FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Fremont County, Idaho

Bishop Mountain Lookout

Also known as Bishop Mountain Cabin

A 1937 steel Aermotor tower on the Targhee National Forest that saw heavy use in the 1988 Yellowstone fires and is now on standby, listed on the NHLR.

Visit & stay

You can rent this lookout for overnight stays through recreation.gov.

Season
year-round
Getting there
Guests can drive to the cabin from early June through mid-November, weather permitting, although about 16 miles of the trip are on high-clearance gravel roads.

Overview Bishop Mountain Cabin was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938. The one-room cabin formerly housed Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management employees who stayed there to watch for forest fires. A historic fire lookout tower is nearby. The cabin was used for lookout workers until the early 1980s. Guests can drive to the cabin from early June through mid-November, weather permitting, although about 16 miles of the trip are on high-clearance gravel roads. Four wheel drive pick-up trucks are required for cabin access. During winter months November through May, access to the cabin is accessible by snowmobile or other snow means, on an ungroomed portion of the road. The cabin provides several conveniences, but guests should be prepared to bring most of their own supplies and gear for a comfortable stay. Recreation Guests at Bishop Mountain Cabin can participate in numerous recreational activities. Nearby logging roads are suitable for mountain biking. Hiking, snowmobiling and horseback riding trails are nearby. This area is also popular with hunters and berry pickers. Facilities Guests will find two sets of bunkbeds with mattress pads, a dining table and chairs. A wood cook stove is available for cooking and heating, and firewood is provided. A vault toilet is located in a separate building. Running water and electricity are not available. Guests must bring their own water supply as well as trash bags for packing out garbage. Bedding, matches, lighting and first aid supplies are not provided. Natural Features The cabin sits at 7,800 feet on the summit of Bishop Mountain, which is covered by pine trees. This mountain sits on the western border of Henry's Fork Caldera, an 18-mile long, 23-mile wide caldera located just west of Yellowstone National Park. Visitors are awarded scenic views of the surrounding mountains. Wildlife in this area includes black bear, wolf, elk, moose, mule deer, and grizzly bears. Nearby Attractions Harriman State Park is approximately 14 miles east of Bishop Mountain and open year-round. It lies within a wildlife refuge that's part of the Yellowstone Ecosystem. Visitors often see moose, elk, sandhill cranes and trumpeter swans. Anglers can find some of the best fly-fishing in the nation, and there are numerous multi-use trails.

Noted: Administrative Closure 2026

This comes from the Forest Fire Lookout Association’s rentals list. Check with the manager or the booking page before you plan a stay.

Book on recreation.gov

Rental details from recreation.gov, checked 12 Oct 2026. The closure note comes from the Forest Fire Lookout Association’s rentals list. Rules, fees and seasons change, so confirm on the booking page before you go. Data source: ridb.recreation.gov

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go. NHLR lists it as available for rental; a nearby cabin is bookable on recreation.gov, but on-tower public access/climbability is not confirmed by any source read.

Can you climb it?
Unknown
Road to the top?
Unknown
Staffing
Unknown (as of 2026)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower84-ft (per firelookout.com/idahofirelookouts.com; NHLR gives 72-ft) steel Aermotor tower with 7x7-ft cabThe design: Aermotor
Built of
Steel
Built
1937
Height
84 ft (25.6 m)
Elevation
7,784 ft (2,373 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Ashton Ranger District, Caribou-Targhee National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Fremont County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.33312, −111.55325
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 12 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-bishop-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.

Downloads about 4.0 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. 1937 BuiltSteel Aermotor tower; idahofirelookouts.com gives 1938 for the tower and cabinSources: firelookout.com, nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. No record between 1937 and 1988
  3. 1988 StaffedSaw extensive service during the Yellowstone firesSources: nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com
  4. 1991 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterDate registered per NHLR detail page: November 15, 1991Source: NHLR register entry
  5. 1991 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesAdded to the National Historic Lookout Register, nominated by Targhee NF supervisor and forest archaeologistSource: nhlr.org
  6. 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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Bishop Mountain rises above the Targhee National Forest in Fremont County, Idaho, about 25 miles north-northeast of St. Anthony.1,2 The steel Aermotor tower on its summit was built in 1937, though at least one source gives 1938 for the tower and cabin together.1,2,3 The National Historic Lookout Register records it as 72 feet tall with a 7-by-7-foot cab; other sources describe an 84-foot tower instead.1,2,3

The lookout earned its keep during the Yellowstone fires of 1988, when it saw extensive service.2,3 No documented staffing history survives for who worked the tower day to day.3

Bishop Mountain was added to the National Historic Lookout Register in 1991, nominated by Targhee National Forest's supervisor and forest archaeologist.2 It remains on standby status under the U.S. Forest Service's Ashton Ranger District, and the Register notes it is available for rental.2 A nearby cabin is bookable through the federal recreation.gov system.3

Today the tower still stands on its forested summit, a working relic of Idaho's fire-watch era rather than a museum piece.

  1. Bishop Mountain Lookout, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/bishopmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Bishop Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/bishop-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Bishop Mountain, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/bishop-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Bishop Mountain Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
September 2015
September 2015 (2015)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
September 2015
September 2015 (2015)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
September 2015
September 2015 (2015)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
September 2015
September 2015 (2015)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Bishop Mtn. in 1937
Bishop Mtn. in 1937 (1937)Photo: firelookout.com · source
Bishop Mtn. L.O.
Bishop Mtn. L.OPhoto: firelookout.com · source
Photo of Bishop Mountain Lookout
Photo: Dskdrive, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, 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
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists 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
  3. Recreation Information Database (recreation.gov) Gave us: ownership, access, rental details, links Data source: ridb.recreation.gov · Public data from the US government · retrieved 12 Oct 2026
  4. Forest Fire Lookout Association: lookout rentals Gave us: 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 12 Oct 2026
  5. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, height, dates, 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
  6. 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
  7. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: register numbers, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  8. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: design, 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
  9. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, access, staffing, 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.