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Fire lookout · King County, Washington

Surprise Mountain Lookout Site

L-4 cab on Surprise Mountain in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, dated 1932 by most sources, staffed by the Mountaineers in 1943, removed or destroyed in the 1950s; a metal pole remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cab removed or destroyed in the 1950s; SummitPost says a tall metallic pole is the only remnant

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. Summit reached on foot in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness; no source read says the site is closed

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Hiking route from the Surprise Creek trailhead, about 13.6 miles round trip with about 4,400 feet of gain per a Mountaineers trip report; no source read describes a cab left to climb, and SummitPost reports only a tall metal pole as a remnant

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab fire lookoutThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,330 ft (1,929 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
King County, Washington
Coordinates
47.64675, −121.14525
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-surprise-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. 1932 BuiltRegister, firelookout.com and SummitPost give 1932; Willhite's 1934 photo survey shows no structure and he guesses a cab went up about 1937Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, summitpost.org
  2. 1943 StaffedMountaineers volunteers manned the lookout for the summer season, July 10 to August 31; no other staffing season appears in the sources readSource: willhiteweb.com
  3. 1950 DestroyedSources date the removal only to the 1950s; year 1950 stands for the decade. The register says removed; the others say destroyedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  4. No record between 1950 and 2012
  5. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered on the Former Fire Lookout Sites register on May 22, 2012Source: firetower.org
  6. 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 U.S. Forest Service put an L-4 cab on the summit of Surprise Mountain in 1932, according to SummitPost, which ties the summit choice to its wide views of the Central Cascades.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register gives the same year and design.2 Willhite's Washington Fire Lookout page tells a different story. It says that when government photos were taken from the summit in 1934 for the Osborne Photo Survey, no structure existed. It guesses a cab went up soon after, around 1937.3 The sources do not agree on the build date.

The Mountaineers staffed the lookout for the 1943 summer season.3 An account of that season in the Mountaineer Annals, by club secretary Helen Rudy, says the club agreed to man the post from July 10 to August 31.3 Nine volunteers signed up for one- and two-week shifts.3 Every two hours, a short-wave radio report went to one of the other lookouts.3 That report was then relayed by telephone to headquarters, because Surprise had no direct connection with the Skykomish ranger station.3 Pack trains carried supplies the 7.25 miles from Scenic.3

The register dates the cab's removal to the 1950s.2 SummitPost says the Forest Service decommissioned and destroyed it during that decade.1 The firelookout.com page also dates its destruction to the 1950s, and Willhite says it was likely destroyed then.4,3

According to SummitPost, the only leftover from the lookout is a tall metal pole on the summit.1 An unlabeled photo caption on Willhite's page says a piece of the lookout remained in 2014. That caption sits among captions for the Evergreen Mountain Lookout, so it may not refer to Surprise.3

The summit sits in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.1 A Mountaineers trip report calls it a former lookout site above Surprise and Glacier Lakes and describes a day hike of about 13.6 miles round trip, with about 4,400 feet of gain, from the Surprise Creek trailhead.5 Parking there is limited, and the trailhead sits just past a railroad crossing.5 We found no source saying the site is closed, and none describes a cab left to climb.

  1. Surprise Mountain, SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/surprise-mountain/440667 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Surprise Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/surprise-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Surprise Mountain Lookout Site - Washington Fire Lookout, willhiteweb.com, http://www.willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/surprise_mountain/lookout_391.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Surprise Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/surprisemtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Day Hike - Surprise Mountain, The Mountaineers, https://www.mountaineers.org/activities/trip-reports/day-hike-surprise-mountain (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Surprise Mountain Lookout panoramic 8-8-1934 (N)
Surprise Mountain Lookout panoramic 8-8-1934 (N) (1934)Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Surprise Mountain Lookout panoramic 8-8-1934 (SE)
Surprise Mountain Lookout panoramic 8-8-1934 (SE) (1934)Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Surprise Mountain Lookout panoramic 8-8-1934 (SW)
Surprise Mountain Lookout panoramic 8-8-1934 (SW) (1934)Photo: National Archives-Pacific Northwest Region, via 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. 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, 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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