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

Crittendon Peak Lookout

Idaho-Montana ridge lookout with an L-4 cab in the 1930s, destroyed 1962 per Idaho sources; a September 2025 post found no remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1962 per Idaho sources; a Montana list says removed. A September 2025 post found no remains.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Listed as a hike-in; the summit is a short walk from State Line Road (climbing guide).

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab, built in the 1930sThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe/Lolo National Forests
Land
Federal land
Location
Shoshone/ Mineral (MT) County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.33240, −115.55390
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-crittendon-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. 1962 DestroyedDestroyed (Idaho sources)Sources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 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.

Crittendon Peak sits on the Idaho-Montana border, on a ridge crest south of Dominion Peak, at 6,416 feet.1,2 The peak is named for an early Forest Service volunteer from the area who did not return from World War I.3 An L-4 cab was built on the peak in the 1930s.3,2

Idaho sources date the destruction of the lookout to 1962.3,2,4 A Montana list instead marks the site as removed.5 The sources also disagree on the forest. The Idaho pages name the St. Joe National Forest, the firelookout.com entry names both the St. Joe and Lolo National Forests, and the Montana list names the Lolo National Forest.3,2,5,4

In a September 2025 post, the Idaho Fire Lookouts team reported that the site had nothing left, not even litter or scraps of metal.3 No other source describes remains there.3,2,5

The Idaho listing calls the site a hike-in.3 A climbing guide says the summit is easy to reach from State Line Road.1 No source says whether the site is open to the public.3,1

  1. Crittenden Peak, IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/crittenden-peak/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Crittendon Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/crittendonpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Crittendon Peak Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/ctittendon-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Shoshone County, Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Crittendon Peak, Forest Lookouts (Ron Kemnow), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/crittendon-peak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Crittendon Peak Lookout
Crittendon Peak LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · 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. 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: 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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: agency, ownership, 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
  7. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.