Photo Gallery: Biking, Hiking, and Climbing to Three Fingers Lookout

At any time I see the phrase “hidden gem” on the net I suppose that it’s click on-bait and maintain scrolling. These times we classify quite a few very hot puppy stands, coffee shops, and Netflix displays with this cliche, collectively devaluing its truly worth. Even so, there are a couple exceptions, in our humble impression, and Three Fingers Lookout is one particular of them.

The lookout is a historic fire observation tower in the Mount Baker Countrywide Forest, a couple several hours from Seattle, Washington. Crafted in 1930, it’s one particular of the most remote fire lookouts in the space and is taken care of by a local climbing team.

The one particular-space wooden cabin is just 14×14 ft, painted white and bolted straight into the rock. Superior winds at Three Fingers are quite common, so the lookout is laiden with burly wood window shutters and steel guylines that reinforce the foundation. Crafted by two men in excess of a a few-yr period, it’s a legitimate feat of engineering perched on leading of a rock spire. Thanks to high expenses, it was only manned right up until 1942, and mainly because it is tough to get to, it isn’t visited far too normally.

The travel to the trailhead is simple, but full of potholes on a dust road, and the finish of the road is obvious—due to a washout many yrs back the road is closed with a rock and dust barrier. This is in which the authentic exciting commences.