FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Boise County, Idaho

Red Mountain Lookout

1934 L-4 cab on a stone base on Boise NF's Red Mountain; last staffed 1967 and later removed, with sources split on the year.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed; sources give no year or disagree (a 1968 emergency entry, a 1983 removal in a presentation). A climbers' page describes the old foundation 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. Trailhead page shows 'Site Open' on Forest Service land, but lists operating hours as Memorial Day to Labor Day, which had ended by 2026-10-10. A closure notice for the Crooked Fire area is posted, and the page does not say whether it reaches the Red Mountain trail.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
From the Clear Creek road out of Lowman, FS trail 145 for 2 miles to a junction, then trail 143 for 1.5 miles to the summit (SummitPost).

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab on a stone baseThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Boise National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Boise County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.25112, −115.40575
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-red-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 3.8 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 a stone baseSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1967
  3. 1967 Last staffedLast staffed season, per the Rex's pageSource: idaholookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1968 Eventfirelookout.com lists 'Emergency 1968' without explanationSource: firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1968 and 1983
  6. 1983 RemovedListed as removed in a Boise National Forest presentation; the Rex's page gives no yearSource: docslib.org
  7. 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.

Red Mountain's lookout was an L-4 cab on a stone base, built in 1934 at 8,722 feet in the Boise National Forest.1,2,3 It stood 15 miles northeast of Lowman, in Boise County.1,3

The Rex's page says the cab was last staffed in 1967.3 The firelookout.com record has a note for 1968 that reads as an emergency, but it does not say what happened.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts has no documented staffing history for the lookout.2

Sources disagree on when the cab left the mountain. The Rex's page says it was removed but gives no year.3 A presentation by a Boise National Forest archaeologist lists Red Mountain as removed in 1983.4 The firelookout.com record calls the site gone.1

A SummitPost climbers' page says one of its views shows the lookout's former foundation at the top, and the page gives no date.5 No other source describes what is on the summit now.

The Forest Service trailhead page shows the status "Site Open", but it lists operating hours as Memorial Day to Labor Day, a period that had ended by October 10, 2026. The summit trail is trail 143.5,6 A notice on that page reports a road and trail closure in the Crooked Fire area, but does not say whether it reaches the Red Mountain trail. For site-specific questions, the page points readers to the Lowman Ranger District.6

  1. Red Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/redmtn320.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Red Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/red-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Red Mountain, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/red-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Lookouts on the Boise National Forest, presentation by Susie Osgood, DocsLib, https://docslib.org/doc/9859271/lookouts-on-the-boise-national-forest (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Red Mountain, SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/red-mountain/571566 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  6. Red Mountain Trailhead, U.S. Forest Service, Boise National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/boise/recreation/red-mountain-trailhead (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Photos

Red Mountain Lookout
Red 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.

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. 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, 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

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