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Fire lookout · Kootenai County, Idaho

Chilco Mountain (North)

Also known as Chilco North

Kootenai County summit: a 1931 camp, then a 40-foot L-4 tower dated 1939 (1948 in one 1996 guide), down by 1960; footings remain.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The tower is gone. Concrete footings, steps and debris remain on the summit.

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. Hike-in on Forest Service land by the Chilco Mountain National Recreation Trail.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
About 1.7 miles on the Chilco Mountain National Recreation Trail to the bald summit; class 1 route.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 40-foot pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1939
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Kootenai County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.89165, −116.52990 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-chilco-mountain-north

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 4.1 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. 1931 EventA camp was set up on the summit; the sources give no further detailSources: firelookout.com, idahoaclimbingguide.com
  2. 1939 Built40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab; most sources give 1939Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com, idahoaclimbingguide.com
  3. 1940 EventUSGS party note that a lookout tower had been built on the peak; station benchmark under the stepsSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1948 EventOnly the 1996 Spokesman-Review guide gives 1948 for the North Chilco cabin and 40-foot tower; disputed against 1939Source: spokesman.com
  5. 1959 RemovedRuins by 1959 per firelookout.com; climbing guide says the tower came down before 1959Sources: firelookout.com, idahoaclimbingguide.com
  6. 1960 DestroyedUSGS party referenced the legs of the lookout tower and noted it had been destroyedSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 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.

A camp went up on the north summit of Chilco Mountain in 1931.1,2 A 40-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab followed in 1939, according to most sources.1,3,2 The 1996 Spokesman-Review hike guide instead gives 1948 for a North Chilco cabin and tower, and says the tower was dismantled in the late 1950s.4

A 1940 note from a USGS party says a lookout tower already stood on the peak, with the station benchmark under its steps.5 The firelookout.com page lists the site as ruins by 1959.1 A 1960 USGS party noted the legs of the tower and recorded that it had been destroyed.5 The climbing guide says the tower came down before 1959.2

The Idaho Fire Lookouts site describes what it found on a recent visit: four concrete footings, a set of concrete steps, a stabilizer footing, what may be the ruins of a cabin, a stovepipe, and a good deal of wire and cable.5 The climbing guide reports sparse debris on the summit.2 Visitors reach it on foot by the Chilco Mountain National Recreation Trail, a class 1 route that climbs 1.7 miles to the bald summit.2 The site is in Coeur d'Alene National Forest.1

  1. Chilco North Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/chilconorth.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Chilco Mountain (North Chilco Mountain), IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/chilco-mountain-aka-n-chilco-mountain (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Chilco North, Forest Lookouts (idaholookouts.weebly.com), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/chilco-north.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. South Chilco Mountain Dayhike, The Spokesman-Review, 1996, https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1996/aug/11/south-chilco-mountain-dayhike/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Chilco Mountain Lookout – North, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/north-chilco-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Chilco Mountain Lookout – North
Chilco Mountain Lookout – NorthPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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 2.8 km (1.8 mi).

    • FFLA: 47.89165, −116.52990
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 47.91717, −116.53062

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

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. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  5. 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

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