13 – Scott Mountain Lookout
Scott Mountain Lookout is an active fire lookout in Boise National Forest, Idaho. It’s located at an elevation of 8,215 feet, about nine miles northwest of Lowman, ID.
Scott Mountain Lookout is located at the south end of the Log Mountain/Deadwood Ridge Divide. The area is rugged and wild, and the lookout is still occupied during fire season.
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Coordinates: 44.18152, -115.78903
Elevation: 8157 ft
Difficulty: 3
What to Expect: No info
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Nice ride in the smoky mountains!
Tried to ride up to the lookout this afternoon. The roads to the lookout are closed due to several local fires. No access until winter. All north side roads are closed along Banks-Lowman Road.
Went up on July 8th. The new lookout, Thomas, was just moving in for the season.
Nice ride up, smoke obscured the view though. Hope everyone is safe.
Gorgeous day, spoke to the guy in the lookout. He was pretty friendly and explained about the views when they were available 🙂
I took the harder way and accessed the lookout via Airline single track. I will put up a ride review in a few. I have a video posted for the trial also. As for my style, this is one of the hardest trails I have done in a few. OnX rates the single track at a 5 on a 1-10 scale, making it an intermediate trail. Loose terrain, exposure, and other things add to the difficulty. For the club, if you follow my GPX file this will be the highest difficulty at a 5. I took the road back down due to a broken helmet along the way. The road was in great shape with the first part of the highway a little ruff. I would say this is a 2.5 rating
It’s best to park by the Great Scotts store somewhere and take the dirt roads up to the trailhead. If you don’t mind a few pinstripes the road can be driven. I towed a 14′ trailer in and parked on one of the pullouts near the trailhead.
AirlineTrail
https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01J2PAR2NHT48YEK45327VY4RE
Route to Trailhead
https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01J2PAYRJR4E05NY8CKXPKCKEA
Parking
https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01J2PAZXFQGBYD8K8K66S9YX7T
Alternate Parking
https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01J2PB0NCY2C5F21BT19PZTYN0
Always a cool place to go. The lookout is now occupied. It’s open from 09 to 6. They usually will give you a brief rundown on what they do in the towers.
Rode up Scott Mountain Road from Banks Lowman Hwy. The first bit of trail as you climb is rocky and has a good drop off on the side which makes it a little stressful. There is a beautiful saddle with views on both sides as you get up near the lookout. Only a little bit of scattered snow left in shaded areas. The gate was closed and locked up when we arrived late in the evening from a long day of adventure riding. Mosquitos were pretty bad up there. The views are incredible.
Our long first day of our ride due to some single track issues near crouch delayed us to getting to the lookout too late and the gate was closed and we were way too spent to hike it. Scott mntn road to the deadwood reservoir is pretty rocky with a bunch of baseball sized loose rocks on top of hardpacked road
Beautiful view! there are still 3 snow banks and all are easy to get around.
Scott Mtn Lookout is accessible! Scott Mtn Road appears to have been recently graded. Ton of small to medium size gravel with no snow and currently no washboard up to the turn to the lookout. Going into the lookout there are 3 snowbanks that are easily navigated if you take your time and pick a good line off to one side. I honored the closed gate/no motorized vehicle and made the short .3 mile hike into the lookout. Always amazing views from this lookout.