FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Daggett County, Utah

Ute Mountain Lookout

A 1937 CCC-built L-4 tower above Sheep Creek Canyon, one of only two lookouts left in Utah and the only one with living quarters above ground.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. Open for Forest Service-run interpretive tours Fridays and Saturdays in season; reached by a drivable gravel road off the Sheep Creek Canyon Geologic Loop.

Can you climb it?
Yes
Road to the top?
Yes, you can drive up
Trail
Drive-up via gravel road, about 2.5 miles off the Sheep Creek Canyon Geologic Loop toward Spirit Lake; a hiking approach from Browne Lake is also possible.
Staffing
Staffed by volunteers (as of 2019)

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab on a 32-foot timber tower, with catwalkThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1937
Height
32 ft (9.8 m)
Elevation
8,819 ft (2,688 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service, Ashley National Forest, Flaming Gorge Ranger District
Land
Federal land
Location
Daggett County, Utah
Coordinates
40.87118, −109.79253
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-ut-ute-mountain

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 3.3 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. 1937 BuiltBuilt by the Sheep Creek Canyon CCC camp.Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org, wikidata.org
  2. No record between 1937 and 1968
  3. 1968 Last staffedNHLR gives 1968 as the last year staffed; a 2015 newspaper account instead gives 1969, attributing the closure to rot in the tower's legs.Sources: nhlr.org, deseret.com
  4. 1980 Listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesNominated in 1978 (per NHLR); listed April 10, 1980, reference 80003895 (per Wikipedia/Wikidata; NHLR does not give the listing date or reference number).Sources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org, wikidata.org
  5. 1986 RestoredNHLR dates this restoration (by USFS and partner organizations) to 1986; a 2015 newspaper account instead describes an early-1980s renovation reopening to the public in 1987. The two accounts disagree on the year.Sources: nhlr.org, deseret.com
  6. 1998 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered as US 261 / UT 1 on March 1, 1998.Source: nhlr.org
  7. No record between 1998 and 2014
  8. 2014 RestoredClosed in 2008 after structural deterioration was found, then restored and rededicated September 20, 2014.Sources: deseret.com, willhiteweb.com
  9. 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.

Ute Mountain Lookout stands in the Ashley National Forest in Daggett County, Utah, a few miles southwest of Manila.1 The Civilian Conservation Corps built it in 1937 out of the Sheep Creek Canyon CCC camp, raising a 32-foot timber tower topped with a 14-by-14-foot L-4 cab and catwalk — living quarters set above the ground rather than a simple ground-level cab.2,1,3 The National Historic Lookout Register puts its elevation at 8,819 feet; Wikipedia, Wikidata and willhiteweb all give 8,834 feet instead.2,1,3,4 From up there it looks out over roughly 360 square miles of forest and the northeastern Uinta Mountains.4

The Forest Service staffed it for three decades. The lookout register says the last watch was kept in 1968; a newspaper account instead says the tower closed in 1969, when rot was found in its legs.2,5 A renovation in the early 1980s brought it back into use, and it reopened to the public in 1987 — though the National Historic Lookout Register credits the restoration to 1986, done by the Forest Service with a group of partner organizations. The two accounts don't quite agree on the year.2,5

The tower was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 19782 and formally listed on April 10, 1980, under reference number 80003895.1,3 It was later entered in the National Historic Lookout Register as US 261 / UT 1, on March 1, 1998.2

Weather and age caught up with it again, and it closed a second time in 2008 after inspectors found structural deterioration.5 A more thorough restoration followed, and the tower was rededicated on September 20, 2014.4 By a 2019 Forest Service report, the tower and cab were in good condition inside and out, and a volunteer had staffed it through each of the previous three seasons.2

Today it is one of only two fire lookouts still standing in Utah,2 and the only one in the state with living quarters built above the ground.5,4 It is no longer a primary fire-detection post, but it isn't empty: the Forest Service keeps it staffed by volunteers through the summer, and a wildland firefighter has given interpretive tours on Fridays and Saturdays in recent years, doubling as a spotter when no fire calls her away. Visitors who climb up often turn out to have childhood memories of visiting the tower decades before. The site has also run a seasonal homing-pigeon demonstration, echoing the message runners lookouts once relied on before two-way radios.5

The road in is gravel but drivable — it branches off the Sheep Creek Canyon Geologic Loop about 2.5 miles before Spirit Lake — and a hiking approach from Browne Lake is also an option.4

  1. Ute Mountain Fire Tower, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_Mountain_Fire_Tower (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Ute Mountain Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org), http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/ut/ute-mountain-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Ute Mountain Fire Tower (Q7902610), Wikidata, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7902610 (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Ute Mountain Fire Lookout, willhiteweb.com, http://www.willhiteweb.com/uinta_mountains/ute/fire_lookout_129.htm (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  5. "Renovated fire lookout tower open for tours in Daggett County," Deseret News, https://www.deseret.com/2015/8/14/20570233/renovated-fire-lookout-tower-open-for-tours-in-daggett-county/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Ute Mountain Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Photo of Ute Mountain Lookout
Photo: Lawrence A. Radcliffe, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: register numbers Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  4. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: register numbers Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: design, dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: register numbers, dates, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: register numbers, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  8. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, 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
  9. 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.