Three Fingers Lookout Survey

On the summit

Nov 11, 2026

12pm – 10pm, 15 miles hiking, 16 miles biking

Eric Gilbertson

Results: Summit is 6858.3ft +/-0.1ft NAVD88

There’s been some debate among peakbaggers of which peak is taller between Three Fingers and Whitehorse, both in WA. This is significant because they are close enough to each other that that taller of the two is one of the top 100 most prominent peaks in the contiguous US and the shorter is not. They’ve both had LiDAR measurements take of them, but there was some uncertainty if the LiDAR data on Three Fingers picked up the Lookout tower on top or natural rock.

The route

Three Fingers is a sharp rock spire that had the top blasted off in the 1930s to make room for a small lookout tower. So it’s not quite as tall as it used to be. It’s hard to know what the old height was, so the best I could do was measure the current height. There are three main routes up the summit. The first is to bike/hike up an abandoned road for 8 miles, then hike 7.5 miles to the summit. The second is to hike/bike up the road for 2 miles, then take an alternate trail to the summit. The final option is to take a direct steep bushwhack/scramble route from the trailhead.

Approaching the lookout

I was excited to involve my bike, so I decided on the full biking option. I got a late start Wednesday and started up the trailhead at noon. I made fast progress biking up the old road in a little over an hour, then hiked up the trail. I hit patchy snow around 5000ft, which got deeper past Tin Can Gap when I crossed onto the north face above the Queest-Alb Glacier. I put crampons on after that and kicked steps up. Just around sunset at 5pm I did some tricky icy scrambling to get to the ladders, then climbed the ladders up to the lookout.

The lookout from a distance

The lookout doors were all closed and the windows shuttered, and I assumed it was locked up for the winter. The highpoint was behind the lookout, and I started to try to climb around, but it was tricky with the ice and snow. Then I tried the door and it was unlocked! So I passed through the inside and out the back door, then mounted the Trimble DA2 on the highest rock out back. I then hung out for an hour inside away from the cold wind. That would have been an excellent place to spend the night, if I had known it was unlocked.

After an hour I packed up and headed down. I carefully scrambled through the icy section then hiked and jogged back to the trailhead. I then blasted down the road on my bike back to the trailhead by 10pm.

I processed the results and found the summit is 6858.3ft +/-0.1ft NAVD88. I still need to survey Whitehorse now to see which peak is taller.