Idaho

Big Tower L.O.

Idaho Lookouts

Location.

Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge

Status.

Currently standing

Estimated drive time from Portland, OR.

6-1/2 hours

Date visited.

July 14, 2024

Elevation.

2,605′

National Historic Lookout Register.

Not registered

Trip Report.

After visiting Notch Butte (post), we continued our route west towards Oregon along I-84. Our next stop before leaving Idaho was going to be Big Tower lookout on the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge. This is another one that I will preface by saying there does not seem to be any confirmed information that this was ever used to detect wildfires. I will still count this towards our total, but I believe these kind of towers on wildlife refuges were only used to spot wildlife. Though they are the same style and build of many fire lookouts and were most likely manufactured by the same company.

We exited I-84 near the town of Nampa onto Karcher road and followed this until we reached Midway road off to the left. We stayed on Midway road until we reached the junction with Lake and Iowa avenue. We turned right onto Lake avenue to head into the wildlife refuge. Once on Lake avenue you should be able to spot the tower off to the left. It is located on the grounds behind the headquarters, but the area is closed to visitors. A peakbagger report from 2022 states you can follow a dirt road between the headquarters and private land, but it all looked closed off and inaccessible to us. Even if you were to get a closer look the tower is surrounded by a barbed wire fence and cannot be climbed. We parked in the pullout by the gate for the headquarters to get our view. On the map it looks like there is a trail on the other side that could potentially offer a closer look. We did not attempt to hike there though and figured most of the area is closed due to wildlife. It is marked as the Gotts Point trail on google maps if you want to try and get a closer look.

We didn’t stay long since we still had hours left in our drive home. Unfortunately, the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge was a bit disappointing and didn’t provide much interest in terms of wildlife beyond visiting the fire lookout. It seemed more like a popular recreation site for motor boaters and yahoos. The refuge is encompassed mostly by Lake Lowell and surrounded by a golf course and suburban sprawl. I would think this could provide a great potential for a bird oasis under the right circumstances, but when you allow high speed boating and recreation on the water it becomes less of a refuge and more of a hazard to the wildlife. I usually associate no wake lakes with refuges, but maybe this is more common than I think. Anyway, not the most exciting for our first two in Idaho but hopefully we can visit some high elevation ones in the near future.

History.

The lookout tower is listed on both Rex Kamstra’s and Ron Kemnow’s websites, but is not included on the NHLR. It is listed as a 100′ steel Aermotor tower. I could not find any additional information on when it was built or confirm what it was used for.

Notch Butte L.O.

Idaho Lookouts

Location.

BLM – Lincoln County, ID

Status.

Converted; Currently standing

Estimated drive time from Portland, OR.

8-1/2 hours

Date visited.

July 14, 2024

Elevation.

4,343′

National Historic Lookout Register.

US 1424; ID 116

Trip Report.

Well surprise, surprise! It’s me, still behind on writing about our most recent adventures or not so recent adventures anymore. Garnet and I just got back from a 7-day backpacking trip through the remote and rugged Jarbidge Wilderness in Nevada. It was equal parts challenging, beautiful, and rewarding. Unfortunately, it ended on a slightly sour note when we realized a mouse moved into my car while we were away. It had taken a bite out of all the food we had stashed in the trunk for our drive home and even decided to take a few holes out of Garnet’s newer shirt. This is how we found ourselves at the Sleep Inn in Jerome for our final night of the trip. Our original plan was to car camp in one of the many free BLM campgrounds along the Jarbidge River like we had on our first night of the trip. But once we stopped we could hear it in our console still and were unable to get it out when I opened my air filter. We hoped by taking everything out of the car into the hotel that it would vacate and save ourselves any additional damage to our gear. We even set some traps in the car for the night, but ultimately didn’t catch anything. This is my wordier way of saying we were closer to civilization after our trip and it set us up nicely to visit some fire lookouts. We had briefly talked about stopping at one of these fire lookouts on the way out during our drive down. Though I think if we were still camping along the river the last night we probably wouldn’t have had enough time to do both plus drive the 10 hours back home.

Notch Butte is located roughly 15 miles outside of Jerome and 4 miles South of Shoshone just off of HWY-93. This area of Idaho is made up of flat farm land and the butte is easy to spot from the highway. The road is noted as Notch Butte road on Google maps, but it was unsigned during our visit. Heading North from Jerome towards Shoshone, it was our first turn off to the right after milepost 70. The road is gravel with some minor ruts in it, but any car should be able to drive to the summit. I personally decided to park and walk since it was such a short distance. The road is a little over half of a mile from the highway to the summit. After making the turn from the highway you will pass over a cattle guard and veer left at the unmarked junction to reach the summit. Not to say it should be obvious, but it should be obvious. The surrounding field seemed to have a lot of vole activity and we even saw an antelope crossing the road while we parked. There’s not much else to note except it was muggy and hot. This is the first fire lookout we have had the chance to visit in Idaho and it won’t be our last. This is a state we’ve both talked about exploring more of often but have not yet carved out the time to do so. It has been slowly creeping closer to the top of our priority list.

History.

Built in 1941, the lookout on Notch Butte was a 14’x14′ USFS Region 1 ground cabin. It is noted as being used for emergencies into the 2000s, but has since been converted into a communication building. I wish there was more information on why they chose to build a fire lookout here. It seems it was mostly used to spot fires on range land surrounding the Union Pacific railroad.