FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Numa Ridge Lookout

Glacier National Park's northernmost lookout, built 1934 on the site of a 1922 fire camp; Edward Abbey staffed it in 1975.

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 trail from Lake Bowman; lookout cab is an active NPS post, not open for entry or rental

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
trail access from Lake Bowman, Glacier National Park
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingtwo-story, 14x14 ft timber cab with hip roof, standard NPS/USFS planThe design: National Park Service lookout
Built of
Wood
Built
1923
Height
10 ft (3.0 m)
Elevation
6,800 ft (2,073 m)
Agency
National Park Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.88402, −114.17898
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-numa-ridge

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 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 Eventsite established as a fire camp, then called Indian RidgeSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1923 Builtframe cabin added at the 7,100-foot levelSource: firelookout.com
  3. 1934 Builtcurrent two-story timber lookout built to standard NPS/USFS plan (NRHP nomination text gives 1933)Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org, firelookout.com
  4. No record between 1934 and 1975
  5. 1975 StaffedEdward Abbey staffed the lookout for a summer seasonSource: en.wikipedia.org
  6. 1986 Listed on the National Register of Historic Placeslisted on NRHP under Glacier National Park Multiple Resource Area, #86000357Source: en.wikipedia.org
  7. 1991 Added to the National Historic Lookout Registerregistered on the National Historic Lookout Register, September 15, 1991Source: nhlr.org
  8. No record between 1991 and 2019
  9. 2019 Condition assessmentCondition assessment of the staffed lookout (about 11.5 miles round trip).Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  10. 2022 Condition assessmentAssessment: good condition; the outhouse was flattened by the winter's snow.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  11. 2025 Condition assessmentAssessment: foundation, catwalk, stairs and some siding need repair, the exterior needs paint; interior good.Sources: nwmt-ffla.org, nwmt-ffla.org
  12. 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 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Numa Ridge got its start as a simple fire camp in 1922, when the spot was still called Indian Ridge.1 A frame cabin went up at the site, around 7,100 feet, the following year.1 The two-story timber lookout standing there today replaced that early cabin in 1934, built to a standard plan the Forest Service had developed for staffing a chain of overlapping lookouts across Glacier National Park.2,3 Only nine miles separate it from the Canadian border, making it the northernmost lookout in the park; the cab measures 14 feet square and sits under a hip roof.2,3

The lookout has a long staffing record. Scotty Beaton reportedly held the post from 1922 to 1948.1 Decades later, in the summer of 1975, novelist and essayist Edward Abbey worked a season there as the fire lookout, an experience he wrote about afterward.3 Numa Ridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as part of the Glacier National Park Multiple Resource Area, and it was separately registered on the National Historic Lookout Register in 1991.2,3

Sources disagree slightly on the exact build year: the park's own Register nomination describes the structure as built in 1933, while the National Historic Lookout Register and other trail guides give 1934.2,3,1

The lookout is still standing, per the most recent structure-status listings.4 Current-day staffing levels for Numa Ridge aren't confirmed by the sources checked here, though it remains an NPS-administered fire-watch structure rather than a rental. The site is reachable by a public trail from Lake Bowman, making it a popular destination for hikers even though the cab itself is off-limits to visitors.2

  1. Numa Ridge Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/numaridge.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Numa Ridge Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/mt/numa-ridge-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Numa Ridge Fire Lookout, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numa_Ridge_Fire_Lookout (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Montana Fire Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mt/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Summer 2017 photo
Summer 2017 photo (2017)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Cabin interior in Summer 2017
Cabin interior in Summer 2017 (2017)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Summer 2017
Summer 2017 (2017)Photo: Luke Channer, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Numa Ridge L.O.
Numa Ridge L.OPhoto: the Montana Memory Project and Leif Haugen, via firelookout.com · source
Numa Ridge in 1934
Numa Ridge in 1934 (1934)Photo: the Montana Memory Project and Leif Haugen, via firelookout.com · source
Numa Ridge in 1949
Numa Ridge in 1949 (1949)Photo: the Montana Memory Project and Leif Haugen, via firelookout.com · source
Numa Ridge L.O.
Numa Ridge L.OPhoto: the Montana Memory Project and Leif Haugen, via firelookout.com · source
Photo of Numa Ridge Lookout
Photo: National Park Service inventory, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · 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. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: what it is built of, 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
  4. Northwest Montana Lookout Association Gave us: design, height, staffing, dates, links Northwest Montana Lookout Association (nwmt-ffla.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, dimensions, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the NMLA page or PDF it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR and FFLA records (NMLA publishes none). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: register numbers, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. 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
  8. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, staffing, 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.