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Fire lookout · Riverside County, California

Tahquitz Peak Lookout

1937 enclosed timber lookout in the San Jacinto Wilderness, volunteer-staffed since 1998; the Forest Service and Mountains Foundation pages showed it closed when read.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. When read, the Forest Service page showed a temporary-closure notice and a closed-for-the-season banner, and the Mountains Foundation said it was currently closed. Neither copy showed a date. The record listed the site as public; check before going.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
4.5-mile hike by the Devil's Slide or South Ridge trail; wilderness permits from the Idyllwild Ranger Station.
Staffing
Staffed by volunteers (as of undated (NHLR register))

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Enclosed tower20-ft enclosed timber tower with a 14 x 14 ft R5 wooden cabThe design: Plan 4-A
Built of
Wood
Built
1937
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
8,752 ft (2,668 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Riverside County, California
Coordinates
33.75516, −116.67679
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ca-tahquitz-peak

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 3.3 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. 1917 EventOriginal California Region 5 Plan 4A cabin built at a lower site, later moved to the summit and replaced by the current lookoutSource: nhlr.org
  2. No record between 1917 and 1937
  3. 1937 BuiltPresent lookout, per the registerSource: nhlr.org
  4. No record between 1937 and 1993
  5. 1993 Last staffedWorking fire lookout until the end of the 1993 fire seasonSource: mountainsfoundation.org
  6. 1998 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered October 1, 1998Source: nhlr.org
  7. 1998 RestoredRestored in 1998 and returned to service in OctoberSources: nhlr.org, mountainsfoundation.org
  8. 1998 StaffedReopened in October 1998 with volunteer staffingSource: mountainsfoundation.org
  9. No record between 1998 and 2017
  10. 2017 Condition assessmentOctober 2017 register visit: stairs need repair; rotten wood on the supports; paint peelingSource: nhlr.org
  11. 2017 RestoredRotten wood replaced on Tahquitz Peak and Keller Peak, per the 2017 chapter reportSource: firelookout.org
  12. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Tahquitz Peak Lookout sits within the San Jacinto Wilderness on the San Jacinto Ranger District of the San Bernardino National Forest.1,2 The register dates the present lookout to 1937.1 An earlier California Region 5 Plan 4A cabin came first. The register says it was built at a lower spot on the mountain in 1917, later moved to the top, and then replaced by the current lookout.1 The current tower stands 20 feet high, enclosed in timber, with a wooden cab that is 14 feet by 14 feet.1 The Mountains Foundation says crews did all the building by hand, since power tools are banned in the wilderness.3

Newspapers from the early years give a few glimpses of the station. A January 1921 report tells how the lookout was incapacitated that fall, and the district ranger's wife, Mrs. Reindorp, held the post for more than a week.4 A 1938 report says the station was run cooperatively by the national forest and Riverside County.4

The Mountains Foundation says the lookout was a working fire lookout until the end of the 1993 fire season.3 Both the Forest Service and the Mountains Foundation say it is the forest's longest-running station, with about 77 years of service.2,3 None of the sources explains how they reached that count, and the current lookout dates only to 1937.1

The lookout was restored in 1998, returned to service that October, and reopened with volunteer staffing.1,3 The register describes it as staffed seven days a week by volunteers.1 An October 2017 visit recorded in the register found that the stairs needed repair and that there was rotten wood on the supports and peeling paint.1 A Forest Fire Lookout Association report from the same year said rotten wood had been replaced on Tahquitz Peak and at Keller Peak, and that young helpers hiked wood up to the lookout.5 The report also lists replacing the steps up to the lookout as a task still to do.5

When I read it, the Forest Service page for the lookout showed a temporary-closure notice and a closed-for-the-season banner.2 The Mountains Foundation also said the lookout was currently closed.3 Neither copy I read showed a date, so check the current status before you plan a trip. The hike is 4.5 miles via either Devil's Slide or the South Ridge trail. Both need a wilderness permit, available at the Idyllwild Ranger Station.2 The Forest Service gives the peak's elevation as 8,846 feet, the Mountains Foundation gives 8,828 feet, and the register lists 8,752 feet.2,3,1

  1. Tahquitz Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, nhlr.org, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ca/tahquitz-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. Tahquitz Peak Fire Lookout, USDA Forest Service, San Bernardino National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r05/sanbernardino/recreation/tahquitz-peak-fire-lookout (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Fire lookouts (seven lookouts), Southern California Mountains Foundation, https://mountainsfoundation.org/programs/fire-lookouts/fl-seven-lookouts/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Tahquitz Peak, Forest Lookouts (californialookouts.weebly.com), quoting newspapers from 1921 and 1938, https://californialookouts.weebly.com/tahquitz-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. San Bernardino chapter report, 2017, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-ca-s-sbnf-2017.pdf (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Tahquitz Peak Lookout
Tahquitz Peak LookoutPhoto: Brad Eells, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Sunset at Tahquitz Peak
Sunset at Tahquitz PeakPhoto: Brad Eells, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Tahquitz Peak Lookout
Photo: Brad Eells, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Osborne Fire-Finder
Osborne Fire-FinderPhoto: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
California Plan 4A Cabin - 1917
California Plan 4A Cabin - 1917 (1917)Photo: Cleveland National Forest Archive, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Under Construction - 1917
Under Construction - 1917 (1917)Photo: Cleveland National Forest Archive, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.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. Recreation Information Database (recreation.gov) Gave us: ownership, access Data source: ridb.recreation.gov · Public data from the US government · retrieved 19 Oct 2026
  4. Southern California Mountains Foundation Gave us: dates, links Southern California Mountains Foundation (mountainsfoundation.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, what happened). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the foundation's page it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height 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
  7. FFLA chapters, affiliates and Friends groups: lookout pages Gave us: register numbers, links FFLA chapters and Friends groups (each link names the group) · Links to the groups' own pages; facts only from the California-South chapter's tower table (register page, operator, condition). No text or photos reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  8. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, agency, access, staffing, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.