United States observation tower
Gardiner Peak Lookout
You can see 85 km from here, looking south.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 85 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 85 kmFarthest ridgelooking south
- 99%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 3Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 2,005 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 3 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are from July to August.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Jansouth-west6 min before the sea-level sunset24%
- Febwest8 min before the sea-level sunset24%
- Marwest8 min before the sea-level sunset22%
- Aprwest6 min before the sea-level sunset26%
- Maynorth-west6 min before the sea-level sunset31%
- Junnorth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset40%
- Julnorth-west6 min before the sea-level sunset68%
- Augwest6 min before the sea-level sunset64%
- Sepwest8 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Octwest8 min before the sea-level sunset34%
- Novsouth-west8 min before the sea-level sunset23%
- Decsouth-west6 min before the sea-level sunset22%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Gardiner Peak Lookout.
Gardiner Peak Lookout is an observation tower in United States, 2,005 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 85 km away, looking south.
3 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Stripe Mountain (2,744 m), 51 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 99% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from July to August.
Get there and stay
- Going upCheck the opening hours before you go: towers and decks close in bad weather.
- Lemhi County Airport (SMN)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 117 km in a straight lineCar hire at MSO airport (Missoula)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 2named peaks within 5 kmEagle Rock, Gardiner Peak
- other viewpoints within 5 km
- cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
- marked trails within 3 km
- shelters and huts within 5 km
- car parks within 3 km
- visitor centres within 5 km
- restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- campsites within 10 km
- places to stay within 10 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Gardiner Peak Lookout, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Peakyas41 mountains within 25 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Other viewpoints nearby.
Gardiner Peak Lookout
United States
- 61Viewyas Score
- 85 kmFarthest ridge
- 3Peaks in view
- 2,005 mAltitude
Hells Canyon
United States · 160 km
- 22Viewyas Score
- 17 kmFarthest ridge
- —Peaks in view
- 528 mAltitude
Devil's Slide
United States · 324 km
- 55Viewyas Score
- 52 kmFarthest ridge
- 9Peaks in view
- 1,996 mAltitude
Sheepeater Cliff
United States · 339 km
- 54Viewyas Score
- 61 kmFarthest ridge
- 9Peaks in view
- 2,180 mAltitude
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q55138399) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
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