation of the park’s history and has supported the preservation of several properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which includes McGraw Ranch, the Moraine Park Museum and Amphitheater, Holzwarth Historic Site, and the William Allen White Cabin.
Thank you to Tucker Stapleton, the Conservancy-funded museum technician at Rocky, for assisting us in locating the photographs of the Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout.
If you would like to learn more about the Conservancy’s support of historical preservation in the park, please contact Karen Lloyd-D’Onofrio at [email protected]. To give a gift, click the button below.