Dee Wright Observatory Old Mckenzie Highway Oregon
McKenzie Highway (242) and you will find the unusual and historic Dee Wright Observatory settled atop vast, black lava flows. 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 Completed in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the observatory was named in memory of Dee Wright, the crew’s foreman who passed away the year before. As you make your way up to the observatory, you will find interpretive panels with accounts of early travelers and area geology. 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. Inside the observatory, openings frame the surrounding mountain peaks. NASA conducted drills with astronauts as they prepared to travel to the moon Access is dependent on McKenzie Highway (OR Hwy 242), which is closed in the winter . Was Very Wind...