Fire lookout · Valley County, Idaho
Thunderbolt Mountain Lookout
Boise NF hike-in lookout with a 1917 camp, a cupola dated 1922 or 1933, and a flat cab dated 1962 or 1965; standing, staffed in season.
- Standing
- Open to the public
- Verified
Visit & stay
Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.
Access
Open to the public. Hike-in site. The Trout Creek / Thunderbolt Trailhead is signed and gated; the Forest Service advises checking the Motor Vehicle Use Map. Current season not confirmed.
- Can you climb it?
- Unknown
- Road to the top?
- No, you have to hike
- Trail
- Hike-in; the Forest Service Trout Creek / Thunderbolt Trailhead area serves the lookout, and a campground sits near that trailhead.
- Staffing
- Staffed during fire season (as of undated)
Facts
- Status
- Built of
- WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
- Built
- 1922
- Height
- 10 ft (3.0 m)
- Elevation
- 8,656 ft (2,638 m)
- Agency
- U.S. Forest Service, Boise National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Valley County, Idaho
- Coordinates
- 44.73255, −115.63992
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-id-thunderbolt-mountain
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.
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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.
History
Then and now
- 1917 EventCamp at the summit, the first use of the site for a lookout.Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1922 BuiltLog cabin with cupola, per Forest Lookouts. Other sources date the cupola house to 1933.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
- 1933 BuiltD-6 cupola structure (NHLR); log cabin with cupola (firelookout.com).Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com
- No record between 1933 and 1962
- 1962 BuiltCurrent two-story R-6 flat cab. The NHLR description allows 1965 instead.Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com
- 1965 Replaced by a new structurePer Forest Lookouts, an R-6 flat-roof cab on a 10-foot base replaced the old cupola house.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1965 and 2020
- 2020 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, October 3, 2020.Source: nhlr.org
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 8 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
Thunderbolt Mountain Lookout stands on an 8,656-foot summit in the Boise National Forest, in Valley County, Idaho.1 The summit has hosted a lookout since 1917, but the sources give different dates for its early buildings.1 The National Historic Lookout Register says it began as a camp that year, and that a D-6 cupola structure followed in 1933.1 Firelookout.com gives the same 1917 camp and a log cabin with cupola in 1933.2 Forest Lookouts, a separate Idaho site, dates that log cabin to 1922.3
Firelookout.com and Idaho Fire Lookouts both date the current two-story flat cab to 1962.2,4 The register's description says the current cab was built in 1962 or 1965.1 Forest Lookouts says a 1965 R-6 flat-roof cab on a 10-foot base replaced the old cupola house.1,3
Staffing is described in seasonal terms. The register says the tower is generally staffed during fire season, firelookout.com says it is staffed every summer, and Idaho Fire Lookouts labels it hike-in staffed.1,2,4 None of these pages shows when it was checked, so the current season is unconfirmed.
The tower is listed as standing, and the register added it on October 3, 2020.1,5
The lookout is a hike-in site. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it that way, and firelookout.com places it 6 miles north of Warm Lake.4,2 The Forest Service's Trout Creek / Thunderbolt Trailhead has signs and a gate, and the Forest Service notes that a nearby campground is close to the trailhead to the lookout. Its page also advises checking the Motor Vehicle Use Map for non-motorized and motorized trails.6
- Thunderbolt Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/thunderbolt-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Thunderbolt Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/thunderbolt.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Thunderbolt Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (Idaho), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/thunderbolt-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Thunderbolt Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/west-central/thunderbolt-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
- Trout Creek / Thunderbolt Trailhead, U.S. Forest Service Boise National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/boise/recreation/trout-creek-thunderbolt-trailhead (accessed 2026-10-08). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) Gave us: staffing, photos, 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
- Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) Gave us: what it is built of, design, height, 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, staffing, 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
- NHLR register entry US 1456 (nhlr.org) (opens another site)
- Trout Creek / Thunderbolt Trailhead (U.S. Forest Service, Boise National Forest) (opens another site)
- FFLA Idaho lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Thunderbolt Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Thunderbolt Mountain Lookout on idahofirelookouts.com (opens another site)
- Thunderbolt Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.