Big Hole Lookout (MT)

Fourteen feet square on Big Hole Peak

Big Hole Lookout stands on the ground. It is four courses of large logs, 14 feet on a side, laid on a short talus foundation at 6,922 feet. The site is in Sanders County, about 4.3 miles northeast of Eddy, on the Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger District of the Lolo National Forest. The Forest Service describes the view from it as 360 degrees of valleys and mountain ranges “for miles and miles.”

The Forest Service lists the furnishings exactly: a twin bed with a mattress pad, two cots, a table with two chairs, and a wood stove. No other furnishings are provided. Up to four people may sleep inside, and renters bring their own bedding, cookware, fuel, flashlights, and toilet paper. Firewood for the stove may be gathered nearby. A rustic outhouse with a vault toilet stands about 200 feet away, and a hitching post is set at the lookout. The building is kept locked, and renters receive a key code with their reservation. There is room outside for tents and stock animals, and there is some cell service. Recreation.gov tells guests to expect cold and often wet or damp weather on the peak even when the valley below is warm and dry. It also asks them to keep food, garbage, and other waste put away at all times because of bears.

The sources disagree about water. The Forest Service lookout page places a spring half a mile from the lookout and says its water must be filtered. Recreation.gov says there is no water on site and puts the spring three-quarters of a mile downhill, with water it calls non-potable. The trail page says only, “No water.” The lookout is rented each summer into October. The 2026 season was set for June 10 through October 15.

The trail up from the gravel pit

From Plains, Highway 200 runs northwest about 7.5 miles to Weeksville Creek Road (FR 887). About 3 miles north on that road, Big Hole Road (FR 5587) turns off to the left. The Forest Service puts the trailhead about 10 miles along Big Hole Road. Recreation.gov says about 17.5 miles and advises at least 60 to 90 minutes from Plains “on a steep and winding road.” Cars park in a gravel pit at the trailhead, which has a corral for horses.

The last stretch is Big Hole Lookout Trail, number 368, open to hikers, riders, and bicycles. The Forest Service trail page calls it moderate, just over 2.5 miles long, through mature lodgepole forest, with several loop options. The lookout and reservation pages give it as 3 miles one way on an easy to moderate trail. A guided hike in June 2025 figured the round trip at 6 miles with 1,400 feet of climbing. In early summer, the trail page says, a visitor may meet beargrass in bloom, “the Dr. Seuss-like spectacle.” The surrounding forest covers about 2 million acres. It is home to mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, deer, and grizzly and black bears, along with bald and golden eagles.

A Grange Hall on talus, 1930 to 1972

The lookout was built in 1930 for what was then the Cabinet National Forest, under the name Big Hole Peak Lookout. The Forest Service calls it a “Grange Hall” type, a design older than the standard L-4. It says the type is rare because it was difficult to build, and that Big Hole is one of only two lookouts of its kind on the Lolo still intact.

The state names the type differently. In January 2026, Montana’s State Historic Preservation Office announced the lookout’s National Register nomination and described it as a log L-5 style lookout. It called Big Hole one of only two surviving lookouts of that style designed by Forest Service engineer Clyde P. Fickes. In the state’s words, the building represents “the Federal Government’s early fire protection and natural resource conservation efforts in northern Idaho and Montana.”

The lookout served as a fire lookout for the last time in 1972 and was then abandoned. In 1984, while it stood empty, it was determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under the Lookouts on the Lolo Project.

Pack strings and the Passport in Time crew

The building was restored over several summers by Passport in Time volunteers, and the Wild Horse Plains Back Country Horsemen carried in their supplies. The Plains chapter of the horsemen, re-formed in 2006, describes the district’s trails as “left from the network built through this heavily-timbered area in the 1920’s and ‘30’s.” By its own account, the chapter joined the lookout restoration on the peak in 2013. It packed materials and supplies for the volunteers through 2014, 2015, and 2016, with more packing planned for 2017.

The chapter’s summary of those years reads: “Throughout the 2014-2017 summers we; opened trails, skidded and peeled logs, hung 114 signs, pulled blueweed... and, backed up by serious pack animals and expertise from the Region 1 and Bitterroot National Forest pack strings, packed camp and equipment for the nine-person Passport-In-Time crew working on the Big Hole Peak Lookout Restoration project.”

On August 25, 2017, the U.S. Department of Agriculture presented the chapter with a certificate of appreciation for its support of the project, through District Ranger David J. Hattis. The award also recognized members for teaching volunteers and Forest Service personnel Defensive Horsemanship and how to pack gear safely to and from the lookout. The Passport in Time projects were completed that same year. In 2021 the lookout was offered to the public for overnight rental for the first time.

A nomination to the Keeper

On June 8, 2025, Juli Thurston of the Friends of Scotchman Peaks led a group from the Town Pump in Plains to the trailhead and up to the lookout. Erika Scheuring, an archaeologist with the Lolo National Forest, went along.

On January 23, 2026, the Montana State Historic Preservation Review Board took up the nomination. Sydney Bacon, another Lolo National Forest archaeologist, presented the nomination and argued that the lookout qualified for the National Register under Criteria A and C. Board members thanked the Forest Service and noted that few L-5 lookouts remain. They said they expected the Forest Service to bring forward a nomination for the other L-5 lookout, Skookum Butte, near the Idaho line. Chair Chris Averill called for public comment. Laura Evilsizer moved to forward the nomination to the Keeper of the National Register with the board’s edits, Mary Williams seconded, and the board agreed unanimously.

The board’s vote was not a listing. The National Park Service’s pending list, covering nominations received before March 14, 2026, records the entry: Big Hole Lookout, Sanders County, 4.3 miles northeast of Eddy, Lolo National Forest, Plains vicinity, SG100012930.