Title: July 4, 2020 - Delilah Lookout
Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's : Animals :
Hike Info:
Type:
Lookout
Description:
Woke up around 0500, but
drifted on and off for then next hour or so. Got up 0600 and checked
lightning report-none. Then just dawdled for the next hour or so.
Breakfast is granola.
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| Gary, the Window Washer |
We are on extended hours, so
we go in service, along with Buck Rock at 0800. The sun is a bit warm
this morning, but it should turn nice around 1100. This morning is
pretty mundane. Jeff calls us to check on us. Nothing important.
At Delilah,
the temps which the body feels is usually the inverse of what the
actual temperature is. In the morning, the air is still and the sun
catches you and bakes you. But around 1100 the breezes come along and
it becomes really pleasant. Good thing with no visitors around, there
is no dress code, particularly in the morning-the hours I get a tan.
Spoke too soon. We had a
visitor. Not in the tower, but a local who circles the tower. Sherri
is on one of the lower rungs and talks with them. Turns out they were
the ones we saw last night on Davis
Road.
They said they own property down there.
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| Red-Shouldered Hawk in flight |
Back to washing windows and
scanning. Sometimes we even catch a bird (in flight) which does not
humm. Speaking of birds, there was a magnificent bird of prey which
we are not sure of the type: hawk or eagle (From Sherri’s
description, Rose thinks it is a red-shouldered hawk)? But we enjoyed it
soaring from below us, then over the cab and back down towards Bear
Creek.
Then it took off over Dude
Ridge,
not to be seen again. Excitement!
Lots of radio traffic
concerning many people not doing the right thing. First, we are under
a lot of restrictions on where fires may be lit or where people may
camp. Plus people are parking on the road, blocking traffic and
generally disregarding the rules.This is keeping people on our end of
the world pretty busy, except for us. We are pretty much isolated.
But Buck Rock has been on the radio all afternoon directing people in
the Hume Lake Big Meadows areas where there are smoke, mostly from
campsites. Jeff is showing why he is trusted up there.
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| Dead Trees |
An example of this is a patrol
from Sierra who was going up the Kings
to Garnet
Dike.
When he crossed the bridge above Pine
Flat, he
came across two groups who were parked. From the radio traffic, they
had a pretty good fire going and had litter just spread throughout
the area. I wondered what were they thinking? Were they trying to be
caught being in such an obvious place? The patrol did not cite them
because they both put out the fire and cleaned up the trash.
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| Flag over Delilah |
1600 has come and gone. Sherri
left me to take a nap earlier this afternoon-for whatever reason, I
needed it. Felt a lot better afterwards. I did an inventory of
Delilah’s supplies and sent it off to Mich for her information.
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| Lasagna and Homemade BreadDinner |
At 1627 Sierra says that all
prevention, detection and suppression have extended hours to 2200.
Sequoia NF has already requested we be on until 2000. After that we
cannot see anyway, so we will go out of service then. Besides we need
to turn back around and go in service at 0800 tomorrow. For us old
folks, that gets a bit rough.
Between scans, we have dinner.
Tonight is lasagna, bread, While the lasagna does taste good, being
up here, it really does taste good.
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| Another view of Pine Flat at Golden Hour |
It is 2000 and we go out of
service. The last of our three lookouts-they needed to go out
earlier. So as Kathy said, We
were the lone eyes of the forest in our area.
A big burden, but we did not fail.
Today I felt more tired than
yesterday. Still, it is good to be up here, even if there is not a
big event we are involved with.
Two special treats for
tonight:
- If there are any 4th of July fireworks within 20 miles of us, we should see them
- Tonight there is a partial lunar eclipse.
On the second one, the full
moon has been spectacular. Well worth what we paid for it-12 hours of
looking. But where was the
eclipse?
At least I did not see anything faded or cut during the time it was
to occur. Disappointed a bit. Still how the moon looked was out of
this world.
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| Lunar Eclipse-really? |
The fireworks, we could see
neighborhood actions throughout our viewing range. They were like
little flowers bursting out and disappearing all within a few
seconds. I do not think we saw anything large going on, which is just
as well with the large crowds the big shows attract and the potential
for spreading COVID-19.
I am feeling tired so we went
to bed before 2200. Read for a while until the falling of an ipad
kept waking me up.
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| Sunset and Pine Flat Reservoir |
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| Reflections on afirefinder |
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| Moon Rise |
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| One of last year's babies |
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| Hummers |
