It was my friend Hadi's 45th birthday, and he wanted to get out and do something in the mountains. Neither of us had been to the Three Fingers lookout and wanted to check it out. We were expecting snow and packed ice axes. The trail in to Goat flats is frequently covered with water, snow and some blow-down, and has lots of protruding roots. All that liquid provided fertile breeding grounds for deer flies, black flies and mosquitoes. Where the snow obscured the trail, we were able to follow old foot prints to stay on course. Past Goat flats, the south-side ridge traverse is partially snow-covered, but not too steep for ski poles. The one north side traverse just past TinCan gap was an ""ice-axe only"" route. All the snow was well consolidated. The hut was in great shape - and almost no bugs. I had heard about the ladders up to the hut - fun to climb! And they seem to be in good repair. The views were fabulous - great trip! Bring a filter if you're planning to do this in hot weather - Hadi and I drank about four liters each.

It was a beautiful September Day. We hiked from the trailhead with light packs , planning to spend the night in the Lookout. We made it quickly up to Goat Flats, where you can see the Lookout in the distance if you know where to look. As you climb of of Goat Flats, we sidehilled on good trail through the thickest Marmot villiage I've ever seen. Big. Fat. This is definitely high season for these guys. We reached Tin Can Gap - very cool. Everyone who sleeps down in the Flats should come this far. Great views of the glacier below, and the Lookout above. This is where you start to have to skirt the snow a little bit, and the trail gets to be more like class 2 climbing that just stright trail walking. We made the lookout - sure enought the ladders are secure, in great shape, and very, very airy. I can't believe they could build that Lookout. I've been to the Lookouts at Hidden Lake Peak and Park Butte - this one is the most ""perched"" of any. Great views north to the Pickets and Baker, as well as Glacier (very big), Stuart (way in the distance), and the Olympics. At night, the lights of Everett came up - very pretty. Bring candles. We slept in the Lookout - very nice. Its in very good condition. Bring water - there isn't much above the last snowfield (200 vertical feet below but you have to go up and down those ladders), last stream is probably 800 feet below - this is very late season. The resident rat worked hard to get into the shelter after dark - no luck. Great trip. In my top 5 trips for quality views, and only 5 hours in from the road. Long walk out, but good trail the whole trip. Enjoy. Spence and BillyDee.

Hiked to the lookout on a beautiful day. Quite hot and hazy though. Ice-ax not required, but I took a wrong turn right after Tin Pan Gap and ended up using mine in an interesting moat. Coming down, I couldn't tell how I lost the trail. Well, I was memorized Robert Service poetry so must have been drawn to the ice. I had the lookout to myself for lunch and couldn't stop exclaiming over the amazing little cabin. The ladders were fun, but the walk back was long, long, long!

Trail in excellent condition and no ice axe needed above Tin Can Gap.

I slept in and didn't get up to the trailhead until 11:30am (it's a long drive up road 41, about 18 miles of gravel).So it would have to be a speed ascent or nuttin. I booked itup to Tin Pan gap on a pretty dry trail, except forone or two places where the stream chooses togo down the trail (why do I have to go uphill, but the streamgets to go downhill') Soon after that I nearly bonked from the overexertion. Luckily thetrail is nearly snowfree to the tippy top, exceptfor a 200m snowfield just below the final rock climb.There were two other minor snowfields to cross, but no more than10m or so (we are reporting in metric today). Afterclimbing two solid ladders and one kinda/sorta dicey ladder, but seemed secure,I sat at the top, hoping a smidgen of energy would return. I shouldaate earlier, and ran out of water too. Oh well, it's not likeI haven't done that 100 times before! The way down wasquite slow due to numerous blueberry problems. Thosepesky blue fruits constantly impede progress, butI did my best to rid the area of them. Barely made a dent. Ice axe not totally necessary, you can get by without if the weather is warm enough to soften the final snowfield a bit (and it isn't all that exposed anyway).See ya on the trail!