FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Missoula County, Montana

Hunter Point

30-ft L-4 tower dated 1944, Montana DNRC land east of Missoula; two listings say gone, a travel guide says a hike goes up to it. Unresolved.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Two lookout listings say gone; a travel guide says you can hike up to the tower. Not resolved.

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. Clearwater State Forest is open year-round. Any recreational activity on state trust land, hiking included, needs a Recreational Use License, per the travel guide.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
A travel guide lists a hike up to the Hunter Point Lookout Tower. The two lookout listings do not agree.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1944
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Montana DNRC
Land
Unknown
Location
Missoula County, Montana
Coordinates
46.94046, −113.42135
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-hunter-point

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 4.2 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. 1944 Built30-foot L-4 tower dated to 1944Source: 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.

Hunter Point is a lookout site in Missoula County, about 28 miles east of Missoula, at an elevation of 4,019 feet.1

The lookout was a 30-foot L-4 tower dated to 1944.1 The listing names Montana DNRC as the agency connected to the site.1 A Montana lookout list spells the name Hunters Point.2

The Forest Fire Lookout Association and firelookout.com both list the tower as gone.3,1

A travel guide to Clearwater State Forest, which it places in Missoula County, says a hike leads up to the Hunter Point Lookout Tower.4 That claim conflicts with the two listings, so the sources disagree on whether the tower still stands.1,3,4

The state forest is open year-round, and the guide says any recreational activity on state trust land, hiking included, needs a Recreational Use License.4 Beyond that guide, no source describes the site today. Anyone visiting should not assume that any tower there can be climbed, and should check with the land manager before going.

  1. Hunter Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/hunterpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Hunters Point - Forest Lookouts, montanalookouts.weebly.com, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/hunters-point.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. Clearwater State Forest, Montana, Discovering Montana, https://discoveringmontana.com/state-forests/clearwater/ (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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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.