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Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Delyle Ridge Lookout

Kaniksu National Forest L-4 ground cabin built 1934-35, abandoned in the 1950s, collapsed 2007-08; a visitor source says a visit can turn up scattered remnants.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Collapsed under heavy snow in the winter of 2007-08 or in 2008, after more than 50 years of abandonment

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; no cited source mentions a closure

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Hike-in; Idaho Fire Lookouts calls the trail beautiful and very gentle

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 ground cabinThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1935
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.06299, −116.13079 sources disagree
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-delyle-ridge

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 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. 1935 BuiltL-4 cabin built; Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1934Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1935 StaffedLookout scout Paul Schravondyk named in an August 1935 Northern Idaho News item quoted by Forest Lookouts; that item names the station DeLisle peakSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1950
  4. 1950 AbandonedAbandoned in the 1950s (sources give no exact year; 1950 is the start of the decade)Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1950 and 1976
  6. 1976 RemovedSold in 1976 when the Sandpoint ranger cleared the district's lookouts; door, windows and shutters removed, per Gary WeberSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  7. No record between 1976 and 2008
  8. 2008 DestroyedCollapsed under heavy winter snow; sources date it to the winter of 2007-08 or to 2008Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  9. 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.

Delyle Ridge Lookout was a ground cabin in the Kaniksu National Forest, about five miles south-southeast of Clark Fork in Bonner County, Idaho.1,2 From the site's cliff, visitors look out over the Clark Fork and the Cabinet Mountains.3

The cabin was an L-4 design. Fire Lookout and Forest Lookouts date it to 1935, while Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1934, so the build year is not settled.1,3,2

Forest Lookouts quotes an August 23, 1935 Northern Idaho News item on this lookout's page.2 It names a lookout scout, Paul Schravondyk, at the "DeLisle peak ranger station."2 The station's name differs from the lookout's, so the link rests on that page.

The cabin was abandoned in the 1950s.1,3,2 In 1976 the ranger at Sandpoint sold it while clearing the district's lookouts, and only the door, windows and shutters were removed, according to Gary Weber, who first visited in 1970.3 Fire Lookout says the cabin was at one point used as a site for hacking falcons, and Weber describes a box built on one side for that purpose.1,3

The Western Region's 2008 annual report says the cabin collapsed after more than 50 years of abandonment.4 Fire Lookout dates the collapse to 2008, under heavy winter snow, while Weber and Forest Lookouts date it to the winter of 2007–08.1,3,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts describes the site as a hike-in, calling the trail beautiful and gentle, and says a visit can turn up remnants of the past scattered around the site.3 None of the cited sources describes in detail what stands there today, and none mentions a closure.1,3,2,4

  1. Delyle Ridge Fire Lookout Cabin, Fire Lookout, https://www.firelookout.com/id/delyle.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Delyle Ridge, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/delyle-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Delyle Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/delyle-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Western Region Annual Report 2008, Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/cr-wdep-2008.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Delyle Ridge Lookout
Delyle Ridge LookoutPhoto: 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 2.1 km (1.3 mi).

    • FFLA: 48.06299, −116.13079
    • Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com): 48.05326, −116.14851
    • FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites): 48.04810, −116.14890

    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 Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) 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
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.