Douglas hiking up the trail. The 5 miles and 2000ft elevation gain from the trailhead to Goat Flats is over-traveled, and in the early season the trail is synonymous with a stream.
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Saddle Lake, which is 2.5 miles from the trailhead.
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Doug at Goat Flats. It took us 2 hours to hike the 2000 ft and 5 miles between the trailhead and Goat Flats. Several people actually camp at Goat Flats and dayhike up to the lookout from here.
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The easy trail traverse to Tin Can Gap (saddle on the right). There seems to be some ambiguity in the Cascade Alpine Guide that suggests that the saddle that everyone refers to as Tin Can Gap is called Camp Saddle.
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The view of the three summits of Three Fingers from Camp Saddle (or Tin Can Gap). Depending on the conditions and time of year, the route from here to the lookout can involve some steep traversing of the upper Queest Alb Glacier or an easy hike on a trail to the summit. Usually September and October yield the easiest conditions, and from here it took us an easy 90 minutes to the lookout.
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We collected water about 300 ft below the lookout.
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The final climb up to the lookout is a short snowfield and an easy rocky trail to the ladders (at least under Sept. 2008 conditions).
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Three ladders to the summit.
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I found that Douglas's sunglasses were excellent reflectors and snatched them when he was talking to another guy who had hiked up for the day….
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We had fun traversing around the airy lookout and propping open the shutters with metal rods. The lookout was built in 1932-3, and is showing some wear, although it has held up quite well under the maintenance of the Everett Mountaineers.
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An old latch to batten down the windows.
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The lookout is tightly wired down to the mountain. I imagine this place has weathered some pretty severe winds and storms since it was built in 1932-3.
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There is some interesting reading in the lookout, including some old newspapers from the '30s. This ad boasts the amazing efficiency of what we finally figured out was a calculator. "To subtract, merely touch the subtract bar. It's just as simple and fast as touching the adding bar." Hmm…what about logarithms and square roots….
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Despite the nice textbook library (including books on Mathematics, College Physics, and Pharmaceutical Measurements), we were disappointed to find the library lacked a Thermodynamics textbook. This would have been useful to figure out how much longer we needed to cook some carrots due to the decrease in boiling temperature at altitude….
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Sunset over Puget Sound. From our perch, we could see Saturna Island (a beautiful non-mountain destination where I love to spend my time) and the rest of the San Juan and Gulf Island chains.
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Evening light in the lookout.
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A cozy candle-lit evening in the lookout, with the city lights towards Puget Sound far below. I spent the night hours taking photos of various permutations of candlelight, stars, moon glow, and city lights. Click here to open my page devoted to night photography.
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Moonlight in the lookout (20 minute exposure). Click here to open my page devoted to night photography.
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Orion. To me, seeing this constellation always means that fall must be approaching…. Click here to open my page devoted to night photography.
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Candlelight and star streaks (20 minute exposure). Click here to open my page devoted to night photography.
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Now a black-and-white photo of candlelight and star streaks (20 minute exposure). Click here to open my page devoted to night photography.
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Candlelight, star streaks, and city lights (20 minute exposure). Click here to open my page devoted to night photography.
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What a great place to wake up! That's Mt. Baker on the skyline.
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Morning in the lookout (taken just before Douglas noticed that I knew where his sunglasses had been all along….).
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