FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Grave Peak Lookout

D-6 cupola lookout in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness built 1924, where Norman Maclean once staffed, abandoned in 1967 and kept standing by volunteer restoration.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Remote wilderness hike via Friday Pass; not drive-up, not rentable.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Reached by a demanding hike from Friday Pass into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
Staffing
Staffed by volunteers

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Ground-level cabD-6 cupola, 12x12 ft groundhouseThe design: D-6
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1924
Height
Unknown
Elevation
8,062 ft (2,457 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.39400, −114.72965
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-grave-peak

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1914 First staffedPeak first used for fire detection.Source: nhlr.org
  2. 1919 StaffedNorman Maclean staffed the lookout, later the basis for his novella about the job.Sources: nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1924 BuiltD-6 cupola groundhouse constructed (one source says 1923).Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1924 and 1967
  5. 1967 AbandonedLookout abandoned as an active fire detection post.Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  6. No record between 1967 and 1995
  7. 1995 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterAdded to the National Historic Lookout Register, November 24, 1995.Source: nhlr.org
  8. 1998 RestoredNew window shutters built and installed by a volunteer member in 1998.Source: firelookout.org
  9. No record between 1998 and 2019
  10. 2019 EventFFLA restoration grant of $500, matched by the North Idaho-Montana Chapter, used to buy cedar shingles for the roof replacement.Source: firelookout.org
  11. 2019 RestoredVolunteers, Forest Service staff, and Iowa high school students replaced the roof, main-level flooring, and door, hauling materials in by mule train and on foot.Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  12. 2020 RestoredSecond phase of restoration; the chapter paid for materials and supplied the original cupola window frames it had held for over 20 years.Source: firelookout.org
  13. 2021 AlteredLookout wrapped for fire protection during the 2021 fire season; a foundation corner stabilized.Source: idahofirelookouts.com
  14. 2024 RestoredChapter paid for restoration materials when the forest could not.Source: firelookout.org
  15. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Grave Peak rises to about 8,062 feet in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, on the Clearwater National Forest in northern Idaho, and people were watching for smoke from its summit as early as 1914.1 The cupola-style groundhouse that still stands there, a 12-by-12-foot D-6 cabin, was built in 1924 (one source gives 1923), making it one of only a handful of that design left in the region.1,2 A young Norman Maclean staffed the lookout in 1919, years before he became a writer, and the experience later became the basis for his novella "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky."1,3

Little is documented about who else staffed Grave Peak over the following decades. By the late 1960s fire detection had moved on from this kind of ground lookout, and Grave Peak was abandoned as an active post in 1967.3

The cabin did not disappear, though. It has been "adopted" informally over the years, with shutters closed over the windows between uses to protect it from weather and, more than once, wrapped in fire-resistant material during wildfire seasons, including in 2021.3 A more organized rescue came in 2019, when Forest Service staff, volunteers from the Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation, and a group of high school students from Iowa packed tools and materials up to Friday Pass by mule train and carried them the rest of the way on their backs to replace the roof, the main-level flooring, and the door. A corner of the foundation was also stabilized around 2021.3

Grave Peak was added to the National Historic Lookout Register in 1995.1 It is not staffed and not available as a rental, but the cabin still stands in the wilderness for hikers willing to make the demanding approach from Friday Pass.3

  1. Grave Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/grave-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Grave Peak Lookout, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/gravepk.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Grave Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/grave-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

East face of Grave Peak in August 2018
East face of Grave Peak in August 2018 (2018)Photo: Dave Eberle, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Grave Peak in 1971
Grave Peak in 1971 (1971)Photo: the Montana Memory Project and Gary Weber, via firelookout.com · source
Grave Peak in 1998
Grave Peak in 1998 (1998)Photo: the Montana Memory Project and Gary Weber, via firelookout.com · source

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

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, design, staffing, photos, 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  8. 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

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