Fire lookout · Shoshone/ Sanders(MT) County, Idaho
Eighty Peak
Idaho-Montana border summit: stone shelter from 1920, cupola cabin in 1928, gone by 1955; the summit now holds an electronics site.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Cupola cabin gone by 1955; the summit now holds an electronics site with very few remnants of the past.
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?
- Yes, you can drive up
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Ground-level cabCupola cabin (1928), which replaced a 1920 stone shelterThe design: Cupola house
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1920
- Height
- Unknown
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Coeur d'Alene/Kootenai National Forests
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Shoshone/ Sanders(MT) County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 47.88844, −115.94797
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-eighty-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.
Downloads about 3.8 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
- 1920 BuiltStone shelterSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1928 Replaced by a new structureCupola cabin replaced the stone shelterSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1928 and 1955
- 1955 RemovedGone by 1955Sources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.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.
Eighty Peak stands on the Idaho-Montana border at 6,480 feet, about 14 miles east-northeast of Magee.1 A stone shelter dated to 1920 was replaced by a cupola cabin in 1928.1,2
In October 1931 a Sanders County newspaper item said the road along the Idaho-Montana divide was being built toward the peak and would reach it that fall, weather permitting.3 The cabin was gone by 1955.1,2
Sources differ on the forest. The Shoshone County list gives the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, firelookout.com gives both the Coeur d'Alene and Kootenai National Forests, and the Montana list gives the Kootenai National Forest.2,1,3
In late September 2024 the Idaho Fire Lookouts team reached the top after two earlier tries.4 One try from the north was blocked by downed trees, and another from the south was stopped by snow on narrow cliffside roads.4 The summit now holds an electronics site, and few traces of the earlier history remain.4
The Idaho post labels the site drive-up.4 No source says whether the public may enter the electronics site.4
- Eighty Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/eightypeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Shoshone County, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Eighty Peak, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/eighty-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Eighty Peak, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/eighty-peak/ (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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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, status, agency, staffing, 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
- Shoshone County - Forest Lookouts (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- FFLA Montana lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Eighty Peak on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Eighty Peak on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Eighty 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.