Fire lookout · Boundary County, Idaho
Continental Mountain Lookout
Kaniksu NF 50-ft pole tower with L-4 cab, built about 1938 north of Upper Priest Lake; gone, removal date unknown; no source describes the site now.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower no longer there; no source gives a date for its removal or destruction
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
- Type
- Cab on a tower50-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe design: L-4
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1938
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Kaniksu National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Boundary County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 48.94536, −116.92742
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-continental-mountain
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 4.2 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
- 1938 BuiltIdaho Fire Lookouts gives 1938 for a 50' pole tower with L-4 cab; firelookout.com says built about 1938Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
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.
Continental Mountain, in Boundary County, Idaho, carried a fire lookout built about 1938. It was a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, on a peak about 10 miles north of Upper Priest Lake in the Kaniksu National Forest, at an elevation of 6,677 feet.1,2
The tower no longer stands.1,2 Idaho Fire Lookouts says no date for its removal or destruction has been recorded.1 Rex Kamstra's listing describes the tower as one that has since departed, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it as gone.2,3
No source describes what, if anything, is left on the peak today, and none says whether the site is open to visitors.1,2,4 Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site "Hike-In," which describes how it is reached rather than whether it is open.1 Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts page gives only the forest and the legal location, township 65 North, range 5 West, section 36.4 Check with the Kaniksu National Forest before planning a trip to the peak.
- Continental Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/continental-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Continental Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/continentalmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Continental Mountain, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/continental-mountain.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: 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: 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, height, 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)
- Continental Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Continental Mountain Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Continental 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.