The Chiliwist Butte fire lookout site near Malott is a great early season destination and the Chilowist area also has some really neat history.
An incredible 30+ mile ultralight overnight to Miner's Ridge Lookout, deep in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. This was lookout #46 for me and I enjoyed not only surprising solitude, but one of the most fantastic mountain sunrises I've ever seen!
Sometimes the most memorable adventures are the biggest disasters, aren't they? The story of kayak camping in a Mad Max-like apocalypse of wildfire smoke...
A great ridge traverse of the Golden Stairway trail from Starvation Mountain to the Old Baldy lookout site with some of the most amazing views of the North Cascades I've ever seen!
It's a pretty great thing when you can spend a few days celebrating your dad's 70th birthday with tamales, apple pie, and fire lookout adventures!
A return visit to First Butte to check on the condition of the lookout and see the rapid deterioration of the once photogenic ground house.
A week spent with volunteers painting Lookout Mountain in Twisp, swapping stories, and remembering the beautiful history of fire lookouts.
A wonderful 3 days spent backpacking the White Pass/Pilot Ridge loop in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. This one has it all: wildflowers, green meadows, alpine lakes, old-growth forests, and mountains for miles.
A day spent at the Columbia Breaks Fire Interpretive Center working on the Badger Mountain fire lookout and learning valuable skills in the art of lookout restoration, especially window glazing!
A trip report from a 3 day solo backpack of the Devil's Dome loop in the Pasayten. Devilishly steep? Absolutely, but full of heavenly ridgetop camps, North Cascades vistas, and surprising solitude.
Over the Memorial Day holiday I had an unplanned summit of Muckamuck Mountain, the site of a former D-6 cupola lookout. I also had a chance encounter with a fan club of sorts in the middle of nowhere!
A look back at some of my biggest outdoor adventures of 2018, mostly to remote Washington State fire lookouts, and some funny fire lookout bagging stats along the way. What were your big 2018 accomplishments?