Heybrook Lookout

Author's Comments

The trail does not announce itself. A small sign on Highway 2, a parking lot that fills on summer weekends but rarely overflows, and then you are climbing through second-growth hemlock and Douglas fir on a path that switchbacks more than the distance suggests. Less than three miles round trip. Eight hundred and fifty feet of gain. Most hikers in this corridor are headed somewhere more famous, and Heybrook lets them go. The reward is the tower itself. You climb the wooden stairs and the forest releases you, and there is Mount Index across the valley, the Skykomish bending below, Bridal Veil Falls visible as a thin white line on the far wall when the light is right. In late September I have stood on the catwalk at golden hour and watched the valley fill with shadow while the peak across from me held the last warm light for what felt like a long time. It is not a dramatic photograph in the way the North Cascades are dramatic. It is a quieter composition, a study in layers, the kind of view that asks you to slow down and notice how the ridges stack. If you can get one of the overnight reservations, take it. The lookout sleeps four and the bookings open months ahead. Sleeping up there means you have the blue hour and the stars and the morning fog rising out of the valley entirely to yourself, and that is a different experience than the day hike, though the day hike is enough. Bring the Northwest Forest Pass. Bring a wide lens and something longer for the falls. Come in spring when the snow is still on Index, or in fall when the alders along the river are turning.

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