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Fire lookout · Idaho County, Idaho

Savage Ridge Lookout

Nez Perce L-5 log cabin on a summit near Powell, Idaho: built 1929, destroyed 1972; a 2018 radio report describes scattered debris and a hike in.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1972; a 2018 summit report describes scattered metal, glass and wire

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. A trail to the summit, per a 2018 report; the report describes trailhead parking. Its map lists the Powell Ranger District, Clearwater National Forest

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
About five miles round trip with good trailhead parking and no water on the trail (2018 report)

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabNez Perce L-5 log cabinThe design: L-5
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Clearwater National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Idaho County, Idaho
Coordinates
46.45719, −114.58843
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-savage-ridge

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 3.5 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 BuiltNez Perce L-5 log cabin; a September 1928 newspaper item already lists Savage Ridge among new structuresSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1929 and 1972
  3. 1972 DestroyedDestroyed in 1972Sources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, fs.usda.gov
  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.

Savage Ridge Lookout was a Nez Perce L-5 log cabin on a summit about seven miles southeast of Powell, in Idaho County.1,2,3,4

Two histories date the cabin to 1929.1,2 A newspaper item from September 1928, quoted on Forest Lookouts, already lists Savage Ridge among new structures on the Lolo forest.5 That is a year earlier than the 1929 date the other histories give.1,2 The summit stands at 6,919 feet.2

The histories disagree on the forest. Firelookout.com and the Forest Service's Clearwater list put the lookout in the Clearwater National Forest, while Idaho Fire Lookouts names the Nez Perce National Forest.1,2,6

The cabin was destroyed in 1972.1,2,6,3

A 2018 report from an amateur radio summit activation is the only source I read that describes what was left at the site.3 It found rusty scraps of metal, glass fragments and wire lying about, which it treats as what remains of the old lookout.3 The same report says the survey monument on the summit appears to have been partly pried, and part of it is missing.3

The report describes a trail of about five miles round trip, with good parking at the trailhead. It notes there is no water on the way.3

  1. Savage Ridge Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/savageridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Savage Ridge Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/selway-region/savage-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho - Savage Ridge 24August2018, PNW-SOTA, https://www.pnwsota.org/activation-reports/k7vk/2025-10-01/idaho-savage-ridge-24august2018 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Savage Ridge, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/savage-ridge.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. Clearwater National Forest Lookouts, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/media/259185 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Savage Ridge Lookout
Savage Ridge 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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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