Gary-Summer: October 5, 2018

Friday, October 5, 2018

October 5, 2018 - Delilah Lookout

Title: October 5, 2018 - Delilah Lookout
Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's

North towards Patterson Bluffs and Mt Nelson

Trail head: Delilah Lookout

Hike Info:

Type:Lookout

Description:

This will probably be the last time up in the tower this season. Really have enjoyed the time this year, even though we did not get up here how we wanted to-sort of choppy. But at least we will be up here for three days. Should be good.

There has been rain and lighting in the area. So we have a lot of areas to scan for. Kathy has given me a new toy-the lighting map. I have been playing with it for the last day or two. I will need to incorporate it into my bag of tools. I had printed the maps and exported the data, but concentrated on the area within 50 miles. Later on when we got to the lookout, I plotted the lighting strikes on our fire finder. This should help in identifying places to look for smokes. But there are about 110 strikes within 20 miles of Delilah. Many of them though are in clusters, so that should cut down some.

McKenzie Ridge and Pine Ridge

But I am getting ahead of myself. We left home a few minutes late, we head east down 180. Just a few cars in front of us, a car ran into a pickup truck. Do not know if anybody was hurt, we just knew that if we were not paying attention, we would have ended up in the car’s rear end. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Before we passed by Snowline Lodge, we saw the scar from the Horse Fire when we came up here last time. When we leave highway 180, we go past the McKenzie Heliport. There, we see a line of forest service trucks. So we stop and ask them is there anything which we should know about-we are going to Delilah. They said they were going to take down some snags. That is always welcome.

We get to the lookout at 0905. By the time we got up to the tower, it was 0920. While I am taking the weather, I hear Breckenridge go in service-it is a lookout to the south. But we are the first lookout in our area to go in service. The view today to varied. To the south and west we can only see 4-6 miles. There are clouds and they look like they are building. But to the north and east, we can see forever. Both Kaiser and Goddard peaks have a covering of snow on them. I can get let my binoculars rest on these mountains for a long time today.

I barely get my staffing in from the Internet before Porterville start going through their weather and staffing. By picking it off of the Internet before time, I do not have to try to catch every word which they say-they pretty much read what is on the ‘Net.

As we look around, we see a vehicle on Davis Road, close to Sampson Flat. As far as we know, there should be nobody down there. So we call the duty officer. He says that it probably is a rancher rounding up his cattle. The rancher has a permit to be there. So we just keep an eye out and see if anything happens.

Clouds coming in over White Deer area

Clouds coming in over Pine Ridge

Clouds

Around 1100 clouds start coming in from the west. When they go over Pine Ridge, the lookout becomes enveloped; our visibility goes to zero. We are in our own world now. We tell Sierra this when we do the 1100 lookout check in. Shortly afterwards, we tell Portville about our lack of visibility. Park Ridge shortly afterwards chimes in that they two have zero visibility. This lack of being able to see ends around 1320 when we can consistently see about 4-5 miles in all directions. At least it is better than nothing.

We hear various reports from Sierra’s side. One of the lighting fires has been called out, but two more are reported-neither of which we can see, even on a good day. One is in Crown Valley, which by the coordinates is just on the other side of Spanish Mountain from us. But the smoke will need to climb high before we can see that. The other is at Nelder Grove, north of Oakhurst-we hope we do not see that one.

Sun setting on Rodgers Ridge

By 1700, we go out of service along with Buck Rock. While not reported any fires, we were able to talk with Buck Rock a couple of times as they were not hearing radio messages. At least we were of some use to somebody.

We have about an hour and a half worth of daylight after we go out of service. Sherri fixes us some left over spaghetti for dinner-tastes good. And then we get cleaned up and ready for darkness to descend on us. When we go down to the outhouse, we see a magnificent sunset-sort of a good reward for being fogged in earlier. Then it is time to go and get tucked into our sleeping bag. A bit of reading and then time to say goodnight Sherri.