Strawberry Mountain LOH

[segler999]

NGS lists three horizontal benchmarks at the summit of Strawberry Mt in eastern Oregon:

 

STRAWBERRY 44.312222 118.716667

STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN 44.311944 118.716389

STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN LOH 44.311944 118.716111

 

NGS lat/lons are converted to decimal dd.ddddddd since I use my gpsrs with decimal.

 

Prior to use with airplanes, then later satellites, Strawberry used to have a USFS fire lookout house on the summit. It was a simple wooden building held in place with anchored cables. Since it was on the absolute summit, no tower was required. When you hike up there now, you can still see remnants of the steel cable, weathered wood, and concrete foundation. The elevation is 9038', which is the highest point in the central part of eastern Oregon, exceeded only by the Wallowas (9900') 100 miles to the northeast, and the Steens (9733') 100 miles to the south.

 

The three benchmarks were established, we believe, to establish triangulation points visible from different directions.

 

On 7/29 we hiked up there on vacation. With a 60Cx and 76Cx we tried to locate the benchmarks on the ground, in a kind of geocaching process. With the extremely severe winter weather that the exposed summit gets, we were not surprised to find no surviving metal benchmarks. However, we did observe locations that appeared to have manmade monumenting materials set in the bedrock.

[+seventhings]

segler999 -

 

Did the "manmade monumenting materials" that you observed have the stems of disks embedded in them?

 

Will

[mloser]

You didn't post any pictures! We love pictures on this forum!

 

But let's take a look at the three marks, one by one.

 

STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN LOH, PID QC0907. LOH stands for Lookout House, and the benchmark was the building itself. From the description on the datasheet:

THE INTERSECTED POINT IS THE CENTER OF THE FOREST SERVICE WOOD LOOKOUT HOUSE WHICH SITS ON THE GROUND. THERE IS NO STATION MARK.

. So since you found the remains of the building you know that the benchmark is gone. This was an "intersection station", meant to be used from far away to check angles from another horizontal control mark

 

STRAWBERRY, PID QC0909. This station is located about 50 yards north of the old lookout house, and actually consists of THREE disks--the main station and two reference marks. The reference marks existed to help find the main station if it could not be located or was disturbed. You said you found evidence of

manmade monumenting materials set in the bedrock

, which may well have been one or more of these three marks. The datasheet for STRAWBERRY indicates that in 1968 both the station mark and reference mark 2 were not found and that new marks were set in the old drill holes. Bad weather is usually not a reason for a disk to be missing. I have never seen one of the marks weathered or damaged by weather (some folks here have seen disks that appear to have been hit by lightning though). The most likely reason they are missing is vandalism. I am not sure how much this area gets visited, but people seem to find these things irresistible, and pry them out of the rocks regularly.

 

STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN, PID QC0906. This station is not on the GC.com site because it is a mark with no descriptive text available. That happens for a number of reasons, none of which I am totally sure of, but the existence of STRAWBERRY most likely means that STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN was superseded by the newer mark set in 1946. The datasheet for STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN LOH provides the best clue:

THERE IS NO STATION MARK. U.S.G.S. STATION STRAWBERRY OF 1898 CONSISTING OF COPPER BOLT UNDER CAIRN HAS BEEN DISTURBED AND IS UNRELIABLE. IT WAS PROBABLY CLOSE TO CENTER OF LOOKOUT HOUSE AS NOW SITUATED.

. Your coordinates bear this out, but I am not sure where you got the coords for STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN, as they are listed as N44 18 42.8 W118 42 58.8 on the datasheet for QC0906. Using the program INVERSE on the NGS site yields the following:

 

Output from INVERSE


 Ellipsoid : GRS80 / WGS84  (NAD83)		
 Equatorial axis,	a   =	6378137.0000
 Polar axis,		 b   =	6356752.3141
 Inverse flattening, 1/f =  298.25722210088

 First  Station : Strawberry LOH				
  ---------------- 
LAT =  44 18 42.66020 North 
LON = 118 42 58.47546 West  

 Second Station : Strawberry Mountain		   
  ---------------- 
LAT =  44 18 42.80000 North 
LON = 118 42 58.80000 West  

 Forward azimuth		FAZ = 300 57 39.7610 From North
 Back azimuth		   BAZ = 120 57 39.5343 From North
 Ellipsoidal distance	 S =		 [color=#CC0000]8.3877 m[/color]

 

The distance between the center of the LOH and STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN is 8.4 meters, which doesn't correspond to the description in STRAWBERRY LOH. So perhaps STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN is a different mark on the mountain. STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN is a third order station, which means the location is not as accurate as a mark of a higher order, but I am not sure HOW inaccurate it would be and if 8 meters is too much of a difference to be explained by the measurement process.

