Elk Mountain (LAM Benchmark)

Elk Mountain is a tall prominent mountain in the St. Helens Tree Farm with a long history with 3 fire lookouts. At first known lookout person/camp was placed on the peak in 1929 in a vast territory of virgin timber. A trail to the summit had opened up some years before by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. The following year in 1930, a 57 foot tower of wood construction with a cab on top enclosed with glass was constructed. Some six miles of telephone line was constructed from the Kalama River, to the Elk Mountain temporary lookout, and on to Butler's Butte." Assistant Chief Warden V.O. Wallace supervised the erection of the Elk Mountain Lookout.

Six years later, in 1936, the 29th Annual Report of the Washington Forest Fire Association reported on the site. "We also constructed a tower on Elk Mountain in Section 32, Township 8, Range 4 East. This tower, built a decade ago of white fir, became dangerous, and the point lost much of it's effectiveness for this reason. A new tower of hewn cedar, sixty feet high was erected, the material being horse packed for some two and a half miles. The actual trail from the end of the road is approximately nine miles, but it was found possible to so re-locate the trail, with some additional swamping, as to make it possible for our tractor to pull a fully loaded wheeled trailer to Butler's Butte. This helped very materially in the problem of feeding men and horses as well as hauling equipment at an elevation of 4,650 feet.”

In December 1937, "The following story was picked up at the recent meeting of Western Forestry in Portland and is vouched for by C.S. Cowan, of the Washington Forest Fire Association: Jake Nordvik has been the lookout on Elk Mountain in Lewis county, Washington, for the past 11 years. In spite of the fact that he lost an eye and his right hand some years ago when a bunch of dynamite went haywire, he can still spot fires with the best of them and also use an axe and broadaxe. The last is evidenced from the fact that he hewed the timbers for his lookout tower. But the interesting part of the story is about Jake's two horses which pack supplies to the lookout. He calls them the mare and the colt in spite of the fact that they are 28 and 24 years old respectively. They have been traveling this trail ever since Jake manned the lookout, so they know their way. When it is necessary to send a stock of supplies up to the lookout, Mrs. Nordvik packs the mare and colt, escorts them the river a couple miles distant, heaves sticks and rocks at them until they get across and then returns to her home. The animals make their solitary way up to the lookout where Jake unpacks them, starts them back down the trail and then goes in and phones his wife to go open the gate in about three hours because the horses will be there. So far they have never failed to make the round trip unattended." (The Forest Log)

In 1940, "A new 29 foot ring-connected tower and ground house were constructed on Elk Mountain." (Annual Report of the Division of Forestry)

In 1942, the lookout site was used for a period of time by the Aircraft Warning Service. A document (shown below) shows the lookout got use but for some reason, the normal AWS documents don’t show Elk as being used. Note the document says the lookout person was Jake Nordvik (see his story above).

In 1966, the lookout was Martin Burrows. He was 18, applied at the DNR, no openings but a week later, one opened up, he got trained in 3 days, off to Elk Mountain for immediate duty. It was a 3-mile hike to the lookout, no electricity, no outhouse, no propane, no phone, just a cast iron stove and radios. Warter was back down the 3-mile trail at the base of the mountain, which he carried up every couple of days in a rubberized backpack.

Around 1968, the lookout was blown down and abandoned.

It should also be noted that 1/4 mile to the SE of Elk Mountain is a small knob elevation 4261. The Kresek Loookout Inventory suggests this knob was called Lam Mountain (but the LAM benchmark was on Elk), and I, nor Ray can explain why the inventory says this. The inventory says it was a 1930s cabin. Note that the inventory also didn’t know about the first of the three structures on Elk, so I believe there is some kind of error here, especially when Elk was already being used by 1929 and had clear views of anything visible from Lam Mountain. I did go back and visit this bump to the SE but found no evidence of a cabin on the summit. I believe Elk Mountain and Lam Mountain are the same.

Elk Mountain (LAM Benchmark) [Likely Lam Mountain]