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Fire lookout · Bonner County, Idaho

Roberts Mountain Lookout

Summit lookout on Roberts Mountain: a 1928 platform tower, a 60-foot L-6 cab tower built in 1933, and destroyed in 1958; no source describes the summit today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1958; no source describes what remains on the summit

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
Hike-in; the climbing guide's route from the FST-407 trailhead is over 8 miles round trip

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower60-foot pole tower with a 7 by 7 foot L-6 cab, after a 1928 platform towerThe design: L-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1928
Height
60 ft (18.3 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kaniksu National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Bonner County, Idaho
Coordinates
48.49356, −116.08963
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-roberts-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 its recorded height.

Downloads about 4.0 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. 1928 BuiltPlatform tower with cabin living quartersSources: firelookout.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1933 Built60-foot pole tower with a 7 by 7 foot L-6 cabSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1933 and 1958
  4. 1958 DestroyedDestroyed; no cause given in the sources readSources: firelookout.com, idahofirelookouts.com, idaholookouts.weebly.com
  5. 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.

Roberts Mountain sits northeast of Lake Pend Oreille, where the Bitterroots reach their northern tip.1 Firelookout.com places the lookout 17 miles southeast of Bonners Ferry in Bonner County, Idaho.2

In 1928 the summit was fitted with a platform tower and a cabin for living quarters.2,3 In 1933 a 60-foot pole tower with a 7-by-7-foot cab was built.2,4 Rex's Fire Lookout Page describes that tower as having an L-6 cab.3

The sources disagree on the national forest. Firelookout.com gives the Kootenai National Forest, while Idaho Fire Lookouts and Rex's page give the Kaniksu.2,4,3

Idaho Fire Lookouts has no documented staffing history for the lookout.4

All three lookout sources give 1958 as the year it was destroyed.2,4,3 The climbing guide puts a lookout on the summit between 1928 and 1958.1

Idaho Fire Lookouts labels the site a hike-in.4 The approach starts in Troy, Montana, and runs 12 miles west on Callahan Creek Road (FS-427) to the FST-407 trailhead. The route then runs more than 8 miles round trip, with about 3,200 feet of climbing.1

No source read describes what remains on the summit today. The climbing guide describes a route to the peak, not the lookout site.2,4,3,1

  1. Roberts Mountain, IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/roberts-mountain/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Roberts Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/robertsmtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Roberts Mountain, Forest Lookouts, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/roberts-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Roberts Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/northern-idaho/roberts-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: dates, 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: design, height, 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, height, status, agency, 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.