An earlier lookout was erected at the site in 1917 but was torn down when the current lookout was constructed. The current structure was built atop a rock foundation and is 14.25 ft (4.34 m) by 14.25 ft (4.34 m) square. The walls are composed of shiplap siding and the structure is covered with a wood-shingled hip roof. Diagonally-braced plywood shutters could be swung open for observation in each direction. The structure is no longer used on a regular basis but is visited with some frequency by hikers and it is a 5 mi (8.0 km) hike to the cabin from the trailhead.[2]
During the summer of 1953, poet Gary Snyder worked at the location as a fire lookout while his friend and fellow poet Philip Whalen worked at Sauk Mountain Lookout.[3][4] Snyder's poem "Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout" is based on his time there[5] as is his poem "August on Sourdough, A Visit from Dick Brewer."[6] Snyder's time at Sourdough Mountain Lookout is said to have provided the "seed experience for the poetry he is best known for: language full of the raw, playful wit that reflects the granite ridges where he worked and watched and wrote."[7]
Two years later Snyder was blacklisted by the Forest Service from working another season at Sourdough Mountain so Whalen took his place as the lookout.[4] While there Whalen wrote "Sourdough Mountain Lookout," one of his "most enduring poems." The poem references Whalen's work as a lookout along with "musings on rocks, insects, animals, and weather."[4]
In August 2023, the lookout was wrapped in fire-proof material to mitigate potential damage caused by the nearby Sourdough Fire.[8]
^ abcBeat Culture Lifestyles, Icons, and Impact edited by William Lawlor, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005 page 241.
^"Theirs Is a Kind of Ecological Esthetics: Three Mountain Poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen" by Todd Giles, Western American Literature, University of Nebraska Press, fall 2022, volume 57, issue 3.
^"August on Sourdough: An Archival View of Gary Snyder's Intercultural Poetics" by Andrew Hageman, Western American Literature, University of Nebraska Press, summer 2015, volume 50, issue 2.
