Angry Mountain - Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Angry Mountain was listed as #224 in the book "Lookouts: Firewatchers of the Cascades and Olympics”. The book gives the elevation at 5,245, the Section/Township/Range and saying “On Forest Service Records”. Given this detailed description, the location matches the first highpoint of Angry Mountain near Packwood.

From Highway 12 south of Packwood, take Forest Road 21 to FR 2120. If you cross Johnson Creek, you drove too far. Drive up FR 2120 about a half mile to the trail on the right. Keep an eye out, I drove right past it. Several spots for parking are available.

The trail starts in a second growth forest, nicely switchbacking up to the mature forest after around 4 switchbacks. Once in the much darker old forest, the Goat Rocks Wilderness is reached. The trail continues to climb in classic old and open forest. Near the ridgetop, a spring is reached, that would be a good water source for any lookout person if one was observing from this ridge. Gain the ridge and follow the ridge toward the summit. Southeast of the summit is an open area above a cliff. There are some views in this location and possibly some man-made rectangle holes in the ground. (Contact me with your thoughts). Continue to the summit where the oddest columnar jointing basalt pile can be found. There are no views from this location and it seems unlikely there were any in the past. I did check out the lower knob to the west of the summit which did have some views but still seems unlikely for observation.