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Fire lookout · Shoshone County, Idaho

Mastadon Mountain Lookout

Camp 1926, shake cupola cabin 1929, R-6 cab on concrete 1963; cab removed in 1978 per two sources; a hiking guide describes tower remains on the summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The cab was removed in 1978 per two sources, but a county list says destroyed in the 1980s. A hiking guide describes remains of an old lookout tower on the summit.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. A hiking guide describes a loop trail that reaches the summit on foot.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Loop hike from the Foolhen trailhead, reached by following FR-225 along Slate Creek.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Two-story buildingR-6 flat cab on a 10-foot concrete base (from 1963)The design: R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1929
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
St. Joe National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Shoshone County, Idaho
Coordinates
47.35682, −115.96849
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-mastadon-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. 1926 EventCamp established at the siteSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1929 BuiltShake cupola cabinSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1929 and 1963
  4. 1963 Replaced by a new structureR-6 flat cab on a 10-foot concrete baseSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1967 StaffedRonald Frank, reported by the Kellogg Evening NewsSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  6. 1968 StaffedLoren BakerSource: idahofirelookouts.com
  7. 1978 RemovedCab removed; a county list gives the 1980s and 'destroyed' insteadSources: idahofirelookouts.com, firelookout.com
  8. 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.

Mastadon Mountain stands at 5,905 feet, about 10 miles northwest of Avery in the St. Joe National Forest.1 A camp was set up at the site in 1926, and a shake cupola cabin followed in 1929.2,1,3

Two lookouts appear in the records. Ronald Frank was reported in 1967 by the Kellogg Evening News, and Loren Baker was listed in 1968.2

In 1963 the cupola gave way to an R-6 flat cab on a concrete base.1,3 One county list calls the concrete a first floor,3 and the Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the structure as a two-story cab.4

The Idaho lookout site and firelookout.com both say the cab was removed in 1978.2,1 A Shoshone County list instead gives the 1980s and says the lookout was destroyed.3 The sources disagree on the date.

A June 2021 hiking guide says the summit is bare apart from scattered remains of an old lookout tower.5 That guide spells the peak Mastodon, not Mastadon.5 Its route is a loop that starts at the Foolhen trailhead, reached by following FR-225 along Slate Creek.5 No source we found describes the site in more detail.

  1. Mastadon Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra), https://www.firelookout.com/id/mastadon.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Mastadon Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/st-joe-clearwater-region/mastadon-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Shoshone County, Forest Lookouts, Idaho Forest Lookouts, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/shoshone-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Idaho Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/id (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Mastodon Mountain Loop, NaughtyHiker, https://www.naughtyhiker.com/mastodon-mountain-loop/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Mastadon Mountain Lookout
Mastadon Mountain LookoutPhoto: idahofirelookouts.com · source

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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: 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
  4. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, 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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