Gary-Summer: September 2, 2019

Monday, September 2, 2019

September 2, 2019 - Delilah Lookout

Title: September 2, 2019 - Delilah Lookout
Hike Info : Description : Menu : Extra Photo's : Animals

Trail head: Delilah Lookout

Hike Info:

Type: Lookout

Description:

I have said many times that the evenings are worth being a volunteer up at Delilah, but the mornings are really not worth waking up to. Usually the sun just pops out in back of one of the ridges with little or no fanfare.

But this morning was different! First, I wake up entirely too early at least by 0515. I am trying to convince my eyes to close and go back to sleep. But there is a flash of light in the north west corner of lookout’s cab. Who is down below flashing lights at us? So I quietly get up look around from the catwalk-there is a sturdy gate between us and anything down there, so I am not concerned about an intruder. Then another bright flash of light happens, this time from the southeast-lightning! (The flash on the northwest was a reflection.) I see several more flashes about two minutes apart. It looks like it is in the Giant Forest/Alta Peak direction. Later when I looked at a lightning map, I see that most of the strikes are to the east of Mineral King. Now that is how a morning in a lookout should start.

Clouds glowing

But wait, there is more! Now that the lightning is done with its fireworks, I can observe the clouds. And the clouds are the second act in this morning’s entertainment. There is gray clouds spread in bands to the east. Even with the dark skies, I can see that clouds have accumulated all around us. Last night around 0230 I had woken up-overhead was stars, all around us was clouds.But now, there are hints of the sun coming turning clouds golden. Each minute more clouds get bathed in light, even the showers of rain in the distance have a light to them.

Sunshine and Rain

Now the sun is up, much of the color fades. But in a little while we have an encore act. Kathy has told me that it has rained in Pinehurst. But from here, we can look out around us and see where rain is falling. Then the sun breaks through and shines in what looks like smoke, but is mist on Mill Flat Creek. The light just shimmers across it. Then a bit of water falls on us, but nothing which registers in the rain gauge. Not a bad encore.

Sherri wakes up around 0730 after most of the excitement happens-she is there for the falling moisture. But we start getting ready for the new day. By now you know, we fix breakfast, get cleaned up and ready to go. The radio goes on at 0900. I talk with Buck Rock about the lightning. Then we go into service around 0930. I also talk with Park Ridge about the lightning after they go in-service.

Just before 1000 rolls around, the phone rings. It is Patrol 33-the real Patrol 33, not the voice we have been hearing on the radio the last couple of days. The voice is a ride-along person who is usually on horseback. Patrol 33 would like us to do a relay to a work crew to meet up with them. Because of our location and height, we can reach places which coming out of Big Meadows is hard to do. So I use channel R5 Project to try to get a hold of the work group. No success. But about half an hour later, I hear Patrol 33 on the radio and they do meet up. It was good to hear that voice.

Haze view vs haze filtered out. Looking up the Middle Fork of the Kings

It is getting close to lunch time, but then we hear a smoke has been spotted along the Dinkey Road, close to Swanson Meadow, at the end of Blue Canyon. We can see into some of that area. So we start scanning the area but cannot see it. Several Sierra Forest Service personnel are now searching for this smoke and not finding it. We at Delilah ask for clarification about the location. We also communicate we do not have visual on the smoke. Then an engine going up the four-lane to Shaver spots a smoke on the other side of Pine Ridge-the one close to Shaver. It is on the far side of the ridge, so even if the air was cleaner, we could not see it. Turns out this was the smoke-so we feel better that it was not us being blind.

Hummingbirds

That little episode gave us a half-an-hour of excitement. Then we had lunch for a few minutes. Then the afternoon was more of what we had been experiencing this weekend. Except it seemed that a lot more abandoned campfires were being found. We continued to do our scans and listen to anything relevant for our area of interest.

Sherri, the hummingbird whisperer

That is Sherri is the official hummingbird feeder for our team. She has already cleaned and refilled it once this weekend-it is amazing how much those birds will drink. But now the bees are taking over. So Sherri has the feeder taken down and put away until the bees go off someplace else-that will probably be a couple of days.

I will admit I was feeling a bit tired this afternoon. After doing a scan, I would lay down-could not really nap. Then talk with Sherri or read a book. Then back to doing a scan. Glad we did not find a smoke. But also hoping that if there is one out there, that we would find it. Someplace in there, we do some cleaning, like mop the floor. Looks better.

It is getting close to 1800, our normal quitting time. But do we go to 1900? Sierra does their checkout routine and so both Buck Rock and us go out of service. I call up Buck Rock to find out what the plan is. She is going out of service, and so will we. But we are slow in packing up and it takes us about half an hour to get things cleared and cleaned out. It seems like we keep on finding new things that needs to be taken care of before we leave.

Having been to Delilah often enough, we know that we can phone into Bear Mountain Pizza at a certain place and say we will be there in 45 minutes. We are feeling rather tired so that is a good option for us. Food always rejuvenates. We get back to our house around 2100, ready for a shower and a good night’s sleep.

Tuesday Note: Kathy called me up and asked if we had any unusual visitors? Nope. We had a pair of two legged types on Saturday who came over from Buck Rock. There has been a couple low life four legged types hanging around the tower-not sure that I trust them. They look cute, but you can never tell. Then we have seen these bandits with busy tails-definitely do not trust them. How about the flying type? Nope. The person who came in Tuesday, when he opened the cab door, out flew a bat!

When did the bat get in the lookout? We do leave the doors open all night, along with the windows-gets really stuffy in there. But we did not see the bat hanging around. We also cleaned up so it was not in an obvious place. Guess next time I will be a bit more careful.

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Oatmeal and add-ins, such as dried peaches, strawberries, nuts, granola. Tang.	Ritz Crackers, Tortillas, Peanut Butter, Nutella		Clif Bar, GORP, Propel, CytoMax, Scratch, Coffee Candy, Jelly Belly