View From The Top Aging Fire Lookouts Make Scenic Destinations For Hikers

Like sentinels in the sky, they are perched atop the high peaks of the Cascade Mountains, some on heavy timbered towers, others held by cables on bare rock.

They are the object of passion by people who voluntarily and painstakingly maintain them, but many are slowly crumbling and others are being defaced by those who couldn’t care less.

They are old fire lookouts, remnants of American history now serving primarily as popular destinations for hikers.

Enthusiasts estimate there once may have been 650 to 800 lookouts in Washington, ranging from simple tent platforms to treehouses to architecturally delightful structures with square viewing cupolas on top.

Most were phased out over a 20-year period beginning in the 1960s, replaced by airplanes that now survey the forests during fire season.

About 108 in varying condition still stand in Washington, said Ray Kresek of Spokane. Kresek has self-published two books that compile information on lookouts throughout the Northwest. He’s also the Washington director for the Forest Fire Lookout Association.

Only about 18 Washington lookouts, managed by various agencies are still in use, including the Alpine Lookout east of Stevens Pass and Sugarloaf Mountain Lookout in the Entiat region, both used by the U.S. Forest Service to spot fires.

“They’re a part of our heritage,” said George Swan of Brier, a member of the Everett Mountaineers Lookout Committee, as he swabbed paint on the deck of Pilchuck Mountain Lookout. “People who come up here need to know something about this history, and about the incredible bunch of people who hauled all kinds of material up here on their backs or on mules to build them.”

Lookouts make spectacular destinations for day-hikes or overnight backpacks. They were often mounted on airy peaks, the edge of huge rock buttresses or atop cliffs thousands of feet high.

Designed to look out over vast distances of mountains and forest, most lookouts provide knock-your-socks-off panoramic views.

Pilchuck Lookout, strapped to the granite peak by cables and maintained by the Everett Mountaineers, is a good example. To the west, Whidbey and the San Juan Islands dot the shimmering waters of Puget Sound. To the north loom the snowy triple peaks of Three Fingers Mountain, as well as Mount Baker and Shuksan beyond. To the east is the Cascade Crest and south, magnificent Mount Rainier.

“They provide a place people can go and slip back in time to the 1930s,” said Forrest Clark of Snohomish, a regional director for the Fire Lookout Association. Clark helps maintain the classic, precariously perched lookout atop the south peak of Three Fingers. “Some are still in the same shape as they were in the 1930s.”

And some are not.

To the dismay of lookout enthusiasts, many are rapidly crumbling to the harsh mountain elements and/or vandals, who even litter and deface those that are maintained.

Dozens of lookouts were burned down in the 1960s and 1970s by the Forest Service because of their deteriorating condition and liability concerns.

Many Forest Service employees now regret the campaign.

“There was a time when the fire lookout was really an essential part of protecting the forest,” said Dan Call, assistant fire staff officer for the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie. “They were a part of the fabric of the Forest Service for 50 years, so I’d hate to see them go.”

The Forest Service now maintains only its few working lookouts. Others have been restored and are maintained by various groups and individuals, such as Kresek and his son, Dave.

In the 1980s, the Spokane Mountaineers and Backcountry Horsemen joined with the Forest Service to restore the Little Snowy Top lookout in the Salmo-Priest Wilderness.

Clark has been to most of the lookouts in Washington’s Cascades, and has his favorites.

“No. 1 on my list has got to be Three Fingers (east of Everett), just because of the sheer strangeness of the place they chose to stick a building, above this humongous wall that drops into Squire Creek Valley,” he said. “My second would be North Twenty Mile Peak (in Okanogan County). It’s got not only a cupola lookout still up there, but also a hip-roof style cabin, just like Pilchuck, except on a tower.”

The ascent to Three Fingers is a classic route for experienced hikers.

Ice and snow cover the upper portion of the route most of the year, and a steep, permanent snowfield must be crossed. Fifteen vertical feet of rock was blasted off the pinnacle in 1931 to make room for the lookout, which is finally reached via a series of ropes and ladders.

“If you don’t have a little mountaineering experience, you really shouldn’t go up there,” Clark said.

Legend has it that one lookout staffer suffered a sudden spell of vertigo atop Three Fingers and had to radio Forest Service supervisors to come and help him down the mountain.

Apparently lookout sites are often soulful places that can evoke deep emotion in the people staffing them. Try reading the tortured mental aerobics of “Desolation Angels” by Beat author Jack Kerouac, who spent 70 days on the isolated Desolation Peak Lookout in the North Cascades.

Alone, high in the sky, the lookouts are subjected to raging wind, rain, snow, thunder and lightning storms. All the structures are equipped with lightning rods and stools with glass insulators on the end of the legs for the lookout person to stand on, so they would not be grounded if hit.

Nevertheless, there are stories of lookout people panicking and racing down the mountain in the middle of a howling storm.

Forest Service supervisors at times found it necessary to give lonely lookouts pep talks over the radio, and there were instances when bumbling responses from the other end required that crews be dispatched on emotional rescues.

It was a job suited for a certain type of individual. Most lookouts served for a season. Some returned year after year.

“Hearing about the passion they had for their jobs and the love of the environment they lived in really helped me appreciate their significance,” Clark said. “For me, these lookouts are what really bring history to life.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: See related story under the headline: Standing watch on history

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Greg Johnston Seattle Post-Intelligencer Outdoors editor Rich Landers contributed to this story.