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Park Butte Lookout

September 21, 2015September 24, 2019
by Ashley Gossens

This crazy Northwest summer has me reminiscing of the Septembers with blue skies and blueberries. I guess I have spent too many weekends at foggy lookouts lately and deprived of my usual blueberry intake! But my trip up to Park Butte a couple years ago was anything but foggy. It was a bluebird day, the temperature perfect and there were blueberries for days. Ahh, how sublime.

The long drive to the trailhead gets you high into the alpine from the get-go. It’s not long before you come upon Shreiber’s Meadow, in most years full of blueberries. I once saw a woman here picking blueberries with a swedish berry picker and a 5-gallon bucket. She gave me the stink eye like, don’t even think about picking berries here, so I kept walking and a made a mental note of the berry picker. Later my husband would gift one to me for Christmas and it has changed our berry-loving lives. We now bring home gallon ziploc bags full of berries from the trails instead of a couple half-filled Nalgene bottles.

Once past the meadows, pick your way across an alluvial plain, an ever-changing waterway with shifting sediment that keeps the bridge builders on their toes. Look upriver for a metal ladder bridge. Here you will get the first glimpses of the white mass of Mt Baker if you are lucky. Continue up through forested switchbacks. Just when you start to think that you’ve had enough switchbacks, the way opens up to beautiful meadows and up-close views of Mt Baker.

Hang a left to the lookout or go right to explore the railroad grade trail up to Easton Glacier, a popular climbing route. The railroad grade trail traverses the top of an arête, a knife-edge formed from two parallel glaciers pushing earth up between them forming a thin ridge. Gazing at the massive glacial-carved valley below will have you marveling at the wonders of this volcano and the power of it’s glaciers.

Head back toward the lookout while froliking through the gradually climbing meadows of heather and blueberries. After rock hopping a few creeks and wet spots, the way rises through a rocky outcrop. Head down to the tarns for picturesque views of Mt Baker reflected in the crystal clear water. Continue up while gazing down upon Pocket Lake, nuzzled below in a small cirque.

Finally, after a push up the rocky way, the lookout is in site and views abound. It feels like you could reach out and touch the glaciers on Mt Baker. To the south, feast your eyes on the Twin Sisters range and the Nooksack Valley. The lookout is open to the public and can be slept in at a first-come, first-served basis. This is a great place to linger, bask in the sun and take in the beauty of one of my favorite places, the Mt Baker area.

Outdoor Life

Winchester Mountain Lookout

September 14, 2015August 7, 2018
by Ashley Gossens

Every year for Labor Day weekend my husband and I go backpacking with another couple. It’s become a tradition for us and we look forward to it all year. I usually choose an epic hike in the North Cascades with spectacular scenery where we can roam and snack on blueberries for a couple days. But this year was different. We had a new addition to our crew- a little one-year-old. Hmph, well now, I had no idea how to plan for a baby. I don’t have any children and I don’t know the first thing about a one-year-old’s wilderness skills. I had so many questions. How far should we go? How much food do we need? Would the baby be miserable in the tent all night? Where do you put all those dirty diapers?

I was stressing to determine the answers to these questions. I immediately decided that I was not going to have anything to do with the dirty diapers, so in turn was not going to worry about their whereabouts. Our friends are amazing parents and I really didn’t have to worry about these kind of details. I just didn’t want them to be uncomfortable or to push them too hard. So I gave them some choices and was happy they chose an easy hike to Twin Lakes where we could base camp and explore as much as we wanted. Then I freaked out again because I checked the weather and it was going to be cold and rainy in the high alpine. Will baby freeze to death? Ugh.

We met our hiking partners at the charming Wake ‘n Bakery on the Mt Baker Highway and loaded up on delicious pastries and coffee. We then made our way to the busy Yellow Aster Butte trailhead and walked up the 4×4 road to Twin Lakes. The cold morning air gave way to sun and blue skies prompting us to take multiple breaks to shed layers. The road walk wasn’t so bad and we chose a particularly entertaining switchback to stop for a snack and watch the trucks struggle up the bumpy road. I’m sure they did not appreciate the audience.

