Oregon Geographic Names says: Sand Mountain is a double summit about three miles south of the junction of US-20 and SH-22 west of Lost Lake. Each summit has a distinct crater and the whole is considered a textbook example of a cindercone occurring above a deep fissure. In the 1980s an effort was made to save the early USFS lookout. This culminated in the complete restoration of the building which now doubles as a lookout during high fire season and as an interpretive center for the regrowth of the area of the Big Lake Fire (Airstrip Burn) of 1967.