Name: Three Fingers Fire Lookout: The Mountain, A Lookout, and Its Lookouts
Start: 2026-05-26T19:30:00-07:00
Location: Backcountry Essentials 1417 N. State St Bellingham, WA

Three Fingers Fire Lookout: The Mountain, A Lookout, and Its Lookouts

Please join us for our final Speaker event of the season! Malcolm (Mac) Bates's will be sharing from his recently updated book on the unique history of the Three Fingers Lookout. You can expect an engaging evening of photos, videos, and Mac's delightful storytelling all about this fascinating place!
Malcolm S. Bates was introduced to the Cascade Mountains by his father over seventy years ago, and in the company of his father, siblings, and friends, he has returned year after year, climbing to lonely summits, camping next to alpine lakes, and resting in verdant meadows. The mountains have informed not only his writing but his teaching as well. Bates taught in the public schools for forty-six years, and as an English teacher probably relied a bit too heavily on mountains as metaphors.
A lifelong friend of Three Fingers, Malcolm Bates has visited the lookout cabin well over twenty times, and hopes to visit at least one more time before his legs give out. Besides Three Fingers, Bates has written Cascade Voices, Conversations with Washington Mountaineers, and First Street Stories, A Mid-Century Snohomish Childhood.