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Fire lookout · King County, Washington

Granite Mountain Lookout

A 1955/56 L-4 tower replacing a 1924 D-6 cupola on Granite Mountain near Snoqualmie Pass, volunteer-staffed June-September and reached by a steep 4-mile trail.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Reachable by trail; visitors welcome inside during the day when open and volunteer-staffed, but no camping at the lookout and no potable water on site.

Can you climb it?
Yes
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Granite Mountain Trail 1016 from Pratt Lake trailhead, about 4 miles one way with ~3,500-3,800 ft elevation gain; roughly 8 miles round trip per USFS.
Staffing
Staffed by volunteers

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 tower, 10 ft, replaced a 1924 D-6 cupola cabinThe designs: L-4, D-6
Built of
Wood
Height
66 ft (20.0 m)
Elevation
5,607 ft (1,709 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest (volunteer-staffed via Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association)
Land
Federal land
Location
King County, Washington
Coordinates
47.41713, −121.48127
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-granite-mountain-2

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 3.8 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. 1924 BuiltA D-6 cupola cabin was erected at the summit, replacing an earlier simple cabin.Source: snoqualmielookouts.org
  2. No record between 1924 and 1943
  3. 1943 EventServed as an Aircraft Warning Service site during WWII.Source: snoqualmielookouts.org
  4. 1955 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  5. 1955 Replaced by a new structureNHLR and firelookout.com date the replacement with the current L-4 tower to 1955.Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  6. 1956 Replaced by a new structureSnoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association dates the upgrade to the present L-4 tower to 1956.Source: snoqualmielookouts.org
  7. No record between 1956 and 2015
  8. 2015 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register June 9, 2015.Source: nhlr.org
  9. 2024 RestoredMajor repairs led by FFLA volunteers.Source: firelookout.org
  10. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Granite Mountain, east of North Bend in the Cascades, was one of the Forest Service's earliest lookout sites. A simple cabin went up first, then in 1924 crews replaced it with a D-6 cupola cabin at the summit.1 That structure served through World War II, when it did a stint as an Aircraft Warning Service post watching the skies for enemy aircraft, a duty shared by many Pacific Northwest lookouts during the war.1 The Forest Service replaced it again in the mid-1950s, most sources say 1955, with the ten-foot L-4 tower that still stands today, though the Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association gives the upgrade year as 1956.1,2,3

The lookout sits on the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, reached by the Granite Mountain Trail, a steep climb of roughly four miles and 3,500 feet of elevation gain from the Pratt Lake trailhead.1,4 It's a popular, well-known hike, with open slopes that fill with wildflowers and huckleberries in late summer and views of the Cascades from the top.4

Volunteers have cared for the tower for years, staffing it from June through September, and the Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association reported it undergoing renovation in the early 2020s with the goal of reopening for full service and visitors.1 The Forest Service's current listing says visitors are welcome inside during the day when the lookout is open, and the Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association notes that camping is not permitted at the lookout or on its deck and that there's no potable water at the site, so hikers need to carry their own.1,4 Anyone heading up should check current conditions with the Snoqualmie Ranger District first, since staffing and opening schedules depend on volunteer availability each season.

  1. Granite Mountain Lookout, Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association, https://www.snoqualmielookouts.org/granite-mountain-lookout (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Granite Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/wa/granite-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Granite Mountain Lookout, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/granitemtn128.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Granite Mountain Lookout, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/mbs/recreation/granite-mountain-lookout (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Granite Mountain Lookout
Photo: U.S. Forest Service, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Granite Mtn. in 1920
Granite Mtn. in 1920 (1920)Photo: the USFS and Washington Rural Heritage, via firelookout.com · source
Granite Mtn. in 1924
Granite Mtn. in 1924 (1924)Photo: the USFS and Washington Rural Heritage, via firelookout.com · source
Granite Mtn. in 1939
Granite Mtn. in 1939 (1939)Photo: the USFS and Washington Rural Heritage, via firelookout.com · source
Granite Mtn. in 1985
Granite Mtn. in 1985 (1985)Photo: the USFS and Washington Rural Heritage, via firelookout.com · source
Photo of Granite Mountain Lookout
Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 · source
Photo of Granite Mountain Lookout
Photo: TrailChick Washington lookout guide (trailchick.com) · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

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 year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1955
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1924
    • OpenStreetMap: 1955
    • TrailChick: Washington State Fire Lookouts: 1956
    • Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association: 1924

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.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: what it is built of, design, staffing, photos, 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. Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association Gave us: dates, links Snoqualmie Fire Lookouts Association (snoqualmielookouts.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the association's page it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: height, register numbers, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  8. 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
  9. TrailChick: Washington State Fire Lookouts Gave us: photos, links TrailChick (trailchick.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, coordinates, elevation, lookout type, years built). The guide's text is not reproduced; its card photos are listed with credit to TrailChick, for the project's photo mirroring. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  10. FFLA chapters, affiliates and Friends groups: lookout pages FFLA chapters and Friends groups (each link names the group) · Links to the groups' own pages; facts only from the California-South chapter's tower table (register page, operator, condition). No text or photos reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  11. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.