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Fire lookout · Camas County, Idaho

Iron Mountain Lookout

Sawtooth National Forest lookout built 1922, staffed by husband-and-wife teams in the 1930s, rebuilt in 1961, now a remote emergency lookout reached by trail.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Reached only by trail (foot, horseback, or motorcycle); no public rental found.

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
About a 12-air-mile trip southeast of Featherville; a roughly 5-hour horse pack along the telephone line trail per a 1986 newspaper account.
Staffing
Unknown (as of 2026)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingR-6The designs: R-6, Plan 4-A
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Height
9,691 ft (2953.8 m)
Elevation
9,691 ft (2,954 m)
Agency
US Forest Service - Sawtooth National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Camas County, Idaho
Coordinates
43.53812, −115.04495
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-iron-mountain-3

View from the cab

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Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1922 BuiltCabin built atop Iron Mountain, a California Region 5 Plan 4A design.Sources: nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com
  2. 1934 StaffedMr. and Mrs. Neil Platts stationed at the lookout for the season.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1935 StaffedNiel Platt staffed the lookout for the fire season.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1938 StaffedMr. and Mrs. Clair Pond finished a season staffing the lookout.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. No record between 1938 and 1961
  6. 1961 Built'Built' field on NHLR detail pageSource: NHLR register entry
  7. 1961 Replaced by a new structureCurrent two-story R-6 flat-top cab on an enclosed tower built, replacing the 1922 cabin.Sources: nhlr.org, idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  8. No record between 1961 and 1986
  9. 1986 EventForest Service sought a volunteer to staff the tower for the season; access described as by trail only, with helicopter transport offered.Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  10. No record between 1986 and 2020
  11. 2020 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterAdded to the National Historic Lookout Register, September 30, 2020.Source: nhlr.org
  12. 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.

A lookout cabin first went up on top of Iron Mountain in 1922, a California Region 5, Plan 4A design.1,2 One source describes the earlier structure as an R-5 ground cab built around 1921, which is close enough in time that it's likely the same build remembered a year apart.3

The mountain's early lookouts lived there as couples through the fire season. Newspaper notices from the 1930s record Mr. and Mrs. Neil Platts stationed at Iron Mountain in 1934 and again in 1935, with Platts reporting a notably dry 21 percent relative humidity reading one summer, and Mr. and Mrs. Clair Pond finishing out a season there in 1938.4 By 1986, the Forest Service was advertising for volunteers to staff the tower, describing access by trail on foot, horseback, or motorcycle, a roughly twelve-air-mile trip southeast of Featherville, with helicopter transport offered to whoever took the post.4

The cabin was replaced in 1961 with the two-story R-6 flat-top cab that still stands today, at 9,691 feet on the Sawtooth National Forest.1,2,3 It was added to the National Historic Lookout Register in September 2020.1

Iron Mountain isn't set up as a vacation rental. One source describes it as kept available for emergencies rather than for public stays, and the 1986 account of a five-hour horse pack in on a trail alongside the telephone line gives a sense of how remote the site still is.3,4 No source found in this research documents regular paid staffing or public access in recent years, so anyone hoping to visit should treat it as a backcountry destination reached by trail, not a drive-up or bookable lookout.

  1. Iron Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/id/iron-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Iron Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/iron-mountain-lookout-3/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Iron Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/ironmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Iron Mountain, Idaho Lookouts (Weebly), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/iron-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Iron Mountain Lookout - 2006
Iron Mountain Lookout - 2006 (2006)Photo: Doug Fogg, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
1961
1961 (1961)Photo: USFS Region 4 History Collection, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
1927
1927 (1927)Photo: USFS Region 4 History Collection, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Iron Mtn. in 1927
Iron Mtn. in 1927 (1927)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Doug Fogg, via firelookout.com · source
Iron Mtn. in 1943
Iron Mtn. in 1943 (1943)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Doug Fogg, via firelookout.com · source
Iron Mtn. in 1961
Iron Mtn. in 1961 (1961)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Doug Fogg, via firelookout.com · source
Iron Mtn. in 2006
Iron Mtn. in 2006 (2006)Photo: the U.S. Forest Service and Doug Fogg, via firelookout.com · source
Iron Mountain Lookout
Iron Mountain 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.

Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the year it was built.

    • NHLR: 1961
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: 1921

    Sources give different build years. Often one counts the first lookout on the site and another the structure there now.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, 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. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, design, 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
  4. 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
  5. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height 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, height, status, agency, access, 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

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