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| The Mountain Lookout Tower offers spectacular views of the surrounding national forest in northeast Wisconsin. |
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| Mountain lookout Tower Trail topo map. Click for larger version. |
The 0.26-miles round trip hike sits in the vast Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The tower is at an elevation of 1,254 feet.
To reach the trailhead, in Mountain on County Road W just east of Wis. Hwy. 32, take National Forest Road 2106 (Old 32) north. In about 2.25 miles, turn right/southeast onto Mountain Tower Road. Pull off to the side of the road so you’re not blocking traffic. Hike the road up to the tower.
The road heads through a classic North Woods setting that is beautiful any time of the year but particularly so in autumn. A September walk takes you past sugar, red and mountain maples, white, red and black oaks, paper, yellow and river birch, aspen, beech, basswood, and sumac. Various green conifers – including pine, spruce, fir, and juniper – dot the hardwood forest.
At the end of the road is the Mountain Lookout Tower, which rises 100 feet high. An Aermotor tower, it is one of the few remaining lookouts in the eastern portion of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. When erected in 1935 by the U.S. Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps, it was part of an extensive system of more than a dozen towers in Nicolet National Forest.
The tower closed in 1970. After years of falling into disrepair, it was restored in 1994 then refurbished again in 2016. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Today, it’s the only tower in the old lookout system that people can go up into it. First you’ll have to climb 132 steep steps. At the top is a 7-by-7 foot cab, from which you enjoy a 360 degrees view above the tree canopy for miles around. During autumn, you’ll see an array of harvest colors, from gold and sienna to honey yellow and crimson.
Most of those trees were planted during the 1930s by the CCC. Logging during the early 1900s wiped out the old growth forest, of which only isolated remnants remain in the national forest.
The lookout tower is open about mid-May through the end of October daily from 8 a.m. until sunset. There is no charge to enter the tower, but donations to help keep up the tower are welcomed.
Parking is available at the tower, by the way, but if you drive right up to it, then you wouldn’t be hiking, right?
