Cowiche Lookout & Pine Mountain Lookout
This page will be for the Pine Mountain Lookout as well as what I believe an earlier lookout called the Cowiche Lookout.
Washington Lookout Sites
Early History:
Some of the earliest Wagon Roads were in this area. It is believed a wagon road was cut from the Ahtanum over Cowiche Mountain to the Cowiche Valley sometime between 1867-1872. Easy topography for wagons and then later, automobiles could have easily lead along the ridge crest west to the highest spot at the Cowiche Lookout location 4,300 feet. It was benchmarked in 1899.
Built in 1929, just a few miles away is Sedge Ridge Lookout. Notice how similar in shape the main cab is to the unknown lookout. This lookout was abandoned in 1961, the year the DNR tower went up on Pine Mountain (aka Cowiche Lookout).
Elevation 4,300 in Yakima County
Distance: x miles
Elevation Gain: x feet
Below: From the Lookout Network Vol. 26 No. 3
The quarterly publication of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, Inc.
In 1934, Metsker Maps shows the highpoint of Cowiche Mountain as the Cowiche L.O. In 1959 another Metsker map is still showing the same Cowiche L.O., this time with road access used today. So we have a map showing a lookout at Pine Mountain for 25 years before the DNR Pine Mountain Lookout was built in the exact spot.
Firelookout.com says of the Pine Mountain Lookout:
This 40 foot wooden DNR tower, built in 1961, is the only lookout structure ever on the site. Still standing in 2006, it was gone by 2012.
My gut says there was a Cowiche Lookout. What is ironic, is that nobody knows anything about the Cowiche Lookout and where it went. Similarly, nobody knows where the Pine Mountain Lookout went just a few years ago. The property owned by Pine Mountain LLC. (in 2015)
1934 Metsker Map showing Cowiche Lookout in section 25
1959 Metsker Map showing Cowiche Lookout in section 25
The 1960 Metsker Map shows Sedge Ridge L.O. but not the Cowiche Lookout (one year later the DNR put up a lookout at the Cowiche site and call it Pine Mountain L.O.)
Above: Most recent USGS map for Cowiche Mountain
Below: 1950 USGS map not showing Sedge Ridge or Cowiche Lookouts
At first I thought the unknown lookout was Sedge Ridge. I thought they just built a lower room around the tower posts. BUT, we have panoramics of Sedge Ridge from 1934 and there were no roads going to the lookout site.