FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Powell County, Montana

Lake Mountain

Log cupola lookout cabin in Powell County, MT, dated 1922 and destroyed 1958; a 1960 survey description records the burned remains on the south hill.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in 1958 per firelookout.com; a 1960 survey description records remains of a burned cabin; Montanalookouts says 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

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cablog cupola cabinThe design: Cupola house
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1922
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Helena National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Powell County, Montana
Coordinates
47.16782, −112.96817
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-lake-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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

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. 1922 Builtfirelookout.com dates a log cupola cabin to 1922Source: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1922 and 1958
  3. 1958 Destroyedfirelookout.com says destroyed in 1958; Montanalookouts lists it as removed, undatedSources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1960 EventCoast and Geodetic Survey station description (quoted on Montanalookouts) records remains of a burned lookout cabin on the south hillSource: montanalookouts.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.

Lake Mountain sits in Powell County, Montana, about 24 miles east of Seeley Lake.1 Firelookout.com lists the Lolo and Helena National Forests together, while Montanalookouts names only the Helena National Forest.1,2

Firelookout.com dates the lookout, a log cupola cabin, to 1922.1 The same page says it was destroyed in 1958.1 Montanalookouts lists the site as removed, with no date.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks it as ground gone.3

A Coast and Geodetic Survey station description from 1960, quoted on the Montanalookouts page, places the survey marker on the north one of three small hills atop the mountain.2 The description adds that the south hill is the highest and holds what is left of a burned lookout cabin.2 It also says there is a good helicopter landing on the site of the burned cabin.2

We found no source describing the site since 1960, or whether the public can reach it.1,2,3

  1. Lake Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/lakemtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Lake Mountain - Forest Lookouts, Montanalookouts (quotes a National Geodetic Survey station description), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/lake-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (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: 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, 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.