FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Clearwater County, Idaho

Cook Mountain Lookout

Clearwater NF lookout: 15-ft tree platform 1917, 25-ft platform 1919, L-4 cab 1941, abandoned 1963; gone; no source describes the site now.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned 1963 and gone; no source gives a removal date or describes 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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cab15-foot tree platform (1917), 25-foot tree platform (1919), L-4 cab by 1941The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1917
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Clearwater County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.58599, −115.30331
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-cook-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

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

  1. 1917 Built15-foot tree platform; Ron Kemnow credits Paul Wohlen, citing The Clearwater StorySources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1919 AlteredPlatform listed at 25 feetSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  3. No record between 1919 and 1941
  4. 1941 AlteredL-4 cab listedSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  5. No record between 1941 and 1963
  6. 1963 AbandonedSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, fs.usda.gov
  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.

Cook Mountain, about 25 miles east-northeast of Pierce in Clearwater County, Idaho, began as a tree-top lookout in 1917.1 Ron Kemnow's listing credits Paul Wohlen with building it, citing a Clearwater National Forest history, and describes a platform set on two trees cut to about 15 feet.2

A 25-foot tree platform is listed for 1919, and an L-4 cab appears by 1941.3,1,4 The Forest Service's Clearwater list gives the lookout's elevation as 6,534 feet.4

Idaho Fire Lookouts, Rex Kamstra and the Forest Service list all give 1963 as the year the lookout was abandoned, and the Forest Service list calls it gone.3,1,4 Ron Kemnow's page says it was removed, without a date.2

The sources differ on what kind of lookout it was. The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list still classes Cook Mountain as a ground lookout, while the Forest Service list and the Idaho and Rex Kamstra pages describe tree platforms.5,4,3,1

No source describes what remains at the site today, or whether the ground is open to visitors. Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site "Hike-In," which describes how it is reached rather than whether it is open.3

  1. Cook Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/cookmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Cook Mountain, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/cook-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Cook Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/cook-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, list compiled by Margaret Sand, Walde Lookout and Cindy Schacher, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Idaho lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (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. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  5. 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

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