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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Hard Butte Lookout

Idaho County peak where a 1933 L-4 cab now stands as ruins; a 2.5-mile Forest Service trail (#508) still leads to the site.

Ruins: Only footings or remains are left. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as abandoned, with ruins; a climbing guide describes ruins on the summit

Visit & stay

Ruins: footings or remains only. There is no structure to climb or rent.

Access

Open to the public. Forest Service hiking trail #508 on Payette National Forest land; the trail page lists day hikes and backpacking

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
From the road end, follow Elk Lake Trail #347 2.7 miles west to the 2.5-mile Hard Butte Lookout Trail; the Forest Service says it can be difficult to locate

Facts

Status
Ruins
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab on the north point (about 1933); a camp with an alidade platform in 1917The design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.26053, −116.21000
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-hard-butte

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 EventCamp with an alidade platformSources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1917 and 1933
  3. 1933 BuiltL-4 cab on the north point; firelookout.com gives 1933 and Forest Lookouts gives c.1933Sources: idaholookouts.weebly.com, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1935 StaffedM. C. Lockwood left for the lookout station, per an Idaho Statesman item (August 1, 1935) quoted on Forest LookoutsSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. TodayRuinsOnly footings or remains are 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 (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Hard Butte is in Idaho County, in the Payette National Forest.1 It lies about 12 miles east-southeast of Riggins.2

The earliest date in these sources is 1917, when the site was a camp with an alidade platform.1 An L-4 cab went up on the north point around 1933.1,2,3 In August 1935 The Idaho Statesman reported, as quoted on one Idaho lookout site, that M. C. Lockwood had set out for the Hard Butte station.1

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists the site as abandoned, and both it and firelookout.com list the cab as ruins.2,3

The Forest Service trail page for the Hard Butte Lookout Trail, #508, was last updated March 10, 2026.4 It describes a 2.5-mile trail that reaches the lookout at about 8,660 feet.4 The north end of the trail branches off Elk Lake Trail #347, and the Forest Service says the trail can be difficult to locate.4 The directions run five miles northwest on Highway 55 to Goose Lake and Brundage Road, then four miles north past Hazard Campground to the end of the road.4 From there, follow Elk Lake Trail 2.7 miles west.4 The Forest Service lists the trail for day hikes and backpacking.4 A climbing guide also notes the remains of a fire lookout on the summit.5

  1. Hard Butte, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/hard-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Hard Butte Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/hardbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Hard Butte Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/hard-butte-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Payette National Forest: Hard Butte Lookout Trail #508, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/payette/recreation/trails/hard-butte-lookout-trail-508 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Hard Butte, IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/hard-butte/ (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: 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: 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
  5. 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.