Red Top Mountain Lookout

Red Top Mountain is best known for two features, an easy to access fire lookout and the Agate Beds. For the lookout, the short and easy hike gets many casual visitors out of their cars and onto the trail to explore the summit structure. It has been restored and is often used during fire season. On good days, you can see Mount Rainier, the Stuart Range and the Teanaway and Cle Elum valleys. For rockhounders, about a mile north on a trail is the minefield, the location where people dig for agates and thunder eggs. The ridge there is covered with holes of all sizes from people digging for treasure.

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Standing Lookouts

Distance: 1 mile
Summit Elevation: 5,360 feet
Elevation Gain: 350 feet
Access: Good Gravel

Access:

There are several ways to get to the trailhead. The easiest is from I-90, take exit 85 and go north on Hwy 97 north for 18 miles. Just past the Mineral Springs Campground, go left on FR 9738. In 2.6 miles, go left on FR 9702. Drive 4.5 miles to the trailhead at the picnic area, elevation 5000 feet.

Route:

The trail is steep but it is short, gaining 350 feet in less than a mile. There is some shade from the old trees, some rock outcrops, some wildflowers and often views of the lookout perched above.

Stuart Range at sunset

Red Top Mountain Lookout

Camping on Red Top Mountain with Mt. Stuart in the distance

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Lookout History

Red Top shows up on the 1918 Wenatchee National Forest Map. Red Top is also listed in the 1920 Directory of National Forests in Washington.

In 1918, two lookout buildings were shipped to the Forest Service from the Millmade Construction Company of Portland. One was placed on Mt. Pilchuck while the other was going to go to Tumwater, but for some reason ended up going to Red Top. Its not clear when the cupola cabin was actually built, possibly as late as 1924. A small cabin may have been on the summit prior to this.

In 1952, an L-4 cab was built on a 10 foot treated timber tower. It was abandoned in the 1970s but fully restored in 1996 and 1997, and is staffed today by volunteers during the summer.

Stories found by Ron Kemnow:

The lookout person in 1923 left a letter on the table in the Redtop lookout house saying:
Red Top Lookout for 1924, Hello Old Top! Best wishes for the loneliest three months you ever spent. There will doubtless be moments, even days, when things will look so blue that even cussing couldn't possibly make the air bluer. At least that has been my experience since I started 64 days ago, and Gad! but it seems centuries. But now with the small pellets of rain jazzing, tomorrow, tomorrow, how happy I will be! all the past loneliness seems trivial for every drop makes more sure the one important thought, Tomorrow I'm going home. I've been told that the lookout works a charm on one so that they are anxious to return. I really believe it for I hope to come back. Best wishes for 1924. James Burnie Beck P.S. Sherman was wrong -- The rain was a failure so I'm still here. (Six Twenty-Six)

From Six Twenty-Six on September 1926: "Lookout Rosnold on Red Top Mountain realizes that his job has hazards not in his regular line of duty. Over 120 girls from the Ellensburg State Normal School visited the lookout early in the season. Rosnold managed to hide out until they signed the register and left the lookout. Rosnold is preparing a visibility map of his lookout with unusual accuracy. His intimate knowledge of the region is a big help to him in working up this map. A.J. Jaenicke"

From Six Twenty-Six on November 1929: The following lightning story may be of interest to those who been uncertain as to the efficiency of the present method used for protecting our lookout houses. Ranger Anderson at Casland, on the Wenatchee, one evening last summer during an electrical storm, watched the lightning play around the lookout house on Red Top Mountain several miles distant. He said it struck the top of the mountain, close to the building ten or twelve times at intervals of five or ten minutes. During this time there were what appeared to be forked streamers of fire from all the conductor 'points' on the building, that he could see. As far as he could tell, the building received but two direct hits. One of these caused a violent disturbance at the point where one of the guy cables (which are part of the conductor system) was attached to an eyebolt in a cliff, dislodging probably a ton of rock, appearing to him as though there had been a heavy blast of dynamite. The rubber insulator was burned off of the telephone wire leading into the building up to the W.B.G. (1/2 ampere) fuse. This was burned out and the glass tube in the vacuum arrester shattered. The lookout was in the building at the time and probably did not think the lightning was playing, although he said he experienced only a queer sensation and for a day or two afterward had some difficulty in getting his hair to lie down again. C.M. Allen (Six Twenty-Six)

The Leavenworth Echo reported on June 23, 1933 that C. Couchman was the Redtop lookout.

The Wenatchee Daily World reported on May 29, 1934 that "A trail worker has been sent to Redtop, on the south side of the forest, as an emergency look-out, until the regular look-out reports.”

Document discussing the Red Top Lookout, January 29, 1953

August 31, 1934 Looking Southeast

August 31, 1934 Looking Southwest

August 31, 1934 Looking North

Directory of National Forests in Washington 1920 document

1918 Wenatchee National Forest Map

1952 the first year of the new L-4

1939