TRINITY COUNTY
CABIN PEAK
Trinity National Forest
7N-12W-1
7N-12W-1
October 16, 1933: "District Ranger Fred Grover, with a big gun over his shoulder, started out this week for the wild primitive are above the north fork of the Trinity to build a lookout station. He expected to return in three days.
Structural Foreman Dale and two carpenters also journeyed into the district and will actually start preparing foundations at the Cabin peak lookout station on that high and rugged point. The elevation is about 6500 feet above sea level.
The first building material was expected to be delivered Friday, the 13th, by the pack train of 12 animals. This material had to be packed in 20 miles from the end of the East Fork road at Yellowstone.
Frank Wallen has been constructing the upper part of the new Cabin peak trail with the aid of a few days with the crew and keep on the construction of the Cabin peak lookout. He has had a spike camp the last few days about a mile and a half below Cabin peak. This will be headquarters for the carpenters as well as for the trail crew." (Courier-Free Press)
Structural Foreman Dale and two carpenters also journeyed into the district and will actually start preparing foundations at the Cabin peak lookout station on that high and rugged point. The elevation is about 6500 feet above sea level.
The first building material was expected to be delivered Friday, the 13th, by the pack train of 12 animals. This material had to be packed in 20 miles from the end of the East Fork road at Yellowstone.
Frank Wallen has been constructing the upper part of the new Cabin peak trail with the aid of a few days with the crew and keep on the construction of the Cabin peak lookout. He has had a spike camp the last few days about a mile and a half below Cabin peak. This will be headquarters for the carpenters as well as for the trail crew." (Courier-Free Press)
November 8, 1933: "J. P. Finnegan, who has been working as a carpenter on the Balsam grove lookout, is transferred to Cabin Peaks, where a new lookout is being built. It is in the wild primitive area, above the north fork of the Trinity. A high and rugged point, with an elevation of 6500 feet. Work is progressing rapidly." (Courier-Free Press)
April 16, 1937: "Water for Cabin Peak lookout on the Big Bar district of the Trinity forest is transported a distance of two miles over a steep, rocky trail by pack mule. It is the duty of North Fork firemen to supply necessary water for the lookout two or three times each week. When the fireman is on a fire, Cabin Peak lookout usually runs out of water and worries considerably as to how he is going to find water to make coffee for the next meal. It was a problem and the lookout decided to do a little reconnoitering whereby the situation might be remedied.
He decided to call on Elmer for a little assistance. Elmer was a pet chipmunk that was headman of a family of 14 children, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, etc. He and his family lived at the lookout which indicated that water was necessarily nearby for their subsistence. Where was the water? Perhaps Elmer would unwittingly expose the location of a spring.
The lookout took some salt crackers and gave the family a sumptuous meal. They all filled themselves to capacity, and since salt brings on immediate thirst Elmer gave two chirps and then cavaliered his family of 14 down the mountain. The lookout followed at a prudent distance. After traveling about 400 feet Elmer suddenly disappeared from sight. He had climbed down among the rocks. The lookout stopped at a point of vantage and heard Elmer and the family busily chattering down among the rocks.
In a moment or so Elmer reappeared at the surface and, behold, he looked like a drowned rat. He had quenched his thirst and had taken a bath. The lookout had made a valuable discovery, thereby solving the water problem. Elmer, his family, and the lookout man hiked back to the lookout where all lived happily thereafter." (The Searchlight)
June 17, 1937: "Perched astride the 7000 foot divide which separates New river and the north fork of the Trinity, the Cabin Peak lookout station in the Trinity Alps is no place for sleepwalkers. A 200 foot vertical drop begins ten feet from the catwalk around the cabin.
When the wind blows strongly one is thankful for the iron anchor rods which run thru the building and down into the solid rock to which they are permanently attached by the use of sulphur. Joe Strunce is the observer and hails from Bohemia---now Czechoslovakia.
It is two miles down to the nearest water excepting for a tank near the cabin which is filled during the winter storms, and which Joe uses until the wiggler content overcomes his reluctance for the four mile hike. Like most lonely lookouts Joe has a radio and it was soon noted that Cabin Peak could pick up teh forest service radio signals under any conditions and that the station was in great demand for relay work.
It was thought that Joe had a better than ordinary radio, but upon being asked about it said that 'it must be the lights.' Inquiry developed that at night there is often a halo of light over a point about 300 yards from the lookout station and upon investigation the formation of this place was found to have an exceptionally high iron content. This point is easily discerned from a great distance on account of its deep red color. It is a natural lodestone, attracting meteors from a wide radius. The meteors burst or burn up about 400 feet above Iron Point in such numbers as at times to create a fluctuating glow sufficient to disturb a person sleeping in the lookout station.
But Joe is thankful in a way, saying, 'I don't have to dodge, anyhow; I know those stones coming down from Mary Blaine (a mountain peak on the Siskiyou divide) won't get me. Iron point will pick them up.' And the forest service has discovered a radio location par excellence where signals from any point can be depended upon to 'come in.' " (The Searchlight)
October 9, 1937: "With a roar that was heard several miles distant, a large section of the rocky top of Cabin Peak loosed its moorings during the height of last week's storm and plunged to the foot of the mountain.
The slide occurred immediately beneath the Forest Service lookout station and lookout Strunce telephone headquarters and in a hurried voice said the top of the mountain was transferring its quarters down to New River, some 2000 feet below, and that he was in no mood to accompany the sized boulders in their almost perpendicular descent. The next report from Strunce was from North Ford guard station, some miles away, and disclosed that the lookout building now hovers on the very brink of the precipice. Thus Cabin Peak lookout station was abandoned for the winter." (Blue Lake Advocate)
