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!
My experience as a first-season Fire Lookout at Goat Peak in the Methow Valley during the midst of an active fire season.
A beautiful hike to an old lookout site above Bridge Creek near Twisp. Not much history is known about this one.
A week spent with volunteers painting Lookout Mountain in Twisp, swapping stories, and remembering the beautiful history of fire lookouts.
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 5-day Altai Hok ski trip to historic guard stations in the gorgeous Blue Mountains of southeast Washington provided solitude, wildlife, and the perfect kind of quiet year-end reflection.
A wonderful ridgeline traverse to McClure Mountain, not only a prominent high point in Twisp but also a former fire lookout location.
A visit to the spectacular broad summit of Cooper Mountain high atop Chelan Ridge, the location of several old fire lookout structures.
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 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.
Two dozen or more of our remaining historical lookouts in Washington State are still staffed by during fire season. Here is a list of staffed lookouts as well as some etiquette tips for visiting a lookout on active duty.
Recently I was able to visit the Yakama Indian Reservation as part of a fire lookout work party. I met some incredible people and saw a gorgeous land that few are privileged to see.