Devil's Head Lookout is a U.S. Forest Service
fire lookout tower
A fire lookout tower, fire tower, or lookout tower is a tower that provides housing and protection for a person known as a " fire lookout", whose duty it is to search for wildfires in the wilderness. It is a small building, usually on the summit ...
at the summit of
Devils Head in
Douglas County, Colorado
Douglas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 357,978. The county is named in honor of U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas. The county seat is Castle Rock.
Douglas County is pa ...
. Located on a large pinnacle of
Pikes Peak granite, the fire lookout point lies within the
Pike National Forest
The Pike National Forest is located in the Front Range of Colorado, United States, west of Colorado Springs including Pikes Peak. The forest encompasses 1,106,604 acres (4,478 km2) within Clear Creek, Teller, Park, Jefferson, Douglas an ...
and is accessed by hiking the
Devils Head National Recreation Trail.
The station was first established in 1912, with the original tower built in 1919. In the summer of 1951, the old tower was dismantled and current structure was built. In 1991, Devil's Head Lookout was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
. Sitting at the highest point of
Rampart Range, the fire lookout is the last remaining such structure to be in service along the
Front Range
The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encounter ...
of Colorado.
The view from the current structure extends at least 100 miles in every direction on clear days.
USDA Forest Service, Pike & San Isabel National Forests, Cimarron & Comanche National Grasslands - About Us
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The lookout (elev. 9748 feet, or 2971 m) can be accessed via easy/moderate trail (2.8 miles, or 4.5 km round trip) with elevation gain of 951 feet, or 290 m. The last stretch is a climb on 143 stairs. The access is from Rampart Range Road, a 14.5-km dirt road (easily accessible by passenger cars) from CO67. Note that the road to the trailhead is always closed to vehicles during the winter and typically does not open until April or May.
Gallery
Image:Devil's Head Stairs.jpg, The stairs at the base of the tower. The tower itself is visible in the upper right.
Image:View from Devil's Head Lookout.jpg, View from the top of the Devil's Head Lookout. Pike National Forest is in the foreground, while the city of Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
is in the distance.
Image:Pikes Peak Granite.jpg, The trail leading to the lookout tower passes many boulders made of Pike's Peak granite, such as this one.
Image:Pike_National_Forest.jpg, A view from the trail leading to the tower.
See also
*
See also
*Front Range
The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encounter ...
* Mountain peaks of Colorado
* Mountain peaks of North America
* Mountain peaks of the Rocky Mountains
*Mountain peaks of the United States
This article comprises three sortable tables of Summit, major mountain peaks of the United States, United States of America.
The summit of a mountain or hill may be measured in three main ways:
#The Elevation, topographic elevation of a summit ...
*Mountain ranges of Colorado
All the major mountain ranges in the state of Colorado, United States, are considered subranges of the Southern Rocky Mountains.
As given in the table, topographic elevation is the vertical distance above the reference geoid, a mathematical mod ...
* Rampart Range
*Southern Rocky Mountains
The Southern Rocky Mountains are a major subregion of the Rocky Mountains of North America located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, the central and western portions of Colorado, the northern portion of New Mexico, and ext ...
References
External links
Devil's Head Lookout Tower on Pike National Forest WebsiteDevil's Head Trailhead #611(Devil's Head National Recreation Trail) on Pike National Forest Website
{{Registered Historic Places
Buildings and structures in Douglas County, Colorado
Park buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado
Fire lookout towers in Colorado
Fire lookout towers on the National Register of Historic Places
Pike National Forest
Rebuilt buildings and structures in the United States
1912 establishments in Colorado
Government buildings completed in 1919
Government buildings completed in 1951
National Register of Historic Places in Douglas County, Colorado