Three Fingers Mountain - Mountain Loop Highway

Three Fingers Mountain is a very prominent mountain noticeable from the north Puget Sound Region. An old lookout on the highest point draws in the extra crowds. The catch for trail hikers is that the trail comes up short of the summit, you have to do some scrambling and snow climbing. It is not difficult stuff, maybe just bring someone along who can watch over you. The summit rocks have been made easy with a series of ladders, just hold tight as you go, there is exposure.

Distance: 8 miles (from Tupso Pass Trailhead)
Summit Elevation: 6,870 feet
Elevation Gain: 4,000+ feet
Access: Decent Gravel Road

Drive the Mountain Loop Highway 6.5 miles east of Granite Falls to milepost 7 at the top of the hill and turn left (north) on Forest Service Road No. 41. Three roads leave the highway at this point but two are private. FS41 is the east most of the three. At the junction where the pavement ends, keep left. Along the way you'll pass several obvious side roads. Turn right onto FS4160. The trailhead signed Goat Flats is about 17.5 miles from the Mountain Loop Highway. Contact the Verlot Ranger Station for road conditions as this road is susceptible to closures.

Start out on a gradual but root covered wet trail for 2.5 miles to Saddle Lake. Continue beyond there for 2.5 miles to Goat Flats. There are nice camps here in the wide open meadows with views out to Puget Sound. Continue on the trail 2 miles to Tin Can Gap. This is where many people stop. From here, depending on the month and snowpack, the traverse is on climbers trails, through moats or even on the glacier. Your best bet for the easiest conditions will be September and October. As your near the top the climbing is on heather and scree slopes, with one permanent snowfield as well. Finally, the ladders take you up the otherwise class 5 rock. A final rope to hold is in place for the last few feet.

Arriving to Goat Flats and ridge to lookout

Looking down at Tin Pan Gap

The moat beyond Tin Pan Gap

Waiting for slow climbers....while looking like tourists

The rope just below the summit

East to Glacier Peak and Sloan Peak

On the final snowfield below the summit

Access from the Mountain Loop Highway. Remember to check if the road is repaired. A bridge closure has existed for years.

The Three Fingers lookout was manned for just eight summers from 1935 to 1942.

In 1927, Harold Engles moved to Darrington to assume the post of district ranger. He wanted to build a lookout on top of the south summit of Three Fingers.

In 1930, approval had been given and the trail work to the summit began, with trail foreman Harry Bedel. This included dynamite in several areas. The summit was nearly leveled with one blast although there were many irregular, jagged spots left to trim.

In 1931, from the final camp below the summit, materials for the cab were winched to the top the last 1,000 feet via a windlass made from telephone wire. In October, Harold Holmes working on the lookout trail made a misstep while working on the edge of the Glacier and went rolling down over the bare blue ice for about 500 feet, landing in a little lake among the jagged rocks. And it was lucky that he struck the island of rocks as a few feet either way and he would be going yet. He was badly shaken up but a few days in the hospital fixed him up all right again. (W.G. Weigle and Six Twenty-Six).

In 1932, Frank Benesch, who built many lookout cabins in the Snoqualmie National Forest began building the lookout. The cab barely fit, and the shutters on two sides were difficult to open from the outside since they were above cliffs.

The Three Fingers lookout was manned for just eight summers from 1935 to 1942.
In 1935 the lookout was Harold Weiss. Panoramic photos were taken this year.

In 1936, Harland and Catherine Eastwood on a honeymoon. 14 visitors that year.
They made world news with the following story in a New Zealand paper, "The strangest and most dangerous home in the world is surely that of Mrs. Catherine Eastwood, of East Washington. Mrs. Eastwood's husband is employed by the Forest Service as a lookout, and in this capacity, he spends the summer months of the year in a lookout station on Three Fingers, one of the peaks of the Cascade Range. With him goes Mrs. Eastwood. The lookout station is erected on a flat surface left when the Forest Service dynamited off the topmost peak. It has only one room, and all four walls consist mainly of glass (so that fires in the far-flung forests below can be quickly observed), with huge over-hanging eaves. The south wall is met by a drop of hundreds of feet, and the north side actually hangs over a sheer drop of 1000 feet. The front yard is a four-foot ledge meeting the slope up which climbers ascend, while the back yard, a few yards square, has a foot-high railing to shelter it from a fall of half a mile. The entire house is held down by cables, otherwise it would blow away in the high winds. Even so, the occupants can feel their home shifting when the gales are strong. Visitors are an extremely rare event, though occasionally a mountain climber has called in. On very clear days Mrs. Eastwood has seen mountain tops in British Columbia, nearly 200-miles away; and to the west she has sighted the Pacific Ocean rolling beyond Vancouver Island, a distance of 150 miles.

From 1937 to 1940 was Robert Craig

From 1941 to 1942 was Harry Tucker, fall of 1942 was last official use.

In 1943, Harry Tucker's mother and brothers spent the summer at Goat Flats watching for Japanese planes. After 1943, the Three Fingers lookout was fully abandoned.

In the 1980s, the L-4 cab was restored, leading that project was the daughter of the last observer. Efforts to keep the building were encouraged by retired Ranger Engles who lived to see the project completed before his passing in August 1993. The Everett branch of the Mountaineers has adopted the lookout since the mid-1980s.

IN 2015, the lookout got a new roof by a team led by project leader Arthur Wright. Help from the Snohomish County Sheriff's helicopter brought in materials.

1932 finished lookout

Materials via tramway to summit

Views from Lookout on August 19, 1935

Picture of the tram during construction

Mountaineers Annual 1940 - Three Fingers controversy

Dynamited summit. Curley Peterson on left, unidentified, Gerald Ashe is on right.

Three Fingers Builders - Harry Bedal on left

The 7 pictures above are from the Darrington Historical Society

A good book to read, got from public library.