This was a plan B hike for me and Ngie, today. Plan A was Watch Mountain Lookout, but the road we were planning to use ended up being a private quarry road, so we switched to Burley Mountain Lookout. Because it was a Plan B hike, we didn’t do a lot of research so it ended up being a bit of type 2.5 fun. Lol.

Originally we were going to walk up Forest Road 7605, but as we were driving I noticed there was a trail we could take instead and we decided it would be “more fun” to hike a trail. Omg we never learn!!! Long story short, it was the opposite of “more fun.”

We followed the route outlined in the hiking guide, more or less. Parked across the street at the Cispus Education Center then took Covel Creek Falls trail... there are several creek crossings with bridges removed that some might find tricky, but I didn’t think it was too bad. Covel Creek Falls was amazing! That was a dramatically wonderful thing to stumble on. I loved how the trail went behind the waterfall! So magical!

After that, the trail sucks. Lol. It joins up with the Burley Mountain trail, which is only two miles, supposedly, but it was the longest two miles of my life. SO many downed trees, but not only downed trees.. also significant areas of erosion. It was EXTREMELY difficult to get over/under/through all those trees and it took forever. A LOT of swearing happened, but I’ll spare you all. The trail is also fairly steep. I was extremely disgruntled.

Finally, the trail joins up with the forest road we should have gone up from the start. Shortly after that intersection, the snow started. At first it was hard and uneven and I started with microspikes. Closer to the lookout it got deeper and I switched to snowshoes. It felt like it took forever but we finally made it to the lookout. Beautiful views of Rainier, Adams, St. Helen’s, Hood, etc.

At this point it was getting late. We decided to just walk back on the road even though it added quite a bit of mileage. We didn’t want to go through those downed trees in the dark THAT bad. Walking down the road was MUCH easier. But then.. Ngie saw some glowing eyes in the dark off the road. This day just keeps giving!!! Honestly, I didn’t see the eyes but I immediately start banging my trekking poles and yelling more curse words until they disappeared. I was crazy paranoid the rest of the walk down, haha. We ended up scream singing stupid songs from Rocky Horror Picture Show and SNL and looking over our shoulders constantly.

Finally we made it back to the actual road, but we still had more than two miles to get to our car. A homeowner came outside, probably to see what the noise was about. He was really nice and offered us a ride, but we declined because, covid. We also heard a coyote on this final stretch. When we got back to the car I almost cried in relief, haha.

Total stats:

Cispus Education Center to the lookout: 6.82 miles

Lookout to Road 76 on the service road: 8.01 miles

And then 2.65 more miles of road walking.

So 17.48 miles total, according to Gaia. That’s my longest hike ever and my feet hurt. Lol.

My advice, if the lookout is your destination, skip the trail and just walk up the forest road! Heck, you can even drive up almost halfway before even encountering snow! It’s definitely impossible to drive all the way up to the lookout right now, but you can probably turn it into something MUCH shorter, then go and hike JUST to Covel Falls separately. Save yourself a lil suffering! Do as I say, not as I do!

U can drive all the way up.. I started recording so ppl can follow my recording.. burley mt. To the watch tower.. fire look out.. road ok but no car can make it. Don't follow all trails cus it takes u to the trail head. If u use Google maps n say burley mt to the fire look out it will take u to the rd for vehicles.. there was lots of turn outs but wow its scary if someone coming from other direction.. hardly no room to pass n cliff hanging lol.  U can c all the volcanos like Adam's Rainer, hood n helens

Hiked from Covell creek trailhead near the Cipius center up to the Burley Mt. Lookout. About 1/2 mile after the junction with the Angel Falls loop the trail becomes pretty difficult due to significant tree fall. There is a good 3/4 of a mile stretch where a slip of trees has covered the trail. We were committed to getting to the lookout so we carried on but climbing over/under all that timber with full multi-day packs was challenging. I would not be in those woods on a windy day though! Lots more trees waiting to fall. If you do this hike, take lots of water. There is no water for the last 3 miles or so. The lookout is not in great shape but it was open and we were able to spend the night up there. Overall a great hike.

We tried to hike to the lookout from Covel Creek at about a mile and a half past the falls the trail was completely blocked by a many trees (climbing over, under or around them looked unsafe). On the plus side, the trail was very empty (only saw a handful of hikers) which made it very easy to enjoy the very full falls. There are some creek crossings (all bridges were removed) but they were not difficult. 

7/8/19 Short road to burley mountain is closed. Attempted to hike via covel creek trail from the learning center, but the bridges are out. You can also reach Angel falls loop and covel creek trail via forrest road 28, but I did not check it out. You can also drive to burley lookout via forrest road 28 but it looks like a long way on dirt roads to get there. I attempted the covel creek trail across from the learning center; Visited here 7/8/19. Parked across the street in the triangle that is the entrance to the learning center on the side of the road. Was hoping to do a 14 mile hike up to burley mountain fire lookout. I was unable to, due to all of the bridges being removed on covel creek, (did not feel like finding a safe spot to cross and then bushwacking on the other side back up to the trail, there is not much water in there right now) the trail down to the creek and other side of the trail from the picnic area was pretty steep. I did a small loop in the area. You can also reach angel falls loop and covel creek trail from forrest road 28, but I did not check it out as the bugs were pretty bad by the water in late morning. There is a washout area pretty close to the picnic area that was kinda sketch to cross. Most of the trails are unmarked, but I just tried to follow the creek. Otherwise the trail is really pretty and in good condition. I hiked a 1.4 mile loop in 38 mins with 203ft elevation gain. Also a beautiful area to explore looks like.