The accessible Lava River National Recreation Trail located next to the observatory provides remarkable views of lava that flowed from the surrounding craters.Д¬heck out the photo gallery of scenes in and around Dee Wright.

Inside the observatory, openings frame the surrounding mountain peaks. During the Great Depression, an observatory was built from the lava rock as part of a 1935 Civilian Conservation Corps project. Continue up the stairs to the roof and you will discover a bronze peak finder with the names and elevations of the surrounding buttes and mountain peaks. The car doors closes with a thud and the interior lightвЂ™s soft glow thatвЂ™s been allowing us to prepare our gear turns off in an instant leaving our senses to rely on sound as all sight goes away in the black of the night. If the snow has melted, donвЂ™t forget to look for the glaciers! Collier glacier on the North Sister is the largest glacier in Oregon.ДЄs you make your way up to the observatory, you will find interpretive panels with accounts of early travelers and area geology. The Fortress of the Night Sky The Dee Wright Observatory at Night. Jefferson, the South, North, and Middle Sister, and even seeВ Mt. Completed in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the observatory was named in memory ofВ Dee Wright, the crewвЂ™s foreman who passed away the year before.

Located in the Cascade Range at 5,187 feet, this mountain observatory offers panoramic views across 65 square miles of black lava rock that looks so much like a moonscape that in 1964, NASA conducted drills with astronauts as they prepared to travel to the moon. Take a trip along the southern section of the McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass National Scenic Byway to the summit of the McKenzie Highway (242) and you will find the unusual and historic Dee Wright Observatory settled atop vast, black lava flows.

Dee wright observatory