January 2021

In the winter of 2021 a motorcycle injury kept me side-lined me from outdoor activites. I told my mom I wanted to see Three Fingers Lookout. I wanted to know what Washington’s most inaccessible lookout looked like in the winter. The remote perch it sits on hardly seemed real in the summer.

My mom has been flying a Piper J3 Cub for ten years. Her Vietnam vet husband, Jerry, is sort of the Willie Nelson of airplanes. He’s a big deal in the STOL (Short Landings and Takeoffs) community. Five years ago they bought a1953 Supercub from behind a barn in Texas and rebuilt it from the airframe up. They needed two airplanes so they could rebuild the 1947 J3 without being grounded during the repairs.

It was 38F at sea level in Skagit Valley on a bluebird day in January. So we bundled up and went for it. We had a loose plan to approach from the north and circle clockwise. I was blown away when we passed  between the lookout and the middle sister from below. The J3 is competition built to fly as slow as possible. We were barely doing 25 mph and I felt like we might drop from the sky at any second. 

She circled four times and then asked if I wanted to open the door. I hesitated to answer because I was scared shitless. I mumbled something incoherent on the intercom and she reached back to pop the latch. Both the window and the door fell open horizontally. It was breathtaking. My feet were swinging 2000 feet up.

From the east is a large snow snowfield to the lookout. She did her closest pass less than 50’ above it. I was nearly recovered from my initial terror and I leaned against the harness to get a shot. There’s no way to stop a heart from skipping a beat when the bottom drops out on the 1500’ shear vertical wall of rock and ice. It even slightly over-hangs the valley floor.

I could have done figure eights with her through the Three Fingers spires all day but she wanted to show me her other favorites in the North Cascades. We did a fly by of Granite Peak, Sahale, and Shuksan. Then did a pass of Mt. Baker before refueling at the airstrip in Concrete, Washington.

Last summer she got her private pilots license. She and the Supercub now both certified to fly at night. We’ll be going back for a sunset soon.