We made it to the beautiful Twin Lakes but they were unfortunately surrounded by trucks and car campers. We walked to the far side of the upper lake to look for a more secluded site. A narrow boot path led around the lake and we followed it past a mine shaft (where we taught baby about echos) to a big camp spot. There was a faint path leading up to a tiny narrow saddle and we went up to explore expecting that it would just lead to a nice bathroom spot. Instead, what we saw took our breath away. The path came to an end abruptly and the ground plunged into a steep valley. Directly in front of us were the silvery jagged peaks of the Pleiades sprinkled with just a touch of fresh snow.

We quickly figured out that the farther down the road we went the more spectacular the views. We set up camp at Skagway Pass, an old mining route to the Lone Jack Mine which gave up $200,000 worth of gold to it’s original owners and is still active to this day, hence the high alpine road. The area is full of old open mine shafts in the ground and old cabins. The guys dropped rocks down the holes to see how far down they went. Not too far. We all laid in the heather and took a nice long nap. Later we made biscuits and pasta and squished water and chocolate pudding in ziploc bags for dessert.

That night as we went to sleep, it was so quiet you could hear a needle drop. It made me uncomfortable. I tossed and turned searching for just the tiniest hint of a breeze or rustle in the trees. I’ve been living in the city too long. Even in my quiet neighborhood I can always hear the soft hum of the I-5 highway, cars driving by, airplanes overhead. The baby cooed in the nearby tent and I hoped he was warm enough. I worried that the weather would turn bad the next day and snow on us. I knew I had to stop worrying, just let it go or I wouldn’t get any sleep. The baby fussed softly and his mom gave a long calm shhhhh. Rain (or was it snow?) began to lightly drum on the rain fly. I drifted to sleep.

The next day was foggy but there was no snow and the rain stopped. We packed up the baby and all our warm clothes and headed to Winchester Mountain. The trail climbs immediately between the lakes and we found ourselves shedding layers again. I was hoping maybe the clouds would burn off while we climbed, but I doubted it. I was disappointed. I was so looking forward to the stellar views. All we could see were the deep blue lakes below in a haze. The lookout was completely shrouded in fog when we arrived. We were only three miles from Canada as the crow flies. We could throw a stone and hit it but we sure could not see it.

We met a friendly forest service worker and she told us the lookout was open, but asked us to remove our boots before going in. We complied. It was very zen. We had lunch in the lookout as we checked out every nook and cranny and I poured over the guest log entries and book collection. Mostly Edward Abbey and nature writing. I thought about what it would be like to spend the night there and decided that it would be incredibly cold. The layers started coming back on.

Later our friends and the baby would head down the road for a more comfortable night’s sleep and we bid them farewell at the lakes. It had been a successful first backpacking trip for baby and we were so happy to share it with them. We sat by the lake and watched the bats feast on the bugs surfacing the lake. They undoubtedly made their homes in the myriad of mine shafts nearby. We walked back to camp and climbed into our sleeping bags. It was quiet again without our friends but the rain returned and I drifted to sleep.

Backpacking Biscuits Recipe:

At home, mix the following ingredients in a ziploc bag:

1 cup biscuit mix (I use Fisher brand, but any will work)
2 Tbsp powdered milk
1 tsp dried parsley
1/4 cup dried corn
3 Tbsp grated parmesan (the shelf-stable kind that comes in a shaker, not fresh)

On the trail, put the mixture in a non-stick or greased pot approximately 6 inches diameter (the smaller the pot, the thicker the biscuits!). Start by adding 1/4 cup of water and add more if needed. Spread the mixture out and put on low heat covered for about 3 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown. Flip the biscuit “pancake” and cook covered for another few minutes until golden brown and cooked all the way through. Cut into quarters and enjoy them warmed.