 

So the three marks on that mountain are not for use in different directions. Typically a triangulation station serves as a measurement point from any direction (there ARE exceptions of course), since you mention that the lookout tower didn't even need to be elevated to have a view of the surrounding area chances are that STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN or STRAWBERRY could have been used from any direction also. STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN LOH was used in a different manner from the other two, which was explained above.

Edited August 22, 2007 by mloser

[DaveD]

The mark for STRAWBERRY MOUNTAIN, PID QC0906 is the mountain itself. That's why the position is so close to the center of the LOH, and there is no description. It was not unusual in the days of triangulation for the field teams to position mountain peaks by the technique known as intersection where the mountain, like the LOH, water tanks, radio masts, church spires etc. were observed from at least 2 but usually 3 or more monumented triangulation stations. Reasonably accurate positions for mountains were important for cartographers such as the U.S. Geological Survey to accurately report their location on topographic maps.

[mloser]

Thanks Dave! I guess that explains the name Strawberry MOUNTAIN pretty clearly.

 

Then was the bolt in the center of the old cabin that was noted as disturbed the old STRAWBERRY? Or some other agency's mark that we no longer have record of?

[segler999]

Everyone, this is a great discussion!! Thanks.

 

I originally got the lat/lons off the ngs.noaa.gov website and used something like Geocalc to convert them to the decimal format.

 

When we hiked up there 2 weeks ago, we looked around pretty hard (spent about 3 hours up there on the summit) and found no trace of disk benchmarks nor stems. All we saw was some kind of bluish-purplish cement-like material at three different locations. Besides those, the only other evidence of manmade structure is remnants of concrete foundation and several places where steel cable fragments go down into the rocks. Also, pieces of weathered wood scattered in the rocks, too.

 

I have 3 photos I would like to insert here, but the icon above requires a url. Can somebody please guide me about how to do this? Simple copy and paste doesn't work.

[+Klemmer]

Segler: Post a note on any of the BM pages on GC.co, upload the pics, then copy / paste / link the pic location here to the forum (use the picture icon on here to insert here, or the link looking icon here to link to the page (or pic).

 

My guess is some idiot pried the discs out for souvenirs.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Klemmer & TeddyBearMama

[DaveD]

The bolt mentioned in the 1933 description for STRAWBERRY LOH (QC0907) is a USGS triangulation station originally described on page 247 of USGS Bulletin No. 245 "Primary Triangulation and Primary Traverse Fiscal Year 1903-1904." The description reads in part "Station mark: Copper bolt cemented in sold rock, above which is a rock cairn 6 feet in diameter and 6 feet high." The U.S. Standard Datum position they determined is 44d 18' 44.72s, 118d 43m 03.48s.

[segler999]

OK, I think I figured out how to insert photos. It was buried deep in a FAQ. I followed all the directions there. Now, using the insert image icon above, I get:

 

Strawberry Summit Looking SE

No cairns visible.

 

 

Might this blue-purple cement-stuff indicate a monument?

 

 

Good GPS signal with 360 deg sky down to the horizon.

Edited August 23, 2007 by segler999

[+Klemmer]

Rugged looking peak! Nice pics. Yep, that looks like the type cement (epoxy?) they use down here in CA. Unfortunately, I've seen a fair number looking about like that. Usually in a location not TOO busy, but not TOO far out. Seems to be the ""in between" wilderness marks that get nabbed more often. Something about human nature.... I like your "...down to the horizon..." wording. Don't think I've ever heard it put quite that way.... But the satellites are still up, huh?

Edited August 23, 2007 by Klemmer & TeddyBearMama

[+Black Dog Trackers]

As an alternative theory of their disappearance, I wonder if a combination of freeze-thaw cycles and occasional high winds literally blew the marks off that high point. They might be lying around a few feet to the East of there.

 

On the other hand, STRAWBERRY is not a good kind of name for longevity among vandals.