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Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Bald Mountain

Clearwater Timber Protective Association lookout; a 50-foot L-4 cab tower by 1933. Sites say destroyed in 1972; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Two sites say it was destroyed in 1972; a third lists it as removed, with no date. No source describes the site today.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 50-foot pole tower (by 1933)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1914
Height
50 ft (15.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater Timber Protective Association
Land
Unknown
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.57538, −115.89943
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-bald-mountain-4

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 3.5 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. 1914 BuiltLog cabin with a crow's nest, per two sitesSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1915 EventAssociation annual report (9th) lists a Bald Mountain Lookout CabinSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1923 AlteredPole observation tower with a log cabinSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com
  4. 1933 Altered50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cabSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  5. No record between 1933 and 1960
  6. 1960 AlteredRepairs completed, per the association's 1959-60 annual reportSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1972 DestroyedDestroyed in 1972 per two sites; a third lists it as removed, with no dateSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  8. No record between 1972 and 2005
  9. 2005 RestoredTower retrofitted to meet safety and engineering concerns after being closed about three years earlier; intended to return to the rental program.Source: firelookout.org
  10. 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 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

The Bald Mountain lookout in Clearwater County was run by the Clearwater Timber Protective Association.1,2

The sources disagree on the earliest date. Two sites date a log cabin with a crow's nest to 1914,2,3 while a line in the association's 1915 annual report already lists a Bald Mountain Lookout Cabin.1

By 1923 the site had a pole observation tower with a log cabin. In 1933 it had a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,2,3

The association's report for 1959 and 1960 says repairs to the lookout were completed in 1960.1

The fate is unclear. Two sites say the tower was destroyed in 1972,2,3 while a third lists it with no date, as removed.1

A 2005 chapter report about Clearwater National Forest towers mentions a Bald Mountain back in the rental program, but it does not describe this site.4

No source I read describes what, if anything, remains at the site today.1,2,3 One site labels the tower "Drive-Up", but no source says whether the public can reach it.3

  1. Bald Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/bald-mountain3.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Bald Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/baldmtn267a.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Bald Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/bald-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Northern Idaho/Montana Chapter Annual Report 2005, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-im-2005.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  3. 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, height, agency, 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, 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.