Colorado Lookouts

White Pine Lookout

Roosevelt National Forest

Elevation: 10305

Status: Removed

Year Built: 1939?

Year Removed: ?

Structure Type: L4

Topographic Map (original location)

Topographic Map (current location)

White Pine was the sister lookout to Deadman Mountain to the northwest. The lookout cab was removed by helicopter and placed in Lee Martinez City Park in Fort Collins, Colorado. Later, it was transferred to its current location at Colorado State University's Environmental Learning Center in SE Fort Collins where it sits awaiting restoration. You can read about the project here. An outhouse and other ruins remain at the top of West White Pine Mountain. There is little historical information on this lookout.

How to get to the original location: From CO 14 and US 287, take CO 14 west for 13 miles, make a left (south) on Stove Prarie Rd (Rd 27). Continue south for 10 miles to the gravel Buckhorn Rd (Rd 44H), on your right (west). Take Buckhorn Road 12.5 miles to the now closed Buckhorn Ranger Station. A Jeep track (unmarked FR100) heads north from the ranger station, passing a few houses. High clearance 4WD vehicles can make it all the way to the top of West White Pine, but most will have to park a short ways up the road and hike to the site, a 3.1 mile (one way) trek, with 1900 feet of elevation gain.

USFS

Panoramic photograph taken from White Pine Mountain LO