Hikes featured in this post:
Winchester Mountain

Outdoor Life

Return to Green Mountain

August 27, 2015October 11, 2018
by Ashley Gossens

The first time we went to Green Mountain was in 2006. We had just moved to Seattle two months before and it was our second hike in the Cascades. My sister and her then boyfriend joined us for the drive up the long washboard Suiattle River Road to the trailhead. It was a hot sunny September day and we got a late start. We sweltered in the heat on the exposed switchbacks slowly making our way up. My sister’s boyfriend wore brand new leather boots that required many re-applications of moleskin and we stopped a hundred times for breaks like classic rookie hikers. We finally stopped for lunch on a rocky outcropping. We were nearing the lookout that crowned the top of the mountain but we couldn’t see it from our lunch spot. I didn’t know how much further it was, but I knew we weren’t going to make it there that day. That was ok, we were just beginning a lifetime of exploration in our new home, we would have plenty of time to return. And anyway the views were fantastic from our vantage point, could they really be that much better at the lookout?

We made our way back down the trail and re-traveled the long road in our old forest green Jetta, the muffler occasionally grazing the bumpy road. We watched the sun set behind Whitehorse Mountain and had dinner in Lake Stevens. By the time we got home it was dark. After that epic day we decided to stick to easier hikes before tackling a big mountain again. But I couldn’t wait to return to Green Mountain, the place where I fell in love with the Cascades and that mysterious Glacier Peak volcano. But just months after our hike, a strong winter storm washed out the Suiattle River Road and did not reopen until October of last year, a whopping eight years later. Over those years I longed to return and complete the hike to the lookout. So when I heard the road reopened I knew I had to return this summer.

While the Suiattle River Road slumbered and the wild encroached on it’s edges of gravel, bureaucratic controversy around the fate of the road and the lookout roared to life. First, repairs to the road were delayed for years by extensive environmental studies brought on by environmental organizations. Then, Wilderness Watch, a Montana-based environmental organization, sued the Forest Service in 2010 for violations to the Wilderness Act for using helicopters and other machinery to rebuild the 1930’s era lookout. This case went on for years until, shortly after the nearby Oso landslide in the spring of 2014, Congress passed a bill saving the lookout. Then finally, in late October 2014, the road was re-opened.

In late July of this year my husband and I returned to the Suiattle River Road. It still had it’s jarring washboard just like we remembered. It was cloudy but we were determined to get there so we headed up the trail anyway. We were the first car at the trailhead and as we climbed through the trees I jogged my memory for any recognition of the trail. There was little and it was different than I remembered and a little creepy. We heard something rustle in the brush nearby and Nali was on alert. Then just as we were about to clear the treeline we heard a loud clap of thunder. We were now in thick fog and it was beginning to rain. The trail ahead was brushy and ready to soak us to the bone. We reconsidered. We didn’t want to be on the tallest mountain around inside of a thunderhead. It didn’t seem like the triumphant return we wanted anyway with little to no views so we headed back down and decided to try again later.

I was really disappointed that we didn’t have good weather that day, but a month later (just a few weeks ago) we decided to give it another go for my birthday. Well, once again thunderstorms were in the forecast. We decided to car camp the first night during the storms and then backpack up to Green Mountain on the following day when the weather was supposed to improve. So we headed out with rain gear in tow to the newly re-opened Buck Creek Campground. The campground was about half open and the rest blocked off. We walked through the abandoned portion during a break in the rain to get water at the creek. It was eerie, like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. Picnic tables were turned upside down and fire rings removed leaving a circular scar in the dirt. Fallen trees criss-crossed the gravel squares meant for tents.

The next morning the rain stopped and we headed out early to hit the trailhead. Again we were the first ones there, and again it was cloudy and foggy. But we had faith that the forecast would be correct and that it would burn off any minute. So we climbed through the trees and this time continued into the open meadows above treeline. This time the trail was thankfully brushed out, but we still got wet. That was ok, we would dry everything in the sunshine later. As we climbed the switchbacks I tried to recall what is like the first time we were there and I remembered the slopes just full of green ferns now beginning to brown after a harshly warm summer.

Before long we made it to a tarn, the rain beginning to come down harder and steadier now. We stopped at a bench to rest and scout out a camping spot. Wow, that’s funny, I said, I have absolutely no recollection of this tarn at all. My husband remembered that we sat around the lake for a long time snacking on blueberries. It’s funny how our memory plays tricks on us.

