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Fire lookout · Grays Harbor County, Washington

Chester Ridge Lookout Site

A 20-foot treated timber R-6 lookout on Olympic National Forest land, built about 1957 and gone by 1972; four concrete footings remain on the summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed or destroyed in 1972; four concrete footings remain on the summit.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Reached by Forest Service Road 2204, about 8.5 miles up Donkey Creek Road from Highway 101. A tank trap blocked the road to the summit area in 2017; no later report found.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Walk up the main road to just below the summit; the last stretch is an abandoned road under logging debris.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower20-foot treated timber R-6 towerThe design: R-6
Built of
Wood
Built
1957
Height
Unknown
Elevation
1,250 ft (381 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Olympic National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Grays Harbor County, Washington
Coordinates
47.39593, −123.78907 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-chester-ridge

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 4.3 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1956 EventTimber from the West Fork Humptulips drainage was sold to clear a site for a lookout, per a November 14, 1956 Port Angeles Evening News item quoted by Washington Lookouts.Source: willhiteweb.com
  2. 1957 BuiltFiretower.org and Firelookout.com date the tower to 1957; Washington Lookouts dates it to 1958.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  3. No record between 1957 and 1972
  4. 1972 RemovedFiretower.org and the Weebly list say removed; Firelookout.com and Washington Lookouts say destroyed.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1972 and 2011
  6. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered on the Former Fire Lookout Sites register as US 1161 on November 27, 2011.Source: firetower.org
  7. 2015 EventAround 2015 a commercial thinning project treated the second-growth stand on the ridge.Source: willhiteweb.com
  8. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Chester Ridge sits on a low, narrow ridge between Chester Creek and the West Fork Humptulips River, inside Olympic National Forest in Grays Harbor County, about six miles southeast of Lake Quinault.1,2,3 The lookout was a 20-foot tower of treated timber, what the sources call an R-6 tower.1,2,3

The tower grew out of a timber sale. In November 1956 the Port Angeles Evening News reported that Quinault District Ranger Jack Heintzelman was selling a large block of timber from the West Fork Humptulips drainage to clear a site for a lookout station, and that he thought the spot was an excellent one for spotting fires.3 Firetower.org and Firelookout.com both date the tower to 1957, but Washington Lookouts gives 1958 and quotes the plan to have it built by summer of that year.1,2,3

Staffing is thinly recorded. The Washington Lookouts history names Wes Harner, who worked more than twenty years as a lookout at Quinault, as a lookout on Chester Ridge for a time, but it gives no dates.3 None of the pages I read describes a fire the tower spotted.

The tower's life ended in 1972. Firetower.org and a Weebly list say it was removed that year, while Firelookout.com and Washington Lookouts say it was destroyed.1,2,4,3 The sources agree on the year but not on the verb, and I could not settle which is right.

Today little is left on the summit. The Washington Lookouts page found four concrete footings there, one still in place and three moved to the side.3 A thinning project around 2015 treated the second-growth forest on the ridge, and its environmental review found that the old lookout site was not a historic or cultural site.3

Getting there means turning east off Highway 101 onto Donkey Creek Road and driving about eight and a half miles to Forest Service Road 2204.3 The same page lists the gravel roads as good, but says a tank trap blocked the road to the summit area in 2017, and that the last stretch of road is an abandoned one covered in logging debris.3 I could not find a newer report on whether that barrier is still there, so check with the Forest Service before you go. There is no tower left to climb, and the site lies on national forest land.

  1. Chester Ridge Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, Firetower.org, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/chester-ridge-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Chester Ridge Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/chesterridge.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Chester Ridge Lookout Site, Washington Lookouts, willhiteweb.com, http://www.willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/chester_ridge_lookout/humptulips_203.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Chester Ridge, Forest Lookouts list, Washington Lookouts (Weebly), https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/chester-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Chester Ridge Lookout Site
Chester Ridge Lookout SitePhoto: Eric Willhite, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Chester Ridge Lookout Site
Chester Ridge Lookout SitePhoto: Eric Willhite, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 580 m.

    • FFLOS: 47.39593, −123.78907
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites): 47.39500, −123.79660

    The map uses the position from FFLOS.

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. WillhiteWeb.com: Washington Fire Lookouts Gave us: links WillhiteWeb.com · No licence stated; names and page links only (the site's photos and text are not reproduced). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, visiting details, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

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