Fire lookout · Snohomish County, Washington
Haystack Mountain Lookout Site (Snohomish County)
Also known as Haystack Mountain
1957 40-foot wooden L-4 lookout tower; the register says it is abandoned and gone, and a 2022 hiking report found only old radio shacks at the gated site.
- Gone
- Restricted access
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The tower is gone. A 2022 hiking report found only a couple of old radio shacks at the site.
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. Gated, unmarked logging road over private timberland; non-motorized day use is allowed under the Forest Legacy program, and the gate can close at any time
- Road to the top?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Gated logging road from Ben Howard Road, 1.8 miles south of Sultan; non-motorized day use only
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower40-foot wooden tower with an L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Wood
- Built
- 1957
- Height
- 40 ft (12.2 m)
- Elevation
- 3,590 ft (1,094 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service (per the register; disputed by a 2022 trip report, see notes)
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Snohomish County, Washington
- Coordinates
- 47.80946, −121.75116 sources disagree
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-wa-haystack-mountain-snohomish-county
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 its recorded height.
Downloads about 4.1 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
- 1957 BuiltL-4 cab on a 40-foot wooden tower, per the register and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
- No record between 1957 and 2020
- 2020 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: April 2, 2020Source: FFLOS register entry
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Haystack Mountain lookout in Snohomish County stood about 11 miles east-southeast of Monroe.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register places the site in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.2
In 1957 a 40-foot wooden tower with an L-4 cab was built on the site.2,1 firelookout.com puts the tower two miles west of the summit.1 A SummitPost climbing page says the lookout never actually stood on the summit.3 The register and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's list give coordinates about 5.7 kilometers apart, so the exact spot is uncertain.2,4
According to the register, the tower was later abandoned and no longer stands.2 firelookout.com lists it as abandoned too.1
A Washington Trails Association trip report from June 2022 describes a Haystack Ridge Lookout Site that appears to be this one.5 The writer says the lookout has been gone for a long time and mentions two old radio shacks that appear to be out of use. The access road runs along Ben Howard Road, 1.8 miles south of Sultan. It is gated and unmarked, and the report describes the land as private timberland.5 Non-motorized day use is allowed under the Forest Legacy program, and the gate can close at any time, so the report advises against driving up.5
Eric Willhite's guide to Ten-Four Mountain, under the heading Haystack Lookout & Ten-Four Mountain, also calls the spot the former lookout site, reached by road to Airplane Lake and then up.6
The register lists the Forest Service as administrator, but the trip report describes private timberland, so check who manages the land before going.2,5
- Haystack Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/haystackmtnfs.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Haystack Mountain Lookout Site (Snohomish County), Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/haystack-mountain-lookout-site-snohomish-county/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Haystack Mountain (Skykomish Valley), SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/haystack-mountain-skykomish-valley/425874 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Washington lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/wa/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Haystack Ridge Lookout Site, Washington Trails Association trip report, https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report.2022-06-23.9301339416 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Haystack Lookout & Ten-Four Mountain, WillhiteWeb.com, https://www.willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/haystack_lookout/ten_four_mountain_166.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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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 5.7 km (3.6 mi).
- FFLOS: 47.80946, −121.75116
- FFLA: 47.82333, −121.67731
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 47.82333, −121.67731
They share a register number.
The map uses the position from FFLOS.
Sources
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- 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
- FFLOS register entry US 1961 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- Haystack Mountain (Skykomish Valley) (SummitPost) (opens another site)
- Haystack Ridge Lookout Site, trip report (Washington Trails Association) (opens another site)
- Haystack Lookout & Ten-Four Mountain (WillhiteWeb.com (Eric Willhite)) (opens another site)
- FFLA Washington lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Haystack Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Haystack Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.