Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho
Bear Pete Lookout
Also known as Bear Pete Mountain
Ground L-4 cabin lookout on Bear Pete Mountain, Payette NF, Idaho: cab c.1930, destroyed 1966. No staffing history or remains described.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1966; no source describes what remains.
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?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Idaho Fire Lookouts tags it as a hike-in site. A climbing guide says the summit is reached by trail. No source describes the cabin site today.
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Ground-level cabL-4The design: L-4
- Built of
- WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1930
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service (Payette National Forest)
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Idaho County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 45.27665, −115.97983
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-bear-pete
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 a typical height for a lookout like it.
Downloads about 3.7 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
- 1930 BuiltL-4 cab; firelookout.com says 1930+, Idaho Fire Lookouts says 1930, Forest Lookouts (Kresek) says c.1930Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1930 and 1950
- 1950 EventUniversity of Idaho photograph titled Bear Pete Lookout, dated September 12, 1950Sources: idahoaclimbingguide.com, lib.uidaho.edu
- No record between 1950 and 1966
- 1966 DestroyedDestroyed 1966 per all three lookout sites; no cause givenSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Bear Pete lookout was an L-4 cabin in the Payette National Forest, about 15 miles west of Warren.1,2 It carries the same name as Bear Pete Mountain, which rises to about 8,750 feet.3,4
A climbing guide says the mountain takes its name from Peter "Bear Pete" Brockenau, who earned the nickname from his many bear stories.4
The sources date the cab to around 1930.1,3,2 The lookout was destroyed in 1966.1,3,2
Most sources place the site in the Payette National Forest, but Idaho Fire Lookouts gives the Challis National Forest instead.1,3,2,4
A University of Idaho photograph titled Bear Pete Lookout is dated September 12, 1950.4,5
Idaho Fire Lookouts tags the site as a hike-in.3 The climbing guide says the summit is reached by trail.4
No source we read describes what, if anything, remains of the cabin today.1,3,2
- Bear Pete Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bearpete.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Bear Pete, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/bear-pete.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Bear Pete Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/bear-pete-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Bear Pete Mountain, IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/bear-pete-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Bear Pete Lookout, Archival Idaho Photograph Collection, University of Idaho Library, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/archivalidaho/items/archivalidaho242.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) Gave us: dates, photos, links idahofirelookouts.com · No licence stated; facts only (coordinates, status/built/destroyed year parsed from each entry's short excerpt). Thumbnail photos mirrored with credit per the project's photo policy. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: what it is built of, design, agency, ownership, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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
- Bear Pete Mountain (IDAHO: A Climbing Guide) (opens another site)
- Bear Pete Lookout (Archival Idaho Photograph Collection, University of Idaho Library) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Bear Pete on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Bear Pete Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Bear Pete Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.