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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

North Pole Lookout

Nez Perce National Forest cupola cabin on North Pole, built 1927 (D-6) and abandoned in 1950; a 2020 climbing guide says only the foundation remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1950 and destroyed at a later date; the 2020 climbing guide says only the foundation remains.

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 to the peak on a trail in the Gospel Hump Wilderness; the climbing guide says it is easily reached by trail. No closure appears in the sources read.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
About 2.5 miles and 1,225 ft of gain from Wildhorse Campground; trail not frequently maintained but in fair condition (2020 guide).

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabD-6The design: D-6
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1927
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Nez Perce National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.64711, −115.68417
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-north-pole

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 3.7 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. 1927 BuiltCupola cabin; D-6 design per Forest Lookouts (Kresek)Sources: firelookout.com, idahoaclimbingguide.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1927 and 1950
  3. 1950 AbandonedDecommissioned in 1950 per the climbing guideSources: firelookout.com, idahoaclimbingguide.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 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.

North Pole is a peak in the Gospel Hump Wilderness, about 17 miles southwest of Elk City, on the Nez Perce National Forest.1,2

A fire lookout went up on the peak in 1927.2 It was a cupola cabin, and one page files it under the D-6 design.1,3 It was abandoned in 1950.1,3,4 The climbing guide says it was taken out of service that year and destroyed later, but it gives no date for the destruction.2

According to the same guide, little beyond the foundation survives.2 A SummitPost write-up says the summit has no register, and that the only things on it are the leftovers of an earlier lookout and a heap of stones.5 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list marks the site as Gone.6

The climbing guide describes a hike of 2.5 miles from Wildhorse Campground, with 1,225 feet of elevation gain. The guide also calls the peak easy to reach on foot, though upkeep on the trail is light and it is still in fair shape.2

  1. North Pole Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/northpole.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. North Pole, Idaho Climbing Guide (book update, July 2020), https://idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/north-pole (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. North Pole, Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/north-pole.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. North Pole Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/north-pole-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. North Pole, SummitPost, https://summitpost.org/north-pole/155177 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. Idaho Lookouts (alphabetical list), Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

North Pole Lookout
North Pole LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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 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

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