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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Stranger Mountain Lookout (from Washington, now at Crystal Ridge)

Also known as Crystal Ridge, Crystal Peak Relocated Lookout

A DNR cab from Stranger Mountain, WA, moved to private land near Fernwood, Idaho and rented since 2018; sources disagree on the move year and tower type.

Permission required

You need permission from the tribe or landowner before visiting. Privately owned. Stays are booked through an Airbnb listing. Idaho Fire Lookouts warns visitors not to trespass to view the tower.

Original site: Stranger Mountain Lookout

Visit & stay

You can rent this lookout for overnight stays through Airbnb.

Managed by
private owner

Book on Airbnb

This rental is listed by the Forest Fire Lookout Association’s rentals list, checked 19 Oct 2026; the association does not run rentals. Rules, fees and seasons change, so confirm on the booking page before you go.

Access

Permission required. See the warning at the top of this page.

Can you climb it?
Yes
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Booked guests only, on private land. A 4WD vehicle is needed; in winter, access is by snowmobile or a ride with the owner.
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerDNR live-in cab on a tower; Idaho Fire Lookouts gives a 20-foot iron tower, while the Washington register gives a 40-foot wooden tower for the 1959 cab
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1959
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Privately owned (Idaho); the cab originally belonged to the Washington Department of Natural Resources
Land
Private land
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.14009, −116.32921
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 19 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-stranger-mountain-at-crystal-ridge

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 4.3 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. 1959 BuiltDNR live-in cab on a 40-foot wooden tower at Stranger Mountain near Chewelah, WA, per NHLR (which also gives the earlier name Stensgar Mountain); the Airbnb listing and Small Home Tours say the 1959 lookout that later went to Idaho was built on Stranger PeakSources: airbnb.com, nhlr.org, smallhometours.com
  2. No record between 1959 and 1983
  3. 1983 MovedMoved to private land in northern Idaho and used as a hunting lodge. Idaho Fire Lookouts gives 1982.Sources: airbnb.com, smallhometours.com, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1983 Replaced by a new structureAt Stranger Mountain, the 1959 cab was replaced by a newer DNR cab on a 42-foot wooden tower, per NHLRSource: nhlr.org
  5. No record between 1983 and 2018
  6. 2018 Opened as a rentalListed as an Airbnb rentalSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 2018 RestoredCompletely remodeled in 2018Source: airbnb.com
  8. Date unknown MovedMoved from Stranger Mountain, Washington to Crystal Ridge.Source: FFLA
  9. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Crystal Ridge is a privately owned lookout above the small town of Fernwood, in Shoshone County, Idaho.1,2,3 Its cab came from Washington.1 The site near Chewelah goes by Stranger Mountain now, though the register says it was once Stensgar Mountain. It was first used for fire detection in 1930, and the register counts at least four structures there.4 A DNR live-in cab on a 40-foot wooden tower went up in 1959, and the register says a newer cab on a 42-foot tower replaced it in 1983.4 The Airbnb listing says the lookout was built in 1959 and originally stood on Stranger Peak.5

The move date is also disputed. The Airbnb listing and Small Home Tours give 1983 for the move to private land in northern Idaho, where the cab was used as a hunting lodge.5,2 The Idaho Fire Lookouts page gives 1982.1 That page also describes a 20-foot iron tower with a DNR cab, which does not match the register's 40-foot wooden tower.1,4 The same page is titled Crystal Ridge, but its rental link goes to a listing called Crystal Peak Lookout.1,5 Firelookout.org lists a standing Crystal Ridge tower, along with a separate Crystal Peak tower marked gone.3

None of the sources says when this cab last watched for fires, or whether it spotted any notable blaze. The register's account of the 2008 move, in which a Stranger Mountain cab was lifted off its tower and set down at the Colville fairgrounds in Washington, describes a 40-foot tower. That does not match its own 42-foot figure for the 1983 tower, so this story does not try to decide which cab is which.4

According to a Small Home Tours profile, the cab had been empty for 25 years before its current owner bought it.2 The lookout was completely remodeled in 2018 and has been a rental since, first on Airbnb.5,1

Guests stay through the Airbnb listing. It says a 4WD vehicle is needed to reach the lookout, and that in winter the way in is by snowmobile or a ride in the owner's Polaris vehicle.5 A stay includes use of the whole lookout, plus an outhouse and a sauna.5 The Idaho site is clear that the tower is privately owned and says not to trespass to see it.1

  1. Crystal Ridge, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/crystal-ridge/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  2. 1950s fire lookout transformed into off-grid shelter, Small Home Tours, https://smallhometours.com/stories/0390-fire-lookout-transformed-into-off-grid-shelter/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  3. Idaho fire lookouts, firelookout.org, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  4. Stranger Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/wa/stranger-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
  5. Crystal Peak Lookout, Airbnb, https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/25687274 (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩

Photos

Crystal Ridge
Crystal RidgePhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association: lookout rentals Gave us: ownership, access, rental details, links Forest Fire Lookout Association rentals list (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only (state, name, booking link, manager, closure note), no prose copied. The FFLA says it is not involved in managing any rental program. · retrieved 19 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. 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.