We set up camp near the lake and I thought how lovely it will be in the oncoming nice weather. We then headed back up the trail, our loads lightened for the increased grade. As we climbed I had the sinking feeling that we were going to be socked in at the lookout. But we climbed anyway and I looked forward to lunch and checking out the lookout itself. Sure enough on the last bit to the top, we watched the basin below us fill with white. But we made it to the top! Finally after all those years. But it didn’t feel as victorious as I hoped for. But then I thought we could return in the morning when the weather will surely improve.

As we headed back down to the tent I started to get the feeling that the weather was not going to improve. My husband felt it too and suggested we move the tent to a more protected spot in the woods. I reluctantly agreed. It was better under the trees and we could sit outside and cook dinner and make hot chocolate. It would do. We stayed in the tent and read out loud to each other and eventually dozed off to sleep. The fog encased us while the rain dripped, dripped on the tent. It was cold and the dog was shaking so I zipped her up into my sleeping bag with me. Summer, sadly, was coming to an end.

We didn’t end up trying again for nice views at the lookout, as the top of the mountain was still shrouded in fog in the morning. We instead packed our bags, skipped breakfast, and looked forward to a nice hot meal in town. As we descended on the trail I thought about how much has changed in the nine years since we first climbed those green slopes, how much I’ve changed in almost a whole decade. I realized that the mountains have made me a better person in those years. One that cares about the environment and saving our special places (including historical lookouts), one who is healthier and who has overcome fear and anxieties to accomplish goals and climb even bigger mountains. Green Mountain may not have spoiled me with it’s lovely views for my birthday, but it has given me so much more than that. Thank you, Green Mountain, I will return again and one of these times I will finally bask in your lookout’s glorious views!

Hikes Featured in this Post:
Green Mountain

Outdoor Life

Alpine Lookout

August 10, 2015July 30, 2018
by Ashley Gossens

A few years ago during a summer much unlike the current one (there was actual snowpack), we wanted to go for an early season backpack trip. It was the last day of June and we thought we would give Alpine Lookout on Nason Ridge a try. We packed up our gear and headed to the trailhead off Highway 2. From the parking area we looked up to the ridge and saw that it was snow-free. So far so good. We headed up the purple lupine lined switchbacks, the air warm and thick with vanilla ponderosa pine scent.

There are two ways to get to Alpine Lookout, from the east or the west, on a long trail that traverses the length of Nason Ridge. We opted for the western approach with it’s easier trailhead access and it’s inviting alpine lake, Merritt Lake about halfway up the trail. We didn’t get far before we ran into snow.

We continued up looking for signs of a fork in the trail at about two miles (check) and then a creek (check). We crossed the creek on a sturdy snow bridge and then followed it up to the partially frozen lake just as our map indicated. We stopped for a snack and looked over the map. We located a saddle on the map and knew if we could find the saddle then we could follow the ridge to above treeline where the snow would give way to bare trail. It was right about then that we started noticing the mosquitoes.

We continued up the snow slapping bugs off our arms finding bits of the trail here and there and double checking the contours on the map to make sure we were heading the right way. After some bushwhacking, we found the saddle and the way was then obvious up the ridge. But I was agony. I’ve never encountered the kind of swarming mosquitoes that we encountered on that snowy trail. I swatted, slapped and cursed. I rubbed snow all over my exposed limbs and face. I showered myself in a fog of DEET. I finally yelled at the top of my lungs GET OFF OF ME! and then dropped my pack and rolled around in the hard crusted snow like I was on fire. It was not my proudest moment. My husband and the dog looked at me like I was crazy. But it kind of worked. Without another word I accepted my bitten fate in some deep down zen-like way and let the little jerks bite me.

I was rewarded for my (slightly) calm state when we broke out of the trees and onto the open ridge. The snow, and the mosquitoes along with it, gave way to lovely flower-lined trail. It was a glorious moment. We traversed through an old ghost forest. Skeletons of trees towered above, their crooked pointy limbs resembling the outline of the fire that burnt them long ago. But where there is death there is also life and I reveled in the uncountable varied species of plants and flowers growing on the steep ridge side. I discovered several plants that were new to me on that stretch of trail including the tiny pink steer’s head growing right in the middle of the trail. I laid down on my belly to get a photo.

