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Fire lookout · Ravalli County, Montana

Palisade Mountain

Ravalli County ground lookout on Palisade Mountain, built about 1930 and replaced by the Willow Mountain tower in 1966; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The cab is gone. The Willow Mountain tower that replaced it is still staffed each summer.

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 cabgabled L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1926
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Bitterroot National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Ravalli County, Montana
Coordinates
46.29905, −113.87201
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-palisade-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 4.1 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. 1926 BuiltOnly firelookout.com mentions a log and frame cabin built in 1926; the newspaper items do notSource: firelookout.com
  2. 1930 BuiltNewspapers report construction from July to November 1930; the listing says the L-4 cab dates from about 1930Sources: firelookout.com, montanalookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1930 and 1956
  4. 1956 StaffedFirst year with a named lookout in the listingSource: firelookout.com
  5. 1965 Last staffedLast year with a named lookout in the listingSource: firelookout.com
  6. 1966 Replaced by a new structureWillow Mountain tower built in 1966; sources say it replaced PalisadeSource: firelookout.com
  7. 1967 RemovedMontana Forest Lookouts history: structure removed when duties moved to WillowSource: montanalookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1969 DestroyedListing: the L-4 cab was destroyed in 1969Source: firelookout.com
  9. 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.

A lookout went up on Palisade Mountain in 1930, in the Bitterroot National Forest.1,2 A 1965 survey places the station on a rocky, double-topped ridge between Willow Creek and Burnt Fork Lake.2 In July 1930 the Ravalli Republican reported that building material for a lookout station had been taken on pack mules over nine miles of steep trail to the high point.2 By November the Missoulian described a new standard lookout cabin at the head of Willow, Gold and Burnt Fork creeks.2 The cab was a gabled L-4 design.1 One listing also says a log and frame cabin was built on the summit in 1926, followed by the L-4 cab about 1930. The newspaper items do not mention the earlier cabin.1,2

A listing records lookout staff on the peak from 1956 through 1965, and Ravalli Republic items from 1962 and 1963 name lookouts too.1,2

A tower with a concrete base and a flat R-6 cab went up on nearby Willow Mountain in 1966, and sources say it replaced Palisade.3 The sources disagree about the end of the old cab. One listing says it was destroyed in 1969, while the Montana Forest Lookouts page says it was removed in 1967 when its duties moved to Willow.1,2 They also disagree on direction: the listing places Willow two miles northwest of Palisade, and the Willow page says two miles southeast.1,3

Willow Mountain is still staffed each summer.3 No source describes what remains on the Palisade summit today, or whether the site is open to visitors. The survey also places a brass Forest Service cap in rock northeast of an "old L.O.T.", an abbreviation the survey does not explain, but nothing says whether the cap is still there.2 The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists Palisade Mountain as gone.4

  1. Palisade Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/palisademtn.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Palisade Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Montana Forest Lookouts, https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/palisade-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Willow Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/willowmtn.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. 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.