Entry No. 177 — the Denver file — filed under: outdoor
Mestaa'ehehe Mountain Fire Lookout
Almost everyone driving CO-103 toward Mount Blue Sky blows right past this one: a squat 14x14 granite cab ringed with windows, built by the CCC in the 1940s, perched at 11,494 feet. There's no flashy trailhead sign, just a dirt pull-off and a service road grinding uphill through the pines. Walk it about two miles and the trees fall away to a 360-degree payoff almost no one earns: Longs Peak and the Front Range, Pikes Peak to the south, downtown Denver glinting on the plains. The real secret is that the tower itself can be rented overnight, a working-feeling fire lookout you can actually sleep in.
The move: Make the walk up the date. It's a wide service road, not a scramble, so you can talk the whole way instead of staring at your feet, and the climb is just hard enough to feel earned. Pack a thermos and something to split, and time it so you crest the last stretch with the light going gold over Denver and the high peaks. Crowd the windows of the old cab, pick out the city you drove out of, and let the wind do the dramatic part. If you want to go all in, reserve the lookout itself and stay the night up there.
📍 Before you go Roughly 4 miles round trip with about 800 feet of gain on a steady dirt service road, no technical sections, but it tops out near 11,500 feet so the altitude makes it feel moderate, not easy. Day-hiking is free with no permit; the road parking is free. The lookout cab itself is a separate, fee-based overnight reservation that books out far ahead (reserve via recreation.gov; assume it's competitive). In summer a high-clearance 4WD can drive FR 192.1 partway; most cars park on CO-103 and walk the whole road. Open year-round, but the practical window for an easy day-hike is roughly late spring through fall. Snow lingers on this aspect well into spring, so microspikes or snowshoes are smart shoulder-season, and winter turns it into a 2-mile snow trek. Real cautions: it's a high, exposed metal-roofed tower, so high winds are common and afternoon lightning is a genuine summer hazard up top, turn back if storms build. Bring all your own water; there is none. Note that recreational shooting is allowed in the surrounding forest, so distant gunfire is normal. (This is the Squaw Mountain lookout, since renamed Mestaa'ehehe, and is a different tower than Devil's Head.)
- 📍 Bergen Park / Clear Creek County (near Evergreen)
- 💸 Free
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Outdoors
Where: Unmarked highway pull-off on Colorado 103 (Squaw Pass Rd), west of Bergen Park near the base of Forest Road 192.1, roughly across from Echo Mountain ski area and just before the Chief Mountain Trailhead. From Denver, take I-70 west to Exit 252 (Evergreen Pkwy/CO-74), follow CO-74 through Bergen Park, then turn onto CO-103 (Squaw Pass Rd) and climb several miles to the pullout on the left if coming from the east. In summer, high-clearance 4WD can drive FR 192.1 a mile to a gate; everyone else parks on the highway and walks the road up.
Hours: Day-use, free. Best season: Late spring through fall (summer best for day-hiking; winter needs snowshoes or spikes). Confirm trail & road conditions before you go.
⚠ Seasonal or scheduled — always check before you go.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Proof: source 1 · source 2 · source 3 · source 4
last checked: 2026-06-10