FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Pend Oreille County, Washington

Grassy Top Lookout Site

Also known as Grassy Top Mountain

Kaniksu NF ridge site: 1915 camp, 1926 log cabin, 1938 L-4 tower; only ruins by the 1950s, with footings and remnants still on the ridge.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Only ruins by the 1950s; an undated visitor's account reports footings and remnants on the ridge, not standing structures

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. On Kaniksu National Forest land, reached on foot; the trail is unsigned

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
About 11 miles round trip with roughly 1,500 feet of gain; an unsigned trail climbs the south ridge to the sites

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerLog cabin with two platform towers (1926); 20-foot wooden tower with L-4 cab (1938)The design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1926
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,213 ft (1,894 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Pend Oreille County, Washington
Coordinates
48.76621, −117.14505 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-grassy-top

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. 1915 EventLookout camp set upSources: firetower.org, willhiteweb.com
  2. 1926 BuiltLog cabin built, with two platform towers about a mile apart (register); built by mop-up crews after the 1926 burn (WillhiteWeb)Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  3. 1931 EventRoy Mackay struck by lightning (WillhiteWeb)Source: willhiteweb.com
  4. 1932 EventLawrence McKay completed a lookout station on Grassy Top and started one on Slumber Peak (Newport Miner, quoted by WashingtonLookouts; WillhiteWeb)Sources: willhiteweb.com, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1938 Built20-foot wooden tower with L-4 cab, half a mile southwest of the 1926 cabinSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  6. 1950 EventOnly ruins remained 'by the 1950s' per the sources; exact year of decline not givenSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  7. No record between 1950 and 2012
  8. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: December 16, 2012Source: FFLOS register entry
  9. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Grassy Top is a long ridge in the Kaniksu National Forest, about 12 miles east of Ione in Pend Oreille County.1,2,3 A lookout camp was set up there in 1915.1,3

In 1926 a log cabin was built.1,3 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register describes it with two platform towers about a mile apart, on the north and southeast points.1 One history credits mop-up crews with building the cabin in the final days of a major 1926 fire that tore through Pend Oreille County.3 A 1931 entry records that Roy Mackay was struck by lightning.3

In September 1932 a Newport newspaper reported that Lawrence McKay had completed a lookout station on Grassy Top and was starting another on Slumber Peak.3,4 The register dates a 20-foot wooden tower with an L-4 cab, half a mile southwest of the cabin, to 1938.1,2,3 The sources do not agree on the dates, and they do not say whether the 1932 station was the 1926 cabin or a later building.1,3,4

By the 1950s, the site had been reduced to ruins.1,2

A visitor's undated account says only hidden relics are left. The southwest peak has the most remnants, including footings, and the north tower site still has some.3 An unsigned trail climbs the south ridge to the site.3 The round trip is about 11 miles with roughly 1,500 feet of climbing.3

  1. Grassy Top Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/grassy-top-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Grassy Top Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/grassytop.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Grassy Top Mountain Lookout Sites, WillhiteWeb.com, https://www.willhiteweb.com/fire_lookouts/grassy_top_mountain/lookout_374.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Grassy Top - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Washington Forest Lookouts index, https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/grassy-top.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Grassy Top Lookout (no date)
Grassy Top Lookout (no date)Photo: Ron Kemnow collection, 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 1.1 km (0.7 mi).

    • FFLOS: 48.76621, −117.14505
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites): 48.76050, −117.15710

    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. 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

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