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Fire lookout · Skamania County, Washington

West Point Butte Lookout Site

Also known as West Point

Gifford Pinchot lookout on West Point Butte: a 1925 cupola cabin replaced in 1955 by an L-4 cab, now gone; cab footings remain on the high point.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The L-4 cab is now gone; Willhite reports all the footings from the cab are still on the high point

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. Good gravel roads to a final spur with large potholes; no closure appears in the sources read

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Half-mile hike with about 500 ft of gain from the road's end; a trail follows the old road almost to the summit, then a faint tread on the right climbs the rest

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabCupola cabin built in 1925; replaced in 1955 with an L-4 cabThe designs: L-4, Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1925
Height
Unknown
Elevation
3,850 ft (1,174 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Skamania County, Washington
Coordinates
45.92595, −122.16951
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-west-point-butte

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 4.0 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. 1925 BuiltFirst structure: a cupola cabinSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  2. 1934 EventPanoramic photographs taken from the lower windows, about 5 feet above the groundSource: willhiteweb.com
  3. No record between 1934 and 1955
  4. 1955 Replaced by a new structureCupola replaced with an L-4 cab; Willhite says it was placed on a slightly higher knob nearbySources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  5. No record between 1955 and 2012
  6. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered with the FFLOS register: July 18, 2012Source: firetower.org
  7. 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.

A cupola cabin went up on West Point Butte in 1925.1,2,3 The butte sits in Skamania County, in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.1 In 1934 the panoramic photographs were taken from the bottom-level windows, about five feet off the ground, not from the upper cupola.3

In 1955 the cupola was replaced with an L-4 cab.1,2,3 Willhite's page says the new cab went on a slightly higher knob nearby, not the original site.3 It advises visitors to go up both knobs, because each once held a lookout.3

The L-4 cab is now gone.1,2 According to Willhite, the cab's footings all remain on the high point.3 A 2019 photo of the summit, looking north toward St. Helens, marks the original site at left.3

Access is by road and a short hike.3 The page gives a hiking distance of half a mile and an elevation gain of 500 feet.3 It describes a west approach, road 54 to road 57 and then spur 5704, and cautions that the last spur has some large potholes.3 A trail follows the old road nearly to the top.3 Where the road ends, the original trail heads off on the right and climbs by a faint tread to the summit.3 No closure appears in the sources read.

  1. West Point Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, Forest Fire Lookout Association, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/west-point-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. West Point Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/westpointbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. West Point Lookout, WillhiteWeb Washington Fire Lookouts, http://willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/west_point_lookout/siouxon_block_265.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

1966 photo
1966 photo (1966)Photo: Alan Howard, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Fire lookout Alan Howard's wife and daughter in 1966
Fire lookout Alan Howard's wife and daughter in 1966 (1966)Photo: Alan Howard, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Mid-1960s photo
Mid-1960s photoPhoto: Alan Howard, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
1964 photo
1964 photo (1964)Photo: Alan Howard, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
West Point Butte circa 1970
West Point Butte circa 1970 (1970)Photo: Alan Howard, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
1966 view looking north
1966 view looking north (1966)Photo: Alan Howard, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
1966 view looking southeast
1966 view looking southeast (1966)Photo: Alan Howard, 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, 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. 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
  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.