FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Lemhi County, Idaho

Sheep Mountain Lookout

L-4 cab set below the summit in the 1930s; still there in 1983, now listed as abandoned and gone; no source describes remains today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Still there in 1983; listed as abandoned and gone.

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?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Listed as a hike-in site. A climbing guide describes a 4WD route to about 9,800 feet on the south ridge, with the summit about 1.5 miles from the road.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab below the summit, fitted with an alidadeThe design: L-4
Built of
WoodGoing by its design; no source says so in words.
Built
Unknown
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Challis National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lemhi County, Idaho
Coordinates
44.39075, −113.28737
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-id-sheep-mountain-3

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 3.6 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. 1983 EventCab still there, per firelookout.comSource: firelookout.com
  2. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Sheep Mountain in Lemhi County rises to 10,865 feet, about five miles south of Gilmore, in the Challis National Forest.1,2 In the 1930s a lookout cab of the L-4 type was set just below the summit and fitted with an alidade.1,2,3 The firelookout.com page notes the cab was still there in 1983, then records the site as abandoned and gone.1 Idaho Fire Lookouts also lists it as abandoned and gone, and as a hike-in site.2

Today a climbing guide to Sheep Mountain (10,865 feet) says a driver with a four-wheel-drive vehicle and solid driving skills can reach about 9,800 feet on the south ridge. The summit, the guide adds, lies roughly a mile and a half from the road.4

No source I found describes what, if anything, remains of the lookout today.

  1. Sheep Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/id/sheepmtn320a.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Sheep Mountain Lookout, Idaho Fire Lookouts, https://www.idahofirelookouts.com/southern-idaho/sheep-mountain-lookout-2/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Sheep Mountain, Rex's Fire Lookout Page, https://idaholookouts.weebly.com/sheep-mountain2.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Sheep Mountain 10865, IDAHO: A Climbing Guide, https://www.idahoaclimbingguide.com/bookupdates/sheep-mountain-10865-2/ (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, 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.