It has been over a month since I have been in a Lookout. Of course, I have been somewhat busy with our Ireland trip. Also last week I was sick last week and probably if I was still sick this week, it would have been a good reason to stay home. But fortunately by Sunday I started to feel better.
Tuesday was the day which I got asked to do things lookout related. First Greg called me and asked me to identify the plug which the stove used. I like talking with him. In some ways it is like talking to myself-I think there are similar thought patterns.We also discussed one of the places which we use to orient the Osborne Firefinder. In particular, it is Burnt Point. We use eight orientation points or lantmarks at each lookout to make sure the FireFinder is oriented correctly. There was some question about what the correct azimuth is for this landmark. Also Wendy called and asked if she could meet me to take up some brochures.
I stop at the Big
Stump
bathroom and then drive up to the Park
Ridge Lookout.
I get there a few minutes before 0900, plenty of time. It only takes
a few minutes to unload the car. It is even faster than I thought it
would be. The reason why it is quicker than I thought? I forgot my
backpack. The thing which I will miss most is the food for the day.
There are a few other things in there, but not essential. I should
survive-living off of my body fat.
I get myself set up. One of the first things I do is to take the weather-all seems pretty good. Coming up from the Valley, it seemed like there was a layer of smoke-not sure what fire the smoke is from. But up near at 7,500’, I have pretty decent visibility. I go into service at 0930 with bother Porterville and Ash Mountain Fire.
I start on my first task-trying to figure out the plug. I pull out the stove, not as far as I would have liked. So I can only easily pull the plug out a fraction of an inch. I send a picture to Greg and shortly afterwards he indicates that he really does need to see the male end of the plug. So I reach over the counter and wiggle in and use my finger tips to wiggle the plug out. I did have a thought to use a screwdriver to wedge it out, but then after half a second, I thought how bad of an idea that was. Eventually I got the plug out, took a picture, sent it to Greg. He is happy. So the plug gets plugged in, the stove gets put back into its place, and it even works.
The second part of my task was to come up with what the azimuth was for Burnt Point. I take my view carefully and compare it to our visual book. The visual book has pictures of everything we can see from the lookout and the azimuth for it. I was within two minutes of the visual book value. That is close. I also have a spreadsheet with the computed azimuth from the lat/long of two points. With this one I was within one minute.
Visual |
169o30’ |
Firefinder |
169o32’ |
Computed |
169o33’ |
This gets me to about 1030. The rest of the day is spent doing lookout things. Such as scanning, listening to the radio, and a bit of daydreaming. If you have looked at my Burnt Point page, you will notice that there is a picture of the landmark. I took some pictures of places which I do not have pictures of them before. We shall see how usable they are.
With no lunch, I ignore any rumblings coming from my stomach for the afternoon. It is one of those afternoons which lookouts both are happy with because there is no relevant activity. But it does make the time go past slowly. Around 1730, I got ready to vacate the lookout. And at 1750, I went out of service.
After I text Sherri with my plans to eat on the way down at Bear Mountain Pizza, I start off. At Log Meadow, there is a flock of bovine-I know, cattle do not come in flocks. When I get cell reception, I let Wendy know so she can tell whoever is coming in tomorrow to be on the alert for these beasts. When I get to Big Stump I put in my order and tell them that I would eat in. I got behind a slow car, but that is OK. I get to Bear Mountain Pizza a few minutes after 1900. Apparently they were closing in-restaurant dining when I came in because the guy did not seem to be happy that I was eating in. They turned the sign to close after I got my order. So I eat fast and did not doddle. I get home a little have 2000, a bit tired, but glad I went up.
Trail Lesson: No matter how much you take care to pack everything, chances are that you will forget something. Deal with it and move on.
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