Stormy Mountain Lookout Site

Sometime around 1914, Stormy Mountain was developed as a heliograph lookout site with a camp. The heliograph was used in conjunction with Sugarloaf Peak and Tumwater Mountain to pass messages from Chelan to Leavenworth. In 1919, a cupola cabin was built. The cupola was replaced in 1930 by a gable-roofed L-4 cab. This last structure lasted until 1955 when it was destroyed.

Story shared by Austin Post, a former lookout on nearby peaks.
J.B. Richardson was a locally famous man of the outdoors who was frequently referred to as the Mountain Goat due to his white beard and ability to scramble all over the wildest parts of the Cascades. He had spent much of his lifetime doing all sorts of jobs for the Forest Service, locating and building trails and a good number of the lookout stations on both the east and west sides of the mountains. He told me of the construction of the Pyramid Lookout when the entire building and accessories, including a 200-gallon water tank, were packed in on mules from Twenty-five Mile Creek, a total trail distance of fifty-two miles. An avid photographer, he recorded the glaciers where few, if any, others had ever taken pictures. For twenty years or more, Mr. Richardson was the 'Old Stormy' Mountain lookout which mountain is the most prominent and interesting in view from the town of Chelan. During those depression years a number of socialistic groups had formed that had hopes of saving the world, which admittedly certainly needed it and still does. I'm not certain which of these J.B. had joined, but they had monthly meetings in Lakeside (which is now a part of Chelan itself), which he attended whenever he could get away from Stormy. The story as I heard it was that he occasionally had to take French leave in order to do this. Upon his return from one of these he made the shocking discovery that the lookout building had burned to the ground in his absence! Ray Kresek's 1984 book, "Fire Lookouts of the Northwest" lists a change of lookout building styles on Stormy Mountain as having occurred in 1930, which may date this event. In any case, J.B. must have had a rather embarrassing time of it having to return to town and report the fire!

Just hike the trail to the summit.

Take the Entiat Valley Road past Ardenvoir to FR 5380, then up FR 8410. High clearance is probably best with decent tires. Another way can be from Lake Chelan at Twenty-Five Mile Creek and taking FR 8410 up and across Slide Ridge. Both roads quality depends on when they were graded last.