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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Pond Peak Lookout

Fire camp in 1929, gabled L-4 cab built in 1932 on rock foundations, destroyed in 1960; rock foundations and debris still visible on a 4-mile hike.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1960; rock foundations and debris remain at the site

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-in on the Peak to Peak trail; the sources describe no closure

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
About a 4-mile hike on the Peak to Peak trail; the Idaho Fire Lookouts post suggests starting from the south

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabGabled L-4 cab on rock foundationsThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Coeur d'Alene National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.84896, −116.05146
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-pond-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 4.0 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. 1929 EventSite of a fire fighters' camp before the cab was builtSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1931 StaffedWalt Lafon listed as known staff; the listing gives 1931, before the 1932 build date on the same pageSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1932 BuiltGabled L-4 cab built on rock foundationsSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. No record between 1932 and 1960
  5. 1960 DestroyedDestroyed; the sources give no causeSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  6. 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.

Pond Peak, in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest in Shoshone County, Idaho, was a fire fighters' camp in 1929.1,2,3 A gabled L-4 cab went up on rock foundations in 1932.1,2

Idaho Fire Lookouts lists Walt Lafon as a staffer in 1931.2 That year falls a year before the cab's listed build date, and nothing in the sources explains the gap, so the 1931 date should be read with care.

The cab was destroyed in 1960, according to firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts.1,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the site as ground and gone.3

Some traces remain. An Idaho Fire Lookouts post says the spot where the cab stood on rock foundations is easy to make out, and that a good deal of debris is strewn about the site.2 The authors guess that the white-painted stones laid out nearby were meant to signal passing aircraft.2 A July 2023 Idaho Fire Lookouts listing reports that a large share of the remains is still on site.4

The hike in is about 4 miles along the Peak to Peak trail.2 The post recommends starting from the south, which it calls the prettier route.2

  1. Pond Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/pondpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Pond Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/cda-region/pond-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/category/cda-region/page/5/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Pond Peak Lookout
Pond Peak 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: dates, 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. 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.