Fire lookout · Sanders County, Montana

Moose Peak

Kootenai National Forest L-4 tower near Trout Creek, Montana, built 1934 and marked gone from 1955; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Firelookout.com marks it 'Gone 1955'; the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks it as 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?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1934
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Kootenai National Forest
Land
Unknown
Location
Sanders County, Montana
Coordinates
47.89088, −115.31865
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-moose-peak

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 3.9 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. 1934 BuiltFirelookout.com: '1934: 10' L-4 tower'; the page does not say what the 10 feet measuresSource: firelookout.com
  2. No record between 1934 and 1955
  3. 1955 RemovedFirelookout.com: 'Gone 1955'; the page gives no causeSource: firelookout.com
  4. 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Moose Peak is a former fire lookout site in the Kootenai National Forest, about 13 miles east-northeast of Trout Creek, in Sanders County, Montana.1 Firelookout.com gives its elevation as 6,010 feet.1

The lookout was an L-4 tower, built in 1934.1 Firelookout.com marks it gone in 1955, and the Forest Fire Lookout Association's Montana list marks the site as gone too.1,2

A hiking listing names a Moose Peak Trail in Sanders County.3 None of the cited sources describes what, if anything, remains on the summit today, or whether the old lookout site is open to visitors.

  1. Moose Peak Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/moosepeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Montana Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Moose Peak Trail, maxtrails.com, https://www.maxtrails.com/trails/1004126_Moose_Peak_Trail_Montana.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩

Sources

  1. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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 (opens another site) 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, 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.