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Fire lookout · Tulare County, California

Mitchell Peak Lookout Site

National Park Service fire lookout on Mitchell Peak, Kings Canyon NP, built 1962; tower pulled down in the 1970s per a 2006 column; a concrete slab dated 1962 remains on the summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower gone; the register gives removal date as unknown, and a 2006 column says it was pulled down in the 1970s. A concrete slab dated 1962 remains

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Peak is in Kings Canyon National Park; a 2006 column describes a stiff 3.2-mile hike to the top. No closure is described in the sources read, and the newest account is from 2006

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
A 2006 column describes a stiff 3.2-mile hike to the top; the trailhead and route are not given

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerAppears to be an R-6 Flat Top plan on a 10-foot steel K-Brace open towerThe design: R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1962
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
10,369 ft (3,161 m)
Agency
National Park Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Tulare County, California
Coordinates
36.73219, −118.71540
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-mitchell-peak

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.0 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1962 BuiltRegister: constructed 1962 as an R-6 Flat Top plan on a 10-foot steel K-Brace open tower (appears to be). Photos credited to the NPS show construction in 1962Source: firetower.org
  2. 1970 RemovedDecade only: the 2006 column says the tower was pulled down in the 1970s. The exact year is not known; the register gives removal date as unknownSources: firerescue1.com, firetower.org
  3. No record between 1970 and 2021
  4. 2021 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: October 3, 2021Source: FFLOS register entry
  5. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Mitchell Peak rises to 10,369 feet in Kings Canyon National Park, where a fire lookout was constructed in 1962.1 The National Park Service administered it.1 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register says the lookout appears to be an R-6 flat-top plan on a 10-foot steel open tower, but it does not know the site's earlier history.1

The register gives no removal date.1 A September 2006 Los Angeles Times column says the tower was pulled down in the 1970s, around the time airplanes and helicopters began replacing lonely fire lookouts.2

The only thing left of the tower is a concrete slab, set among boulders on the summit.2 The register also records a concrete slab dated 1962 at the site.1

The column describes a stiff 3.2-mile hike to the top, with a wide view of the central Sierra Nevada.2 It is the most recent account we found, so the route may not match conditions today.

  1. Mitchell Peak Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/mitchell-peak-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Visitors to California's renovated fire towers find simple solitude (Los Angeles Times, September 18, 2006), FireRescue1, https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/wildland-fire-products/articles/visitors-to-californias-renovated-fire-towers-find-simple-solitude-ETFw6P4vzJb7rFYo/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Mitchell Peak Lookout - Circa 1962
Mitchell Peak Lookout - Circa 1962 (1962)Photo: National Park Service, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Remaining slab
Remaining slabPhoto: www.peakbagging.com, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Under construction - 1962
Under construction - 1962 (1962)Photo: National Park Service, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Mitchell Peak Lookout Site
Photo: National Park Service, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Mitchell Peak Lookout Site
Photo: National Park Service, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, visiting details, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

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