Dennie Ahl Lookout

Elevation: 2,004 feet
Elevation Gain: Drive-up
Distance: 2 miles
Access: Gravel & dirt road, best with higher clearance vehicle

Take Highway 101 north from Olympia to the Skokomish River FR 23 mainline. Follow paved FR 23 past the houses, then onto a gravel section, then back onto pavement. Follow until signs for Brown Creek Campground. Drop down to the camp crossing the Skokomish River and turning right. Once through the campground, FR 2340 climbs a hill to a forested plateau. Turn right at FR 200, follow to the top using map provided. Another route is possible from High Steel Bridge around the east side of Dennie Ahl.

In 1943, a 40-foot timber tower with L-4 cab was placed on top of Gibbons Ridge. Documents from 1942 suggest plans that this lookout house was removed from the Grisdale Hill Lookout site, a few miles south. It is not clear if this actually happened. Simpson Logging Company thought there would be a better view at the new location. During this same time, the Aircraft Warning Service was needing a observation post in this area. The AWS first called this site Dry Creek Lookout, but soon changed it to Gibbons once they learned the location had a name. Once a tower was built, Simpson Logging gave it the name Dennie Ahl, named after John "Dennie" Ahl, who scaled logs for the Forest Service along Hood Canal. In 1944 he suffered a fatal heart attack after he and his crew had just corralled a lightning fire. Years later, Olympic National Forest also named a new seed orchard after him near the base of the mountain. The lookout was occasionally visited by The Mountaineers trail trippers or mentioned in news articles but nothing too revealing about this specific site. One sad story was on article on October 27, 1952: "Elmer Hornby, about 30, of Tacoma, dropped dead at the Denny Ahl lookout in the Lake Cushman area of the Olympic Peninsula Sunday. Mason County Sheriff W.A. Potter, said Hornby had shot a deer and his two partners were packing it out for him. Hornby was stricken just as the party reached the steps leading to the lookout." The lookout was destroyed in 1971. Today, not much remains but square concrete slabs and some footings. The footings are pushed over the side into the trees to the west, near where the road comes into the summit area. Also, a trail drops down the east ridge to the old toilet.

A 1972 USGS party reported the tops broken off and the disks missing from the USGS monuments.

They always remove the lookout but retain the toilet.

Concrete slab on the summit

On a name corrections document, Gibbons was given as a new name for Dry Creek Lookout. The Dennie Ahl name would come a bit later. Also, Camp 3 was another name for Grisdale Hill.

Garage and living quarters

Camp 3 lookout in section 27 is Grisdale Hill. Dennie Ahl is in section 11.

Evaluation of the site before building the lookout tower

1944 aerial photo showing the site

Dennie Ahl Lookout on July 7, 1952

Dennie Ahl Lookout in 1952