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Fire lookout · Valley County, Idaho

Parks Peak Lookout

Valley County, ID summit lookout with an L-4 cab, built 1930 and destroyed 1952. A 1966 survey note mentions its foundation; no recent description found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1952. A 1966 survey note mentions an old lookout foundation; no recent description found.

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. Summit reached by a long hike on a trail described in a 2018 climbing guide; no closure found in the sources read

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Long trail hike from the East Fork South Fork Salmon River (climbing guide, updated July 2018); the 1966 survey route used Elk Summit Road and the West Fork of Elk Creek

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1930
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Payette National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Valley County, Idaho
Coordinates
45.03454, −115.51957
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-parks-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 3.9 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. 1930 BuiltL-4 cab on the summitSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idahoaclimbingguide.com
  2. No record between 1930 and 1952
  3. 1952 DestroyedDestroyedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idahoaclimbingguide.com
  4. 1966 EventCoast and Geodetic Survey station description says the summit marker is surrounded by the foundation of an old lookout houseSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 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.

Parks Peak is in Valley County, Idaho, on the Payette National Forest.1,2 The lookout on the summit had an L-4 cab and was built in 1930.1,3 It was destroyed in 1952.1,3,4

A 1966 survey description of the summit marker says it sits within the foundation of an old lookout house.5 The marker is a standard disk stamped PARKS 1959.5 The same description gives the old route, which starts on Elk Summit Road and runs to where trucks can no longer go. From there it follows the West Fork of Elk Creek about seven miles to a trail junction, then roughly five more miles to the high point.5 We found no later source that describes what remains on the summit today.

A climbing guide updated in July 2018 describes the approach as a lengthy walk up a trail beginning at the East Fork South Fork Salmon River. It notes that a recent hiker found the trail in good condition after some maintenance.4 The guide and the 1966 description name different ways in. Nothing we read suggests the summit is closed, so it appears to be open to hikers.

  1. Parks Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://www.firelookout.com/id/parkspeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Fire lookouts of Idaho list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Parks Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/parks-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Parks Peak, IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/parks-peak-2/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Parks Peak, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/parks-peak.html (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: dates, 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: 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.