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Fire lookout · Lincoln County, Montana

Kenelty Mountain

Kootenai NF lookout in Lincoln County, MT: a camp from 1914, present 10-foot L-4 cab tower built 1934; abandoned and decommissioned, reached by a 2.5 to 3 mile trail.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Restricted access

Access is seasonal, gated or needs a permit. Check before you go. Reached by public National Forest trail 104, but the lookout is decommissioned and sources advise against going inside

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
Road about a mile and a half past the trailhead to a clearing, then a marked trail to the ridge; 2.5 miles per Visit Montana, about 3 miles from the ridge per The Outbound
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a tower10-foot pole tower with L-4 cabThe designs: L-4, Cupola house
Built of
Wood
Built
1914
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
5,931 ft (1,808 m)
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Lincoln County, Montana
Coordinates
48.08712, −115.31311
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-kenelty-mountain

View from the cab

What you see from the 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.

Downloads about 3.9 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. 1914 BuiltSource: firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page
  2. 1914 EventCamp established on the mountain (the tower came later)Source: firelookout.com
  3. No record between 1914 and 1929
  4. 1929 BuiltCupola cabin recorded on the mountain in 1929; construction date not givenSource: firelookout.com
  5. 1934 Replaced by a new structurePresent 10-foot pole tower with L-4 cab replaced the 1929 cupola cabinSource: firelookout.com
  6. No record between 1934 and 2017
  7. 2017 EventDescribed as on the verge of collapsingSource: firelookout.com
  8. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

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 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Kenelty Mountain sits in the Kootenai National Forest, about 24 miles southeast of Libby, in Lincoln County, Montana.1

The fire lookout site says the mountain started as a camp in 1914.1 A 1929 cupola cabin came next. In 1934 the present structure replaced it, a 10-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab, so the tower itself dates from 1934.1

The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as standing.2 The fire lookout site says the windows are gone, the roof has minimal support, and the tower was close to collapsing in 2017.1 The Outbound describes an abandoned lookout that has been decommissioned, and its writer advises against going inside because the floor looks unsteady.3

The hike starts on a National Forest trail, numbered 104, that meets Divide Trail 6 on a ridge.4 Visit Montana lists it as 2.5 miles and easy, starting at Road 761 after a drive of 33 miles south from Libby on US Highway 2.4 The Outbound describes a moderately difficult walk of about 3 miles from the ridge, and gives a route that turns onto Road 763.3 The two sources disagree on length, difficulty and road number, so check a current map before you go.4,3

I found no staffing dates or record of fires for this tower in the sources I read.

  1. Kenelty Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout Tower website, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/keneltymtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Montana lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Hike to Kenelty Mountain Lookout, The Outbound, https://www.theoutbound.com/montana/hiking/hike-to-kenelty-mountain-lookout (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Kenelty Mountain Lookout Trail, Visit Montana, https://visitmt.com/listings/general/national-forest-trail/kenelty-mountain-lookout-trail.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Kenelty Mtn. in 1995
Kenelty Mtn. in 1995 (1995)Photo: Gary Weber, Gary Marin, and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source
Kenelty Mtn. in 2005
Kenelty Mtn. in 2005 (2005)Photo: Gary Weber, Gary Marin, and Luke Channer, via firelookout.com · source
Kenelty Mtn. in 2017
Kenelty Mtn. in 2017 (2017)Photo: Gary Weber, Gary Marin, and Luke Channer, via firelookout.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: elevation, what it is built of, design, height, agency, ownership, dates, photos, 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: 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, height, 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.