Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho
Cape Horn Peak Lookout
Crow's nest c.1930, then a 30-ft pole L-4 tower by 1935, destroyed in 1952; no source we read describes what remains today.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1952. No source we read 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?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Tagged as a hike-in site on idahofirelookouts.com; no trail description found.
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 30-ft pole towerThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1930
- Height
- 30 ft (9.1 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Bonner County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.99567, −116.52182 sources disagree
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-cape-horn-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 3.9 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 BuiltCrow's nest, dated c.1930 by two pagesSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1935 Built30-ft pole tower with L-4 cabSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- No record between 1935 and 1952
- 1952 DestroyedDestroyed; c.1952 on the Forest Lookouts pageSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahofirelookouts.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.
Cape Horn Peak lies in Bonner County, Idaho, about two miles northeast of Bayview.1 The lookout pages list it under the Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1 The peak's listed elevation is 4,519 feet.1
A crow's nest is recorded on the peak around 1930.1,2 By 1935 the site held a 30-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab.1,2,3
The tower was destroyed in 1952.1,2,3 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it as gone.4
No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the peak today, or whether visitors may go there. One lookout page tags the site as hike-in.3
- Cape Horn Peak Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/capehornpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Cape Horn Peak - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts, Idaho, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/cape-horn-peak1.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Cape Horn Peak Lookout - Idaho Fire Lookouts, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/cape-horn-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Where sources disagree
We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.
Sources disagree on the location by 1.9 km (1.2 mi).
- FFLA: 47.99567, −116.52182
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.99153, −116.49637
The map uses the position from FFLA.
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, 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: design, height, 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
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Cape Horn Peak on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Cape Horn Peak Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Cape Horn Peak 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.