FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Pondera County, Montana

Half Dome Crag

Pondera County lookout on the Lewis and Clark National Forest; sources date its start 1924-1933, it was abandoned in 1973 and is gone, and no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Abandoned 1973 per firelookout.com; Weebly lists it as removed with no date

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
Hiking Project lists Half Dome Crag Trail #119 on the Lewis and Clark National Forest; no source describes what is left at the lookout site

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cab (1933), later R-6 flat-roof cab (1961)The designs: L-4, R-6
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1932
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Lewis and Clark National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Pondera County, Montana
Coordinates
48.27067, −113.08017
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-half-dome-crag

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 4.1 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. 1924 EventNewspaper reports new trails built to the Half Dome lookout, implying a lookout already existedSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1928 EventFirelookout.com lists a campSource: firelookout.com
  3. 1932 BuiltTwo standard-plan lookouts built that year, one on Half Dome Mountain at a cost of about $600Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1933 BuiltFirelookout.com lists an L-4 cab; differs from the 1932 newspaper dateSource: firelookout.com
  5. 1935 StaffedJohn Sabol assigned to Half Dome lookoutSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1939 StaffedJohn Anderson listed for Half Dome lookoutSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1940 StaffedJohn Anderson of Dupuyer listed for Half Dome lookoutSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1940 and 1961
  9. 1961 EventFirelookout.com lists an R-6 flat cabSource: firelookout.com
  10. 1968 FireLookout Dave Dellwo discovered a fire on the east face of Little Plume Mountain, August 12Source: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  11. 1973 AbandonedFirelookout.com: abandoned 1973Source: firelookout.com
  12. 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.

Half Dome Crag is the site of a former fire lookout in Pondera County, Montana, on the Lewis and Clark National Forest, about 13 miles south-southeast of East Glacier.1 Firelookout.com gives its elevation as 8,091 feet.1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the lookout as gone.2

Sources do not agree on when the lookout began. A November 1924 newspaper, quoted on a Montana lookout history page, reports new trails built to the Half Dome lookout, which suggests one already stood by then.3 Firelookout.com lists a camp in 1928 and an L-4 cab in 1933.1 The L-4 was a prefabricated 14-by-14-foot lookout house, built from 1929 on.4 A November 1932 newspaper says two lookouts were built that year to standard Forest Service plans, one of them on Half Dome Mountain at a cost of about $600.3

Local newspapers name the lookout men for several seasons. John Sabol was assigned to Half Dome in 1935, and John Anderson was listed for the post in 1939 and again in 1940.3 In August 1968 Half Dome Lookout Dave Dellwo found a fire on the east face of Little Plume Mountain, about 10 miles northwest of Heart Butte.3

The lookout kept a telephone link with Glacier Park and Lubec, according to a 1932 forestry report.3 Water was hard to come by. An October 1935 newspaper says water had to be packed up the mountain in former years, a distance of 14 miles with a 3,000-foot rise, but that year the lookout man got enough for household use from nearby snowbanks.3

Firelookout.com says the lookout was abandoned in 1973.1 Weebly lists it as removed, without a date.3 A 1963 Coast and Geodetic Survey description places a survey mark at the center of the base of a 10-by-20-foot lookout house.3 That size does not match the standard 15-by-15-foot R-6 cab that firelookout.com lists for 1961, and no source explains the difference.1,4

No source describes what, if anything, remains on the summit today. Hiking Project lists a trail called Half Dome Crag Trail #119 and names the Lewis and Clark National Forest office as land manager.5 That listing describes a trail, not the lookout site, so it does not show whether any footings or other remains can be seen. Check with the forest office before heading out.

  1. Half Dome Crag Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/halfdomecrag.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Half Dome Crag, Forest Lookouts, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/half-dome-crag.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Forest Fire Lookout Tower Photos (lookout type definitions), firelookout.com, http://www.firelookout.com/lktpix.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  5. Half Dome Crag Trail #119, Hiking Project, https://www.hikingproject.com/trail/7080757/half-dome-crag-trail-119 (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. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: 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
  4. 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.