Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's
It has been a couple months since I have last been up at Park Ridge Lookout. The reason why I am going up on short notice is that one of my fellow lookouts has a situation where they cannot make it up. Since I have today available, I will go up today, just for today. I am excited about going as well as a bit nervous since I will need to refresh myself up there.
My other concern is I will be leading my book group Thursday and am not ready. So hopefully I can work on getting my notes together for the book The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. My first priority though will be to look for smokes. Hopefully I can do both.
This blog will be more focused on just the activities in the lookout, with some comments on things which do pop up.
0450 Woke up. I wonder why I woke up so early? At least if I get to leave early, maybe I can leave early and go on a little hike before going to service.
0605 Left House. Not sure why I did not get out earlier after all I got packed last night and did my lightning report last night. Still, it is a good early start time.
0720 Big Stump. I made OK time. But I lost all of my early time when I stayed here longer than expected.
0830 - Park Ridge Lookout. I get here early, but probably not as much as I was hoping for. So I lug the things I need for today and get settled in.
0905 - Weather. We look at several things: the temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, cloudiness, amount of precipitation and visibility. This is done a second time around 1300 to 1330, and whenever there is a significant change in the weather. If there is something unusual, we radio it in.
0911 - Scan. This is what we do. Look over our territory, everything that is visible, usually through binoculars. On good days, we can see 20 miles-a previous lookout spotted smoke about 30 miles away a couple of days ago. He has much better eyes than I have. We are principally looking for smoke. We try to do this 15 minutes after the last scan is completed. It usually takes about 5 minutes to do one pass, but can take more or less depending on the visibility and what we find interesting.
0928 - Inservice Ash Mountain Fire (Ash). Letting the Park know they have eyes at a lookout.
0930 - Inservice Porterville (PTV). This is Sequoia National Forest
0935-Scan
0953-Scan
0950-Ash Weather and staffing. We pay attention to who is around us and what the Fire Weather is forecasted to be.
1000-PTV Weather and Staffing. Same, but we can get this online, which makes it easy and more accurate than me trying to catch their every utterance and then write it down.
1012-Scan
1028-Scan
1053-Scan
1111-scan
1126-scan
First visitors of the day. A couple of females from South Korea followed by a family from England. Then some people from Pennsylvania. I played “tour guide” for about 45 minutes. It is easy to get distracted talking to the visitors, but when I have my act together, I will also be looking around for anything unusual.
12:14-Scan
1230-scan
I take a break and have lunch-a peanut butter and nutella sandwich. Then I called up Sherri to go over a few things.
1302-scan
1316-weather
1328-scan
1340-I have been having issues with the data for the lightning report. I got a message from Earth Networks saying the issue has been fixed. I look at what is called the pulse of a lightning strike which includes the tendrils of lightning
1343-Scan
1402-started scan, but then several groups of people came up and I did the tour guide thing for a long while. As before, looking around at the territory. But I will admit it was more sporadic.
During the time one group of people from Germany was up on the catwalk, a CHP helicopter flew by. First, having a helicopter come by is always exciting. But Park Ridge Lookout is not one of the CHP ‘s regular routes. Earlier in the day I heard that someone had set off their PLB. When I looked at the SEKI log I saw there was a SAR going on at Hamilton Lake. I am speculating this is where the CHP is heading. I never saw it return. But that is the speculation.
1538-scan
1600-PTV Weather and Indices. The indices are indicators of how much moisture there is around. From there, a fire danger rating is created. With all the moisture around, we are low and moderate depending on the area.
1601-Scan
1623-Wendy, the lead for Park Ridge Lookout, called to check on how I am doing.
1630-Scan
1652-scan
I have found that if I have dinner while still in the cab, then things are so much better. So I had a leftover slice of pepperoni pizza aand leftover lasagna. What more could a lookout want?
1706-scan
1715-Scan
Started cleaning up. Cleaned off countertops. Swept floor.But I will not get to cleaning the windows. Then one last visitor, a female EMT from Stockton. She was interested in lookouts and we talked for a while, before she headed off back down the trail.
1745-scan
Finished cleaning up, including damp swift mopping the floor.
1753-final scan
1754-Out of service with Ash
1759-Out of service with PTV
I think I had 17 visitors today. A lot more than I was expecting on a weekday after Labor Day. It kept the day going fast. Of course, I did not get much done in preparation for my book group Thursday. Then again, that is not the purpose of me being up here. By 1812, I was in the truck, driving down the service road. I made it back home a little before 2000. The shower felt good.
Extra Photo's
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