Soon we pushed up the last bit of trail to the lookout. The views were incredible. Lake Wenatchee, Wenatchee Ridge, the White River and Little Wenatchee drainages were all right before our eyes. To the east we could see the tall mountains make their way down to Leavenworth and the plains beyond. No wonder this was a fire lookout site. The lookout itself was boarded up so we pitched our tent just below it hoping it would give us shelter from the wind if we needed it. We cooked dinner on the catwalk and watched rain showers sweep over the deep valleys. We heard far-off thunder and eventually the clouds headed our way. We sat in them for awhile and then took shelter in the tent. Nali curled up at our feet halfway on each of our sleeping pads and I read out loud to my husband as he slipped off to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and my right eye felt strange. My eyelid felt heavy and puffy. Ah! What’s wrong with my face? I asked my husband in a slight panic. He inspected it closely for a while and then laughed. You’ve got a huge mosquito bite right on your eyelid. You’ve got to be kidding me. Not only was my entire body covered in mosquito bites, but my eyelid, really? Ok, mosquitoes, you win this time. You win. I must have looked ridiculous coming down from the lookout but I didn’t care. I wore my droopy eyelid as a badge of honor as I collected more bug carcasses on my skin and added another adventurous backpack trip to the books.

Hikes Featured in this Post:
Alpine Lookout

Outdoor Life

Sourdough Mountain Lookout

July 31, 2015August 7, 2018
by Ashley Gossens

When I decided I wanted to hike up 30 peaks before I turned 30, I knew I had to put Sourdough on the list. This hike has a reputation for being tough but incredibly beautiful and bonus: there is a lookout at the top! And not just any lookout but a lookout made famous by the poet Gary Snyder with views of the endless jagged North Cascade peaks as well as Ross Lake and the emerald green Diablo Lake. It’s nearly a vertical mile to the lookout but worth every last excruciating step.

In 1952, Gary Snyder was looking for work through the Marblemount forest service and requested to be sent to the “highest, most remote, and most difficult-of-access lookout” in the district. They all laughed at him and sent him to Crater Mountain. He fell in love with the lookout life on that sharp-peaked mountain with a non-existent trail. He had to stash his supplies farther down the mountain and take many trips scrambling up and down to the lookout. But he relished in the solitude and practiced his zen buddhism. At the end of the season he didn’t want to leave the mountain and couldn’t wait for the next summer to return.

But the forest service decided not to man the Crater Mountain lookout in 1953. Turns out that the over 8000ft summit of Crater Mountain was too high to make a good lookout. Often the high lookout was obscured by clouds while nearby lower peaks were clear of the ceiling. So Gary was assigned to Sourdough Mountain. Gary called Sourdough “so mild in comparison” to Crater Mountain, which is hard to believe, but he no longer had to scramble up to the lookout with supplies. The mules dropped it all off at the front steps. Unfortunately, that summer would be his last at Sourdough or any other lookout for the matter. It was the McCarthy era and Gary was black-listed from government work for having relationships with alleged communists. Heartbroken and determined to work in the outdoors rather than have a regular 9-5, he resorted to a logging job in Oregon. Some of his best poetry came from this hard time in his life.

But before Gary Snyder there were the Davises. The nearby Davis Peak is named for Lucinda Davis, a single mother with three children who moved from Colorado into an abandoned cabin which she turned into a supply store for the busy mining areas of Thunder and Ruby creeks in the 1890’s. Lucinda and her son Glee made the first horse trail up to the summit of Sourdough where they would go for picnics. In 1915, Glee set up the first fire lookout site in the North Cascades on Sourdough. It was just a tent camp then before Glee built the first lookout structure in the cupola style of the time in 1917. The lookout stood watch until the 1930’s when it was replaced by a more modern style. This modern structure is the lookout that Gary Snyder would later man in 1953 and still stands today.

