Big Creek Baldy. Lookout Rental

The last mile is fairly rough, the Forest Service says, but vehicles with high ground clearance can make it. The route leaves Libby one mile north on Highway 37, turns onto Pipe Creek Road for 19 miles, then east on Road 336 for about three-quarters of a mile, then right onto Big Creek Baldy Mountain Road 309 for five miles to the summit. At the top stands a timber tower with a 225-square-foot cab and a catwalk around it. From the cab the view runs over the densely forested peaks of the Purcell Range to Lake Koocanusa and the Yaak River valley. A photograph in The Western News in 2016 looked west over the Turner Mountain Ski Area.

The Kootenai National Forest rents the lookout to the public through the Libby Ranger District. The cab is secured with a combination lock, and renters call the district before they arrive to confirm the combination. The sources do not agree on the figures. The Forest Service gives the summit as 5,780 feet in one place and 5,768 in another. The National Historic Lookout Register gives 5,732. The tower’s height varies the same way: 52 feet by the Forest Service, 51 by Visit Montana, 41 feet by the Register, and 40 feet with 55 steps to the top in a 2016 Western News caption.

Four flights to the cab

Terry Musgrove, who spent five nights here with Woody the dog in August 2017, counted four flights of stairs to the cab. He wrote that the stairs give visitors “a good work out every time they go up or down.” A pulley rigged with a bucket brings up small items. Visit Montana discourages bringing young children or pets because of the tower’s height.

The cab sleeps four, in one double bed and one twin, both with mattresses. It has propane lights, a two-burner cooktop, a heater, a table and chairs, and a fire extinguisher. Propane is provided. There is no water and no electricity. The Forest Service lists cookware, bedding, lanterns, matches, towels, and an ice chest among the things renters must bring. Musgrove found the cab “surprisingly well stocked” with pots and pans, dishes, cups, and eating utensils, along with a large empty cooler and two heaters. Three windows open, each with a screen, and there is a screen door. He called it “a nice touch since it can get pretty hot up there in the summer.”

In 2016 the Western News photographer Paul Sievers found an Osborne Fire Finder in the cab, along with board games, paper towels, a first aid kit, and a few items tacked to the walls. Cell service reaches the lookout. On clear nights the Forest Service recommends the catwalk for stargazing.

Cairns, deer, and water from Pipe Creek

Below the tower are a vault-toilet outhouse and a campfire ring. Firewood is not provided. In 2017 there was also a picnic table. Two trails lead away from the lookout into the forested parts of the mountain. Musgrove wrote that they “have nowhere to go but down,” and that rock cairns mark them across the bald sections. He saw many deer on the summit, and two came to the base of the lookout every morning and evening. The forest also holds elk, moose, grizzly and black bears, wolves, and mountain lions. The Libby area has more than 400 miles of summer trails.

Renters bring their own water for drinking, cooking, and washing. Visit Montana advises that all open water is considered contaminated. The nearest water Musgrove could find was Pipe Creek, about six miles downhill.

Stef Ludvikson’s cabin and the towers that followed

According to the National Historic Lookout Register, Big Creek Baldy “was an obvious location” when the Forest Service was building a fire detection system on the Kootenai. The first structure on the summit was a log cabin. The Western News, writing in 2016, dates it to 1928 and credits it to Stef Ludvikson. The Register gives 1929.

Ludvikson came back in 1934 and built a tower beside the cabin. The Western News puts its height at about 55 feet. The Register describes a 30-foot wood tower with a small cab, 7 by 7 feet, built “to get a better view.” The present lookout replaced it. The Register and the National Forest Foundation date the new tower to 1966, and the Register calls it a 41-foot timber live-in tower with a 15-by-15-foot flattop cab. The Western News says the 1934 tower was removed in 1967 and the current structure went up the same year.

The log cabin on the summit has its own versions. The Western News reported in 2016 that the 1928 cabin still stands, and the Register calls the 1929 cabin “still there (in need of repair).” Musgrove’s account, published by the National Forest Foundation, says the cabin next to the lookout once served as a bunkhouse for fire detection crews. In his telling it was not built on the site but moved there in the 1950s to replace an earlier cabin that had fallen into disrepair. The same decay then overtook it, and the ranger district caved in its roof to keep it from falling on someone. “Watch out for nails,” he wrote.

Mary Laws, recreation project manager for the Kootenai National Forest, told The Western News that several lookouts in the area were built in the 1930s and 1950s. Rangers would stay in them for days at a time, watching the mountains for new fires.

Packrats and diaries

The lookout was retired from fire service in the 1980s. According to The Western News, it entered the forest’s rental program in 1984. The Kootenai had begun renting lookouts in the early 1980s. “With aerial detectors and other means, we don’t have much use for lookout towers anymore,” Laws said. “Most of them weren’t being used and some had packrats moving in. Luckily, we were able to add them to our recreation program and put them on the cabin rental program.” A lookout must first have its history documented through an archaeological process and pass a safety evaluation. Laws said the Northwest Montana Chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association carries out this work. Some lookouts remain in service, among them Blue Mountain, north of Libby, which is not for rent.

Big Creek Baldy was entered on the National Historic Lookout Register on May 12, 2000, as US 341, MT 23. The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists it as a standing tower in Lincoln County. Laws counted it in 2016 among the most popular lookout rentals in the area in summer. Jim Hayes, president of the Libby Chamber of Commerce, saw such rentals as part of the town’s turn toward tourism. “We don’t have anything else left,” he said.

“All of the history and the local connections,” Laws said. “We have a lot of old diaries up in the lookouts from people that stayed there.”