FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Flathead County, Montana

Ousel Peak

Flathead County, MT ground lookout built 1931 with an L-4 cab and destroyed 1957; no remains described; summit reached by a wilderness trail.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed 1957; SummitPost reports no remains or other evidence of the lookout survive

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. Trail in the Great Bear Wilderness, open to walking and horseback; motor vehicles not allowed on the trail

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Trailhead on Highway 2 about 6.5 miles east of West Glacier; about 8 miles round trip with roughly 3,910 ft of elevation gain

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Ground-level cabL-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Flathead National Forest (land unit per county list)
Land
Unknown
Location
Flathead County, Montana
Coordinates
48.46595, −113.88758
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-ousel-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 3.7 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. 1931 BuiltL-4 cab per firelookout.com; SummitPost gives 1931 as the build yearSources: firelookout.com, summitpost.org
  2. 1935 EventCounty list entry: panorama photos taken at the site on September 18, 1935; no purpose givenSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1935 and 1957
  4. 1957 DestroyedBoth sources give 1957 as the destruction yearSources: firelookout.com, summitpost.org
  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.

Ousel Peak is in the Great Bear Wilderness.1 A Montana lookout list files the site under the Flathead National Forest.2

The lookout went up in 1931, and its cab was an L-4 type.3,1 The Forest Fire Lookout Association's list puts the site in its "Ground" category rather than with the towers.4

The cab was destroyed in 1957.3,1 A SummitPost page on the peak says nothing of the lookout is left.1 A county list also records panorama photos taken at the site on September 18, 1935.2

Nothing of the lookout is described as standing today, so a visit now means reaching the summit itself.1 The trailhead is reached from Highway 2, about 6.5 miles east of West Glacier.1 The round-trip hike is about 8 miles and gains roughly 3,910 feet.1 The trail in the wilderness allows hikers and riders on horseback, but no motor vehicles.1

  1. Ousel Peak, SummitPost, https://www.summitpost.org/ousel-peak-mt/557484 (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Flathead County - Forest Lookouts, Montana Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/flathead-county.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Ousel Peak Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/ouselpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  4. 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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.