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Fire lookout · Chelan County, Washington

Rock Mountain Lookout Site

Chelan County L-4 cab built 1933 on Wenatchee National Forest; gone by 1973, and the summit is open to a scramble from Nason Ridge Trail.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab removed in 1973 (one source says destroyed); the Forest Service says the lookout is no longer there

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 Wenatchee National Forest land; the Forest Service describes a scramble to the summit from Nason Ridge Trail

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Scramble to the summit from the west end of Nason Ridge Trail, where it meets the Snowy Creek trail

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,852 ft (2,089 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Chelan County, Washington
Coordinates
47.79980, −120.97458
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-rock-mountain

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 4.2 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. 1933 BuiltL-4 cab built in 1933Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1933 StaffedJim Coston named as the Rock Mountain lookout in June 1933Sources: firelookout.com, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 StaffedHaven Bachelor named as lookout in June 1934; Mrs. Bachelor expected to spend most of the summer thereSource: washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1934 and 1973
  5. 1973 RemovedRegister says removed; firelookout.com says destroyedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1973 and 2012
  7. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered on the Former Fire Lookout Sites register on October 28, 2012Source: firetower.org
  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.

The lookout on Rock Mountain stood about 7 miles northeast of Stevens Pass, on Wenatchee National Forest land in Chelan County.1,2 It was an L-4 cab, built in 1933.2,1

The earliest lookout named in the sources is Jim Coston, whom the Leavenworth Echo listed as the Rock Mountain lookout in June 1933.3 A year later the Wenatchee Daily World named Haven Bachelor as lookout and said Mrs. Bachelor expected to be up there with him for much of the summer.3 An entry dated August 18, 1934 says panorama photos were taken.3

The register says the cab was removed in 1973.2 firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year.1 The two sources agree on the year but not on how the cab left the summit, and we have not found a third account to settle it.

The Forest Service reports that the lookout no longer stands, but the summit still has views across the Cascade range.4 A scramble to the summit starts from the west end of the Nason Ridge Trail, where it meets the Snowy Creek trail.4 No source we read describes what, if anything, is left of the lookout on the summit today.

  1. Rock Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/rockmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Rock Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/rock-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Rock Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com, https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/rock-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Trail - Nason Ridge Trail, USDA Forest Service, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/okanogan-wenatchee/recreation/trails/nason-ridge-trail (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Rock Mountain Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
1961
1961 (1961)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, 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

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