Things to Do Around a Lookout

Wrap up in a blanket in cold weather and just read

Practice writing Chinese characters with a brush

Paint pictures of the mountains

Put out salt for deer

Bake coffee cake and biscuit in the iron oven

-Excerpt from poem by Gary Snyder

I climbed for what seemed like all day through the ghost forest on Sourdough when I broke out into the high meadows. I was yet to see another person on the trail and I stopped in my tracks to gaze upon the glacial green Diablo Lake almost a mile below. The sitka valerian and spirea swayed softly in the wind as my skin soaked up the sun. I tore myself away with the promise of even more rewarding views at the lookout. Just as I crested the summit I passed a man and his son just starting their descent. “You made it all the way up here on your own?” he asked. “You bet I did,” I replied.

Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder

This is Gary’s first book of published poems and it is the one that made him famous. There are a few poems in the book about his time as a lookout and as a logger in Oregon, but most of the poems are about his time spent in the Sierra Nevada in California where he still lives today. His style is heavily influenced by the beautifully simplistic Japanese style and was a revolution in American poetry in it’s day. This collection is a wonderful example of his great nature poetry and makes a great addition to the outdoor book lover’s bookshelf.

Hikes Featured in this Post:
Sourdough Mountain

Outdoor Life

Hiking History: Mount Pilchuck

July 29, 2015July 30, 2018
by Ashley Gossens

If you ask a Seattlelite what their first mountain summit was, they will most likely say Mt Pilchuck. The road to the trailhead is just across the National Forest boundary about an hour from Seattle and the drive to the trailhead gets most of the pesky elevation out of the way making for a short and sweet hike with great views of the North Cascades.

Mt Pilchuck was first climbed in 1897 from the Monte Cristo railroad by a USGS employee. In 1918 a trail was built when the mountain was chosen as one of the first lookout sites in the area. Building the lookout was quite a feat in those days, twelve feet were blasted off the top of the mountain and materials were hand-winched up the craggy boulders. The lookout was replaced a few times throughout the years and finally abandoned in the 1960’s. The lookout was restored in 1990 by the Mountaineers. 105 people spent an astonishing 10,000 hours restoring the lookout.

We can thank an ambitious ski endeavor for the road that goes most of the way up the mountain. In 1957, Mt Pilchuck was turned into a ski area. The single chair lift loaded skiers at the parking lot (in the same place it’s located today) and carried them high on the mountain for only a few dollars a day. In 1980, the ski area closed due to lack of favorable snow conditions. You can still see remnants of the mountain’s ski era on the trail today.

In late August 2007 I took a day off work and my husband and I climbed to the lookout. It was our first summit in the Washington Cascades and will always have a special place in our hearts. I remember climbing the metal-runged ladder the last bit to the lookout building and signing the register with the exclamation “1st summit!” following our names. Nowadays I love taking my friends and new hikers to this gem of a hike right in our backyard.

More Info About Mt Pilchuck (with photos of the old ski area):
Fifty Years Ago at Mt. Pilchuck on Sun Breaks Blog
Lost Ski Areas of Washington: Mt Pilchuck

Hikes Featured in this Post:
Mt Pilchuck

Outdoor Life

Hiking History: Tatoosh

July 24, 2015August 7, 2018
by Ashley Gossens

In 1943 the Packwood district forest service, located just south of Mt Rainier National Park, assigned their first lady lookout to Tatoosh Ridge. A Seattle school teacher named Martha Hardy spent that summer in the lookout watching for fires, keeping the lookout fixed up and tidy and befriending a ground squirrel. Back then they couldn’t leave the lookout without permission for the entire summer. She asked to go run a new telephone wire to the pole outside so that she could frolic in the avalanche lilies just a little bit. She wrote a book about her summer as a lookout and doesn’t shy away from sharing her fears, mistakes and loneliness during her time on Tatoosh. In fact, the first fire that she called in ended up being just a waterfall. She was horrified, but she eventually became friendly with the receptionists and the forest service men below and her mistake turned into a cherished and funny memory.

