Cottonwood Butte

Cottonwood Butte, west of Cottonwood in north central Idaho, is both the highest point on the Camas Prairie and the site of a small ski area and a former Cold War radar station. Rising 5,730 feet above sea level, it has hosted skiing since before the area formally opened in 1967, with a T-bar and rope tow serving modest vertical terrain and limited operating hours. Its summit also held Cottonwood Air Force Station, an early warning radar site built in the late 1950s and upgraded in 1962 before becoming obsolete. The former station was later reused as a Job Corps center and then as the North Idaho Correctional Institution.

Ferdinand, Idaho · United States