Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho
Jasper Mountain
Kaniksu NF 50-ft pole L-6 tower, built about 1932 near Priest River, Idaho; destroyed in the 1960s; a 2022 trip report found no footings or other remains.
- Gone
- Restricted access
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the 1960s; a 2022 trip report found no footings, cable or trash pit at the site.
Visit & stay
Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.
Access
Restricted access
Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. The road was gated in a 2022 trip report; the visitor parked at the gate and walked in.
- Road to the top?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- No tower to climb. The 2022 trip report walked in along the road through a heavily logged area.
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a tower50-foot pole L-6 tower with ground log cabin living quartersThe design: L-6
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1932
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Kaniksu National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Bonner County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 48.33302, −116.88685
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-jasper-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 its recorded height.
Downloads about 4.2 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
- 1932 BuiltAbout 1932 (c.1932); a 50-foot pole tower with a ground log cabin for living quarters, and a 30-foot patrol platform about a mile northSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1936 EventAugust 20, 1936 Newport Miner item, as quoted on Rex's page: road of about 3.5 miles from Quartz Creek to the lookout, reported as built in two weeksSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Jasper Mountain was a fire lookout in the Kaniksu National Forest, about 12 miles north of Priest River in Bonner County, Idaho, at an elevation of 3,873 feet.1
Around 1932 a 50-foot pole tower went up on Jasper Mountain, with a log cabin at ground level for living quarters.1,2,3 The sources disagree on the design. Two of them give L-6, while Idaho Fire Lookouts gives L4.1,3,2 A 30-foot patrol platform stood about a mile north.1,3
In August 1936 a Newport Miner item, as quoted on Rex's Fire Lookout Page, reported about 3½ miles of road built from Quartz Creek up to the lookout in two weeks.3
The tower did not last. Both firelookout.com and Rex's page say it was destroyed in the 1960s.1,3 Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it as destroyed too.2 Rex's page also says it was removed, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Idaho list marks it as gone.3,4
The most recent account we found is a trip report dated July 6, 2022.2 The road had a gate across it, so the writer left the car there and walked in on foot.2 The writer described the area as heavily logged.2 The writer could still trace the road bed around the mound where the tower had been, but found no footings, cable or trash pit.2 The writer saw no sign of the tower itself.2 We found no account of the site after that visit, and none that says whether the gate is open to visitors now.
- Jasper Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/jaspermtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Jasper Mountain – Idaho Fire Lookouts, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/jasper-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Jasper Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/jasper-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Photos
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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
- 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
- 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: design, height, 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, height, 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
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Jasper Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Jasper Mountain on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Jasper Mountain 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.