“Without my willing it or knowing how it came about, I was a rock with the rocks, a bee with the bees, a flower with the flowers. My ears drank in the murmur of the wind, my skin the sunshine, my eyes the flutter of a small blue butterfly over a mat of lavender phlox. I was part of all I saw and heard and felt.” – Martha Hardy

So naturally, after reading about this spunky local trailblazer, I had to go follow in her footsteps. I enlisted a hiking buddy and last weekend we headed to Tatoosh. The lookout itself is long gone and the trail is listed as “endangered” in the hiking guide book with little foot traffic these days. We knew the road was washed out before the trailhead too so we were ready for a bit of an adventurous day. We parked at the washout, headed up the last bit of road and found the trail abruptly rising through the forest. We strangely but happily snacked on ripened huckleberries and blueberries along the trail, which is usually a late August luxury, and finally broke out into the high meadows. Radiant fireweed painted the hillsides a deep magenta and we stopped to marvel at the variety of wildflowers on the trail although they were a bit past their prime already.

Once we were high on the ridge we started looking for a trail heading up to our left and found one after a short time. We made a last push on a fading trail to the summit on a small landing overlooking Tatoosh Lakes below. We were blown away by the views of Mt Rainier. I wandered around looking for any traces of the lookout (their weren’t any) and we celebrated with some gingerbread that I made in honor of Martha Hardy. When she had guests at the lookout she would get so excited that she would cook a massive amount of food for them like spaghetti and meatballs, chicken soup, biscuits and gingerbread. I found an old war time recipe that I thought may be similar to what she made. It was pretty good, but we made a list of ingredients that we thought would make it better like dried fruit, raisins and chunks of ginger. After a long time imagining what it would have been like spending every day right at this spot we got out the map to identify the surrounding peaks. Then we figured out we were on the wrong mountain.

In retrospect it was quite obvious that we were in the wrong place. The first thing I said at the top was, “huh, I wonder why they didn’t put the lookout on that bigger ridge over there,” while pointing to the actual lookout spot. And my trail buddy was wondering why we couldn’t see the smaller lakes we knew were below the lookout site. Also, it didn’t seem like we hiked far enough to be there already. After a closer look at the map we determined we had about another mile and a half to go. We laughed in disbelief and then decided to go for it the rest of the way over to the real lookout site. We hustled along the mostly flat trail while I kept exclaiming, “After all that, I can’t believe we went to the wrong mountain! Ahh!” The tread worsened along the steep ridge and after we turned a corner we found we were still pretty far away and significantly lower than the top of the ridge. We checked our water and energy levels and decided both were pretty low. We reluctantly decided to save it for another time. I was sad that my master plan was thwarted but as we hiked down the steep trail we came up with a plan for an improved return trip. We would come back when the wildflowers are in full bloom and with a new and enhanced version of gingerbread.

After what seemed like forever we were back at the car. On the way home we talked about how beautiful the little-used trail was and we were already looking forward to returning. We now knew what we were getting into and would not make the same mistake again. But like Martha mistaking a waterfall for a wildfire, our misguided effort turned into a great story, one that we will not soon forget. It was still an incredible hike and I will just have to dream about Martha Hardy’s little slice of paradise for another year. Next summer I’ll re-read the book while perfecting my gingerbread recipe in anticipation. And sometimes the anticipation is the best part.

Gingerbread Recipe:

2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup molasses
1 cup boiling water
2 eggs

1. Sift flour, measure; sift again with baking soda, salt and spices.

2. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, vegetable oil and molasses; add boiling water; stir until well mixed. Add dry ingredients gradually, beating well after each addition.

3. Add well-beaten eggs.

4. Bake in well-greased 8 x 8 square pan at 350˚F for 40 minutes or until gingerbread is done.

Tatoosh by Martha Hardy

Martha Hardy’s writing really makes you feel like you are there on the lookout back in 1943. This book is so different from the lookout accounts I featured in the Camp Reads: Lookout Edition. Being a lookout in the 1940’2 was hard work. She was one tough lady to do what she did back then, but she didn’t think that she was different than her male counterparts and just did her best to perform her duties. Her story is funny, real and incredibly entertaining. It now has a special place on my bookshelf.

