FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Ravalli County, Montana

Saddle Mountain

Saddle Mountain, Ravalli County, Montana: camp in 1939, pole L-4 tower built 1941 near Lost Trail Pass, torn down 1972; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Torn down in 1972 per firelookout.com; firelookout.org lists the tower as gone and the Forest Lookouts entry page marks it Removed.

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 tower10' pole L-4 towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1941
Height
Unknown
Elevation
Unknown
Agency
Bitterroot National Forest
Land
Federal land
Location
Ravalli County, Montana
Coordinates
45.71788, −113.98405
Registers
Not on a lookout register
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-mt-saddle-mountain-3

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. 1939 EventSite established as a camp (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  2. 1941 BuiltPole L-4 tower built (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  3. 1945 StaffedKnown lookout personnel listed for 1945Source: firelookout.com
  4. 1958 StaffedKnown lookout personnel listed for 1958Source: firelookout.com
  5. 1961 StaffedKnown lookout personnel listed for 1961Source: firelookout.com
  6. 1972 RemovedTower torn down (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  7. 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.

Saddle Mountain stands in Ravalli County, Montana, about two miles northwest of Lost Trail Pass, inside the Bitterroot National Forest.1,2 The firelookout.com page gives its elevation as 8,482 feet.1

The site was first set up as a camp in 1939.1 The pole L-4 tower that followed was built in 1941, and firelookout.com describes it as a 10' pole L-4 tower.1

The page lists known lookout personnel for 1945, 1958 and 1961.1

The tower was torn down in 1972.1 The Forest Lookouts entry for Saddle Mountain marks it "Removed,"2 and the firelookout.org list shows the tower as gone.3

The three sources agree that the tower is gone. None of them describes what, if anything, remains on the summit now, or whether the site is open to visitors.1,3,2

  1. Saddle Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/mt/saddlemtn389a.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  2. Saddle Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (montanalookouts.weebly.com), https://montanalookouts.weebly.com/saddle-mountain2.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
  3. Montana lookouts list, firelookout.org, 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.