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Fire lookout · Skamania County, Washington

Mount Mitchell Lookout Site

Also known as Mitchell Peak

Skamania County, WA two-story L-4 cab on Mount Mitchell (Siouxon Block, DNR); removed or destroyed 1970; road to the official trail blocked, so check access first.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed or destroyed in 1970 (sources differ); a footing is photographed at the summit with no date

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. The main road to the official trail is blocked by private property issues; the Willhite page describes an unofficial trail and says the roads are poorly signed. Check with the Washington DNR before going.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Two-story building2-story L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
3,927 ft (1,197 m)
Agency
Gifford Pinchot National Forest / Washington Dept. of Natural Resources
Land
Federal land
Location
Skamania County, Washington
Coordinates
46.03087, −122.19309
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-mount-mitchell

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 3.9 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. 1942 EventAircraft Warning Service use, March 16, 1942 to October 16, 1943; sleeping quarters and a woodshed addedSource: washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1942 and 1957
  3. 1957 Replaced by a new structureTwo-story L-4 cab built in 1957 to replace an earlier emergency lookout (register); Willhite says the date is unclearSources: firetower.org, willhiteweb.com
  4. 1965 FireFormer DNR lookout recalls a significant lightning bust centered on the lookout that summerSource: willhiteweb.com
  5. 1966 Last staffedDNR staffing until 1966 per the registerSource: firetower.org
  6. 1969 AbandonedDiscontinued and replaced by air patrols; to be kept as a supply cache (Forest Lookouts quoting The Oregonian, August 18, 1969)Source: washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1970 DestroyedInventory and firelookout.com: destroyed in 1970Sources: willhiteweb.com, firelookout.com
  8. 1970 RemovedRegister: removed in 1970Source: firetower.org
  9. No record between 1970 and 2012
  10. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: July 16, 2012Source: FFLOS register entry
  11. 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.

Mount Mitchell sits in the Siouxon Block of state timberland, due south of Mount St. Helens, in Skamania County.1,2 Older documents from the 1930s and 1940s frequently used the name Mitchell Peak.1

Sources disagree on when the first cab went up.1,2 A former DNR lookout recalls the Forest Service building it around 1933, due to the Yacolt Burn.1 Willhite found an L-4 cab on the summit by 1942, with no known build date, and a 1948 Forest Service document called the lookout recently constructed.1 The register says a two-story L-4 cab from 1957 replaced an earlier emergency lookout.2 Willhite also questions the 1957 date.1

From March 16, 1942 to October 16, 1943, the Aircraft Warning Service used the site, and it added sleeping quarters and a woodshed.3 The register says the Forest Service ran the lookout at first, and the DNR after that until 1966.2 The former DNR lookout remembers serving there in the summer of 1965, when a significant lightning bust centered on the lookout.1

Accounts of the end do not match. The same former lookout's note says the lookout was burned as a fire hazard, because the public visited it often.1 In August 1969 The Oregonian reported that the lookout would be discontinued in favor of air patrols and kept as a supply cache.3 The register gives removal as 1970, while the inventory and firelookout.com say it was destroyed that year.2,1,4

Today, the Willhite page shows a photo captioned "Footing at the summit," along with outhouse debris photos from the 1990s and about 2000.1 Private property issues have kept the main road to the official trail closed for years, so the page describes an unofficial trail instead.1 The page warns that the roads in the block are confusing and poorly marked.1 Check with the Washington DNR, which manages the Siouxon Block, before you go.1

  1. Mount Mitchell Lookout, Siouxon Block, WillhiteWeb.com, http://willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/mount_mitchell_lookout/siouxon_block_264.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Mount Mitchell Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/mount-mitchell-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Mount Mitchell, Forest Lookouts, https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/mount-mitchell.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Mt. Mitchell Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/mitchell.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Mount Mitchell Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Mount Mitchell Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, 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: ownership, 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, 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.