Three Fingers: The Mountain, A Lookout, and Its Lookouts Paperback – March 27, 2026

The new edition of a mountaineering classic Three Fingers: The Mountain, The Men, and A Lookout.In this book, Malcolm S. Bates tells the story of an unlikely intersection of impossible topography and human will: the construction and preservation of a tiny Forest Service lookout cabin set precariously a century ago atop a jagged peak in Washington State’s Cascade Range.Bates blends the voices of the Depression-era builders and summer lookouts with stories told by family, friends, Forest Service workers, backcountry hikers, and rock climbers, all against the backdrop of native, pioneer, and geological history—and in this updated and expanded edition, more recent efforts to protect the cabin and the wilderness for future generations. The author guides us gracefully through this multilayered history, those wonderful voices, with his own presence sympathetic and engaged, his personal investment in each story prompting our own. The compelling stories he tells of his treks to the lookout add even more humility and humor—his first visit to the cabin might serve as a catalog of what not to do when venturing into these stormy and precipitous mountains. His stories reveal the attention to detail and meaning we find in the best writing.The book engages us with stories centered around this rugged corner of the Cascades, and speaks deeply to what draws us to special places, reminding not only of the beauty and solace of the natural world, but of those individuals whose lives, present and long past, continue to inform our connection with the earth, and with each other.Like the lookout whose history it explores so lovingly, this is a book that honors the past by preserving the voices of those who lived it. Yet, this book is far from an elegy. It’s an ode, an exuberant celebration of the individuals who come alive in these pages, and of the continuing promise of the Three Fingers lookout.—JOHN HALES, author of Shooting Polaris Read more