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Fire lookout · Shoshone/ Mineral (MT) County, Idaho

Ward Peak Lookout

Ward Peak lookout on the Idaho-Montana line: a 1914 cabin, a 1929 L-2 cabin, destroyed in the 1950s; hike-in summit with only a USGS marker and cabin remnants.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the 1950s; the sources describe only remnants of the cabin on the summit

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 summit on national forest land; trail #250 from the state-line road. The sources read describe no closure, but do not state public access in terms.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Trail #250 from the state-line road (#391), 1.3 miles total to the summit, per Great Burn Lakes; the Little Joe Road (#282) out of St. Regis is the approach

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cab1929 L-2 shake cupola cabin, which replaced a cabin dated 1914The design: L-2 house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1914
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe/Lolo National Forests
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone/ Mineral (MT) County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.26650, −115.38282
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-ward-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 4.1 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. 1914 BuiltCabin constructed on the summit (firelookout.com); Great Burn Lakes says an original cabin was built in 1914Sources: firelookout.com, greatburnlakes.com
  2. 1925 StaffedHerb Uttley listed under Known Staff for 1925 (Idaho Fire Lookouts, citing Bert Russell's book); the sources do not say which cabin he usedSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  3. 1929 BuiltL-2 shake cupola cabin built (firelookout.com); Great Burn Lakes says it replaced the 1914 cabinSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, greatburnlakes.com
  4. No record between 1929 and 1950
  5. 1950 DestroyedSource: Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com)
  6. Date unknown DestroyedDecade only: all three sources say 'the 1950s' and none gives a year. The brief's 1950 is not supportedSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, greatburnlakes.com
  7. 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.

Ward Peak sits on the Idaho and Montana border, about 20 miles east of Avery, Idaho, in the St. Joe and Lolo national forests.1 Its elevation is 7,312 feet.1

A cabin was first built on the summit in 1914.1,2 In 1929 an L-2 model with a shake cupola took its place.1,3,2

The Idaho Fire Lookouts page names one known staffer, Herb Uttley, under the year 1925, and credits a book by Bert Russell for that entry.3

The cabin was destroyed in the 1950s.1,3,2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the lookout as gone.4

Today the summit is reached on foot, and Idaho Fire Lookouts marks the site as hike-in.3 Trail 250 starts from the state-line road (No. 391) and climbs to the top, a total of 1.3 miles.2 The route begins with the Little Joe Road out of St. Regis.2 The top still has a USGS survey marker, plus remains of the old lookout cabin.2 No source we read describes anything else on the summit now.

  1. Ward Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/wardpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Ward Peak, Lakes of the Great Burn & More, https://greatburnlakes.com/StRegis_WardPeak/Ward_Peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Ward Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/ward-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho lookouts list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Ward Peak Lookout
Ward 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. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. 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
  4. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page 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
  5. 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
  6. 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.