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Fire lookout · Lemhi County, Idaho

Martin Mountain Lookout

Lemhi County L-4 cab lookout built in 1934 and abandoned in 1962; sources list it as gone and describe no remains.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned in 1962; sources list it as gone and do not describe what 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?
Unknown
Trail
Listed as a hike-in site on Idaho Fire Lookouts; the lookout is gone

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
U.S. Forest Service; sources name the Salmon National Forest or the Challis National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lemhi County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.83825, −114.68500
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-martin-mountain

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 3.7 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. 1934 BuiltL-4 cab on the north pointSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1953
  3. 1953 EventFire spotter taken ill; four smokejumpers packed him out by stretcherSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1953 StaffedForest Service fire spotter at the lookout in August 1953Source: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1962 AbandonedSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  6. 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.

Martin Mountain rises to 9,406 feet in Lemhi County, Idaho.1 Its lookout was an L-4 cab set on the mountain's north point in 1934.1,2

In August 1953 a Forest Service fire spotter, Carl Rennaker of Salmon, fell ill at the lookout.2 His wife radioed for help.2 Four smokejumpers set out from Idaho City, and a medical student among them diagnosed acute appendicitis.2 The four rescuers packed him out by stretcher in about seven hours, over a trail roughly nine miles from the lookout.2

The lookout was abandoned in 1962, and the sources list it as gone.1,2,3

The sources do not agree on the forest or the distance. One modern listing places it in the Salmon National Forest, 32 miles northwest of Challis.1 A 1953 newspaper put it 50 miles northwest of Challis.2 Forest Lookouts names the Challis National Forest.2 Today the Forest Service calls the area the Salmon-Challis National Forest.4

No source we read describes what, if anything, remains at the site, or whether it is open to visitors. Idaho Fire Lookouts lists it as a hike-in site that is now gone.5

  1. Martin Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/martinmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Martin Mountain, Forest Lookouts (western US), https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/martin-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Salmon-Challis National Forest Fire Lookouts, U.S. Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/salmon-challis/recreation/discover-history/fire-lookouts (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Martin Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/martin-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

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. 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
  3. Idaho Fire Lookouts (idahofirelookouts.com) Gave us: 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
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: what it is built of, design, 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
  5. 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.