August 12, 2018 - Delilah Lookout

Title: August 12, 2018 - Delilah Lookout
Hike Info : Description :  Background :  Extra Photo's : Animals

Rancheria Falls

Trail head: Delilah Lookout

Hike Info:

Type: Lookout

Description:

What a glorious night. Last night I spent the night on the catwalk in my sleeping bag-not because Sherri kicked me out of the cab or anything like that. But the Pleiades Meteor Shower should have been in prime viewing mode. Unfortunately, I do not think they showed. Or at least they were not shooting when my eyes were open.

But what my eyes did see were stars and stars and more stars filling my vision. It was wonderful waking up to see them. I did not try to constellation connect or collect, but just tried to take them in. One can understand why we will never understand God. As large as the universe is, my God is infinite. The stars are glorious, He is the Glory. May I never ever forget that, or if I do, may you send your stars to remind me.

Around 0530 the sky started to get a tinge of orange, not pink like a normal morning. This begins the third and last day in the lookout on this trip. I suspect the orange is the amount of smoke in the air. When looking for the stars last night, they were obscured lower down. Maybe that is why we could not see them?

I get up at 0615 and get my stuff together off of the catwalk. Even Sherri is waking up now. Now it is the normal stuff-getting cleaned up, eating oatmeal for breakfast and the like. Today is our last day at lookout, so we send down stuff we do not need for the day such as sleeping bags, mats and the pee can. Sherri gets the task of taking that down now. At 0926 we go in service for our day.

Sherri looking over the country side

Most of the day is pretty mundane-scans, taking weather, checking in, … But the smoke is clearing so we start to see a lot more territory.

We have some visitors on motorcycles. But they do not come up. All which they want to know is how to get to the Kings River. We tell them via Pine Flat which to them is a highly unsatisfactory answer. They want to go down Davis Road or some other way. But both the Delilah Springs Road-which meets up with the Davis Road and the Davis Road are closed. We are told because of both falling trees or the potential for it. They are not happy and it looks like they are trying to figure out another way around. After that we keep a look on Davis Road to see if there is any movement on it. It so happens after they left, we hear the sound of a couple trees falling.

We hear Mich of Buck Rock talking to Patrol 33 on the R5 Project channel. I have been looking through the road closures and see that the Davis Road closure expired on August 1st. Looking online, I cannot see any updated or revised closure. After they are done, I ask Buck Rock about this, if there is an updated closure notice. Unknown. She talks with Patrol 31 who does not know either, but will check Monday with the office.

Looking north with clearer air

Later on, Patrol 33 says that the Boole Tree Road is open. I ask about the Converse Basin Road. Yes, but only a small distance, looks like to the Chicago Stump. The Verplank and Hoist Roads are closed.I fumble the radio response. Instead of “Copying” that I heard the response from Patrol 33, I respond with something which means the same thing, but not as expected nor as concise. At least when Buck Rock calls me on it, I can answer affirmative.

Patrol 33 is pretty active today. We hear her over at Stony Creek. She is reporting that the Stony Fire is being declared out and she is returning to Big Meadows. Later on we hear her again asking for an incident number for an abandoned campfire. Sounds like the same place as yesterday. She is being busy today.

In between the trees falling, we start to hear gunshots. We cannot pinpoint where they are shooting. I think someplace over on Pine Ridge, but we never see them, so not sure of the actual location. This sound carries on all afternoon. Probably target practice as hunting season has not started yet.

Tombstone on a ridge

A while later a van comes up the road. A family with three children have come to visit Delilah-not on accident, but because the father had been up here in his youth and had wanted to share it with his wife and children. So good.

Division 3 checks in. Later on we hear that he is having vehicle issues on Belmont and will be delayed.

Yipee, we are starting to be able to see distances this afternoon. Mt Goddard is hazy, but seeable behind Mt Reinstein. But this is the furthest out we can see. Other places are hazy, just further out hazy than this morning, or definitely yesterday morning.

By the time 1800 comes along, we are ready to go home. So we checkout with SNF and PV and start down the road to home. We stop in at Bear Mountain for Pizza. Then get home after 2000. Time for a shower and unpack. A good three days.

Background

Clear Text on Radio. Also called Plain Language. This is a standard vocabulary meant to be efficient, concise and understandable. An example is instead of saying “Yes”, it is better to say “affirmative” because Yes can be slurred and misunderstood. Or instead of being drawn out like my response was, “I heard it”, “Copy” lets everybody know that you heard what was spoken. One of these days I will be fluent in this.

Animals

Our hummers