My friend Kevin is obsessed with visiting old forestry lookouts, and has been lobbying to restore the 90-year-old Mt Cartier Lookout near Revelstoke. He hadn't been to Mara Lookout SE of Sicamous yet, and since it had been restored just last year (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BTTB6P8cmU) he asked me to join him to see the site and the restoration work. I've been there several times over the years so agreed to navigate...

Forecast was for rain all day, but it was brightening up by breakfast. We drove around via Enderby to Kingfisher and Mara Look FSR which becomes a very rough jeep road through alpine meadows south of the summit (which is 2195 m).

Getting there is easy, you just drive as far as you can then walk the road the rest of the way or pick a route up through the meadows. There's also a recreation trail (8 km) that comes in from logging roads on the Sicamous side.

We made it to within 2 km of the lookout then hoofed it up the road. Despite the sun, lots of cloud and fog hid the scenery. Got to the lookout just before it socked in for good.

Mara Lookout was orignially built in 1925, but was replaced in the 1950s by a modern building on the original stone foundation. It's in good shape, watertight and with a fresh coat of paint, and clean inside, no mouse droppings or anything. There is a register logbook inside, which shows maybe a dozen people a week come up here. And a few snowmobilers in winter too.

Leaving the top we hiked straight down towards the vehicle having picked out a route beforehand. With the fog and no compass or GPS we were just dead-reckoning it (smart, eh!), but we hit the road right at the truck. I gotta nose for direction!! Heavy rain returned when we were halfway down. We had been fortunate to have hit a sunny break between two systems.

Here's some pics: