Shuteye Peak is a mountain located in the

Sierra National Forest Sierra National Forest is a U.S. national forest located on the western slope of central Sierra Nevada in Central California and bounded on the northwest by Yosemite National Park and the south by Kings Canyon National Park. The forest is kno ...

Madera County Madera County (), officially the County of Madera, is a county at the geographic center of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 156,255. The county seat is Madera. Madera County comprises the Madera, CA Metr ...

, California on the highest point of Chiquito Ridge. It's home to the first permanent fire lookout built in the Sierra Nevada. Shuteye Peak is known for its panoramic views of the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven c ...

, Mammoth Mountain, Bass Lake, and North Fork areas and is home to one of the last active fire lookouts in California. Today, Shuteye Peak operates as one of a triangle of lookouts in the

's Bass Lake Ranger District with Miami Mountain and Signal Peak. The peak is accessible by a main trailhead which begins north of Central Camp used by the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...

to supply the lookout by off-road vehicle. The trail is steep and technical with many exposed rock sections of

quartz monzonite Quartz monzonite is an intrusive, felsic, igneous rock that has an approximately equal proportion of orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars. It is typically a light colored phaneritic (coarse-grained) to porphyritic granitic rock. The plagioclase ...

. It's popular with hikers and mountain bikers in the summer months.

Toponym

The peak is named as the place of the first sleep, or Shuteye, by Native Americans who made camp there. Big Shuteye was the first stop-over in their seasonal migration. The sign of melting snow on the peak signaled that the high Sierra meadows above Chiquito Ridge were reachable.

Fire Lookout

Shuteye Lookout was established by the U.S. Forest Service in 1907. The lookout was the first of its kind in the Sierra. Daily hikes to the summit were required before a permanent structure was built in 1909. The availability of a permanent fire lookout station replaced the earlier practice of constant fire patrol by forest rangers. Firefighting was conducted under a co-operative agreement with the

Fresno Flume and Lumber Company Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, makin ...

, the Madera Sugar Pine Company, the San Joaquin Light and Power Company, and the federal government. By 1912, a telephone line connected the lookout to ranger stations and the forest supervisors office in the San Joaquin Valley replacing the widespread use of heliographs. The current structure was built in 1957 featuring a 14' x 14' foot steel cab with a flat roof standing on a 10' x 10' foot concrete block base. A weather station was added in 2012. Shuteye remains one of the few active lookouts in the Sierra Nevada. In 2017, Richard Bushnell, a seasonal U.S. Forest Service employee, was among the first to spot the

Railroad Fire The Railroad Fire was a wildfire that burned in between the communities of Sugar Pine and Fish Camp in the Sierra National Forest in California, United States. The fire was reported on August 29, 2017 and burned before it was fully contained on ...

while stationed on Shuteye Peak. The forest surrounding Shuteye Peak was threatened by the Creek Fire in September 2020. Shuteye Peak Diorama

Ecology

Shuteye Peak is surrounded by

secondary growth In botany, secondary growth is the growth that results from cell division in the cambia or lateral meristems and that causes the stems and roots to thicken, while primary growth is growth that occurs as a result of cell division at the tips of ...

forest to the south and west where 13,000 acres were clear-cut in the 1920s and early 1930s by the

Sugar Pine Lumber Company The Sugar Pine Lumber Company was an early 20th century logging operation and railroad in the Sierra Nevada. Unable to secure water rights to build a log flume, the company operated the “crookedest railroad ever built." They later develope ...

. Shuteye Peaks'

upper montane The upper montane forest is a vegetation type generally found above the mixed coniferous forest and below the subalpine forest vegetation types. Most of what grows in upper montane forests are conifers, because of the short growing season. Pike an ...

and subalpine forest is the only known habitat of the Shuteye Peak fawn lily which is listed as an endangered species by the

California Department of Fish and Wildlife The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), formerly known as the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), is a state agency under the California Natural Resources Agency. The Department of Fish and Wildlife manages and protect ...

. In the 1920s, the Shuteye Peak area was habitat to one of the last California grizzly bears. Known as "Two Toes," the bear had lost half of one of his front feet in a bear trap. Two Toes evaded hunters for several years.

Forest Service Memorial

Six bronze plaques honoring early pioneers of the

are mounted near the summit on a large granite outcropping known as Pancake Rock. The plaques were installed by Walter Puhn, the National Forest Supervisor, for which the Old Forester tree in

Nelder Grove Nelder Grove, formerly known as Fresno Grove when it was within a much larger 19th-century Fresno County, is a Giant sequoia grove located in the western Sierra Nevada within the Sierra National Forest, in Madera County, California. The grove is ...

is named. Shuteye Peak Forest Service memorial plaque for forester Maurice A. Benedict.jpg, Maurice A. Benedict ran the Sierra National Forest as Forest Supervisor from 1916-1944. Shuteye Peak Forest Service memorial plaque for forester Roy H. Blood.jpg, Roy H. Blood served as a forester for 40 years. Shuteye Peak Forest Service memorial plaque for forester Chester E. Jordan.jpg, Chester E. Jordan was a Ranger Supervisor Inspector and District Ranger. Shuteye Peak Forest Service memorial plaque for forester Samuel J. McFarland.jpg, Samuel J. McFarland was the lookout at Shuteye Peak from 1925-1929; his remains are interred below the plaque. Shuteye Peak Forest Service memorial plaque for forester Eugene Tully.jpg, Eugene Tully regulated grazing in the Sierra National Forest in 1903. Shuteye Peak Forest Service memorial plaque for forester Earl A. Morrow.jpg, Earl A. Morrow served in the Sierra and Plumas National Forests from 1922-1954.

References

Mountains of Madera County, California Sierra National Forest Mountains of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Mountains of Northern California {{MaderaCountyCA-geo-stub