Gary-Summer: October 17, 2020 - Park Ridge Lookout

Saturday, October 17, 2020

October 17, 2020 - Park Ridge Lookout

Title: October 17, 2020 - Park Ridge Lookout
Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's

Hike Info:

Type: Lookout

Description:

Started waking up around 0500. Guess I am anxious about today. But was able to sleep on and off until 0540. Looked at the lightning report, ate breakfast and got ready. We left our house around 0720. Pretty quick drive up, very few slow cars. We make it to the lookout a little after 0900.

Layer of Smoke towards Delilah

I get things sanitized-it is that kind of year, you know, I need to fight off the pandemic. I want to be a good statistic, you know the one who can tell the youngsters about surviving 2020. Anyway, once the lookout is ready, Sherri comes up. We take the weather and go into service at 0931. I have been thinking I will be making a mistake going into service sometime. And today was the day. I started going inservice as Delilah, force of habit. I corrected it before I was done, but a bit red-faced.

Today we have some visibility. I can see Shell Mountain. Also down into the Hogback area. But Delilah is enveloped in smoke. He went inservice with limited visibility. It is a pretty normal day today.

Looking East

To the south and east, I got more visibility. I think we were even able to see North and South Guard. But as the day progressed, the smoke started to fill in on the west. I definitely was not seeing the McKenzie Ridge area any better and what I could see of the towns in the foothills disappeared as the afternoon progressed. Still a lot better than the last two times up here.

So I spent the time also looking around and naming places. In some ways this is rather silly as today is the last day Park Ridge will be fully inservice. We are staying overnight and will go inservice tomorrow morning. But then we will breakdown the lookout for the Winter.

Tree on Hoist Ridge

One of the places Sherri is interested in is the tree we saw from Delilah on Hoist ridge which Jeff saw from Buck Rock. I get out my spreadsheet which has coordinates of things around us-I added this tree in and got the azimuth. Bingo, there is the tree. We employ Celeste to get a better view of the tree.

Also today is a short day. We go out of service at 1600. After cleaning up a little bit, Sherri and I went out for a couple hour hike. We go down the road until we get to the Azalea Trail junction. Then follow the Park Ridge Trail for another 20 minutes until we get to the top of the ridge. We stop and rest for a few minutes, discussing some stuff. Then we turn around and come back to the lookout. More smoke was coming in. I am wondering if this is another smoke out. But it does not seem so. Sort of interesting how one dramatic incident, plus a couple of months of smoke will orient your thoughts to things.

Park Ridge in the early evening

We got back to the lookout around 1830. Earlier today we discovered we had forgotten to bring dinner up with us. But I had made extra sandwiches for lunch tomorrow. So we ate them tonight, along with some bread and stuff. This was a choice as we also had our emergency food.

It is dark now and we are getting ready for bed. We take about half an hour and do some star gazing before rolling into our sleeping bags. Should be an interesting day tomorrow.