Strange things sit in the Lolo National Forest, some with an interesting history

LOLO NATIONAL FOREST — This past summer, I went camping deep in the Lolo National Forest. And when I was out there, I came across some strange things.

I was camping out off a forest service road and decided to hike from my campsite. I walked down the road and came across a hilltop — I decided I just had to get to the top of it.

Once I arrived at the top of the hill — after trudging straight up it — I found a metal pole, about 15 feet in height, waiting for me.

As I stood there, I couldn’t help but say aloud, “Am I missing something here?” I was about half an hour down the Forest Service road — one that you could tell was rarely used — and here was this pole right atop this hill. Just below the pole, further down the hill, sat a small wooden shed roughly the size of a dog house. Why were these things there? What were they used for?

I ventured back to the pole several weeks later, documenting where it was. As I was heading back on that second trip, I came across something else. A collapsed cement structure made out of cement, chicken wire and odd pieces of wood. This one really perplexed me, the structure was roughly 100 square feet in size, sitting in the woods.

My mind went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole trying to figure out what this pole was and what it was used for until I eventually realized that I needed to talk to an expert to find out more.

“Anytime I'm out in the woods, I always try to go to the highest knob and be like, I bet you there was a lookout here. It's just something that I'm really passionate about” said Lolo National Forest East Zone Archaeologist Sydney Bacon.

Bacon was exactly the person that I needed to talk to. She knew exactly what these structures were and the history behind them.

She told me that these strange structures are from the movie Red Skies Over Montana, a smoke-jumper movie roughly based off the Mann Gulch incident.

“The pole and shed are what's left of an old lookout tower. There's very little that remains of this lookout and that's actually part of the story. This lookout Lolo Springs lookout was burned to be part of the movie” said Bacon.

That answered my question about the pole, but what about the weird cement structure? Well, that was a fake cliff used in the climax of the movie.

“They built this cliff out of what appears to be chicken wire and concrete and, you know, milled lumber and it's just been sitting here since 1952,” Bacon explained.

“I just really think it's interesting how they tried to incorporate local rocks into it to make it look more like a cliff. I mean, the first time I saw the movie was before I had been here and I didn't think it looked like a fake cliff to me.”

On top of explaining what these structures were to me, Bacon also went on to point out some interesting trees scattered around the fake cliff.

The trees she was pointing out were old set-piece trees, sandblasted, trucked in, then planted in the ground, doused in kerosene and lit on fire for the shooting of the movie. Bacon pointed out one tree that was still standing with a branch nailed to it.

While these structures may have been surprising to find for me, the public at large has been accustomed to them as clear signs of human presence were all around. Graffiti, garbage and fire remnants.

Bacon told me that this is a challenge for the U.S. Forest Service, trying to find a balance on what to do with the sites. In the past, recreators have injured themselves at sites such as this one, more specifically, old lookout towers. This is because of the degrading structural integrity of the lookouts — mainly due to age — tripping, lead paint and accidental fires that have been started.

“There has to be some kind of happy medium between how to, interpret these sites for the public but also keep people safe,” remarked Bacon.

With all of this information that Bacon provided, I could finally put my mind at rest wondering what these things were.

So, if you ever come across some strange things in the mountains, just know that there could be some interesting history behind them!