Reading List

Reading List: Lookouts

July 17, 2015March 14, 2019
by Ashley Gossens

Some of my very favorite trails in the Cascades switchback through meadows to the top of a bare ridge with a little wooden shack plunked on top like a delicious cherry. Thousands of fire lookouts popped up on the mountain tops in the early 1900’s in an era of western expansion and dominance, and the men and women that staffed the lookouts became heros. Some tiny solitary huts were graced with the presence of conservationist Edward Abbey and the zen buddhist poets of the beat generation: Gary Snyder, Phillip Whalen, Jack Kerouac.

These days only a small number of lookouts still stand in the Cascades and an even smaller number of them are still staffed. The once rough and solitary lifestyle of a fire lookout has been romanticized in later generations and hopefully the love of these historic buildings will continue to aid in the restoration and preservation of them. I like to think that someday I will quit my job and work as a lookout for a summer. I will finally master proper posture by doing yoga everyday perched upon a rock. I will make tea and do as Gary Snyder did: “wrap up in a blanket in cold weather and read” and patiently wait for the first silent snow flakes of the fall. But more realistically I will forget the yoga, have terrible posture and will slowly go crazy making a list of ways to die in or around a lookout. But hey, a girl can dream…

This edition of camp reads kicks off a special series of posts dedicated to some of my favorite lookout hikes in the Cascades. Look for these additional posts throughout the summer and fall!

Fire Season by Philip Connors

In 2001 Connors was a copy-editor at the Wall Street Journal in New York City. After 9/11 he quit his job and visited a friend in New Mexico. She was a fire lookout in the Gila National Forest and was looking for someone to take over her spot. Connors has been working there every summer since. The book is a memoir of his time in the lookout and a love story to the Gila National Forest, one of the largest National Forests and includes more wilderness area than any other National Forest. The most famous of these is the Aldo Leopold Wilderness named for the conservationist. This is a great account of the modern fire lookout. You can see his photos from the lookout and check out his new book on his website.

Poets on the Peaks by John Suiter

It all started when Gary Snyder walked into the Marblemount forest service office in 1952 and requested to be sent to the “highest, most remote, and most difficult-of-access lookout” in the North Cascades. They all laughed and sent him up a miserable trail to Crater Mountain. The now famous poet influenced many famous writers of the era with the likes of Phillip Whalen and Jack Kerouac. They all spent time alone in the lookouts of the North Cascades and studied zen buddhism, practiced yoga and wrote poems and books. Written from unpublished letters, journals and interviews with Snyder and Whalen, this book tells of the lives of these men centered on their time as lookouts.

Mountains of Memory by Don Scheese

Like Fire Season, Scheese portrays the ways of the modern fire lookout in his memoir. He was a lookout for over a decade in the rugged wilderness of Idaho. When he’s not on the lookout he’s backpacking, climbing mountains and rafting the Salmon River and always contemplating the role of humans in the forest. As a nature writer he studies Thoreau, Snyder and Abbey and notes the wildflowers blooming about the lookout. He now spends his days as an English and Environmental Studies professor.

The Big Burn by Timothy Egan

In 1910 a massive forest fire ripped through Montana, Idaho and Washington. It was the biggest fire ever seen in the west and over ten thousand men fought it. Egan tells the story of the “Big Burn” and the events leading up to it through the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. The story has been documented on the PBS show American Experience and can be watched on the PBS website. Egan, who grew up in Seattle, has written extensively about the history of the west. His latest book, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher is about the fascinating life of the legendary photographer Edward Curtis.

Lookouts by Ira Spring and Byron Fish

This is the ultimate handbook for the Cascades & Olympics lookout lover. It chronicles all of the lookouts built in the cascades and gives a little history and photos for many of them. Reading through the book you’ll get a good sense of the importance of the lookouts to our mountains and the crazy places they perched these little houses on. The complete list of lookouts in the back of the book lists when they were built and if they are still standing (as of 1996 for the 2nd edition). It’s the perfect starting point to build a list of lookouts to visit.

Additional info on lookouts:

National Historic Lookout Register (with interactive maps of lookouts in every state)
Washington Fire Lookout Sites (with historic photos)
List of Fire Lookouts Currently Standing in Washington

See Also: Tatoosh by Martha Hardy