June 4, 2026 - Park Ridge Lookout

 

 Title: June 4, 2026 - Park Ridge Lookout

Hike Info : Description

Hike Info:

Type:Lookout

 

Description:

Living in a glass house means that there is no hiding when it starts to get light. At 5:20 I had enough of hiding inside my sleeping bag and got up. I plodded through looking to see if there was any lightning I would be interested in and got the answer of No. From there, I moved on to breakfast of granola.. Since I will be leaving today, I made several trips down to the car with stuff I would not need today. I like George’s suggestion yesterday-bring a rope and lower stuff down. It will save half of the trips.

Since it is only 7:30, I have time to go out for a walk. I do not feel like going along the trail. Instead I will be walking the service road. I get about a quarter mile down the road and I see a big golden object bounding across the road, about 50 yards away. It's a bear! Even though it is golden, it still is a black bear. The brief glimpse I had made it seemed like he was having a bad hair day, aka Phyllis Diller. This happened so quickly I did not have time to even get my phone out for a picture. Yesterday I had told people I had never seen a bear up here. I guess I will need to change by speel.

Log Corral Meadow

After seeing a bear, a service truck comes up the road. I wonder if he is what spooked the bear. I talk with the guy and says he is a contractor for Verizon. He goes on and I go on as well. My walk takes me about a mile more down the road. I noticed a place where the fence is down between the Park and Forest, Turns out there is not much, except for some small violet flowers. The return trip is a bit harder and I stop a couple times. But I make it back by 8:25.

I stop by the Verizon area and talk with the service tech. He is working on their generator. I was hoping to get an idea if the cell tower had been down recently, but he does not know. But he is able to confirm that when the generator failed, it gave off alarms-this identifies where the alarms the lookout heard a couple of days ago.

So much for my personal time. I took the weather and did a scan. Then at 9:30, I went in-service with Porterville. Ash Mountain Fire had not gone in service until after that, so it took me a little while to wait for all the traffic to go in-service with them.Then it is onto the normal routine of being a fire lookout. At 10:00 both Ash Mountain Fire and Porterville did their weather reporting and staffing list. I at least could ignore the weather as I already had gotten it off of the fire weather site. The staffing I was listening for confirmation of what I thought it was. The one thing different was I thought Chief 1 would be the duty officer for the Park, but Division 3-on the Park side-was it. He is a new person to the Park, I think.

After a little while, the guy who was servicing the generator came up. His first time in a lookout. We talk for a while and he is appreciative of being up here and seeing the terrain from the tower. After about ten minutes he leaves.

You remember how yesterday three guys who were looking for trees which may endanger the power lines came up? Well, today, a single lady parked beside my car. She started examining the actual infrastructure. Such as where the power comes into the building, the transformers which are just down from us and the poles. I had invited her up and she came up. Occasionally you will have people who will not come up because they are afraid of heights. This lady conquered her fears and came up. She felt a lot more comfortable inside the cab than looking through the grated catwalk-I can understand. I think that she worked through her fears and was able to appreciate the sights up here. I have found a way to help people down is to walk right in front of them as they descend the stairs. This worked for her as well. I think she felt relief being on solid ground.

I had enough time to do some scans before a couple Texans came up. Actually they are students studying in New York who are from Texas. What set the tone for the rest of the day was that they were very interested in what goes on in a lookout, wondering how in the world does one get to do something like this? They stayed for about 20-25 minutes.

By this time it is past noon, so I have my lunch/dinner. Sherri had made a couple muffin sized quiches which I brought with me. I find that on the day I am leaving, it is better to have my main meal at lunch time and a sandwich in the evening. After taking the afternoon weather and doing a scan. Then I laid down for 15 minutes. I do turn the radios up loud and set my phone timer for 15 minutes, just in case I fall asleep.

Next up is a female hiker from New Hampshire. Another person who showed interest in what happens in a lookout. After she leaves, a father with a two year old daughter on his back comes up. He is immediately enamoured with the lookout. After we talked for ten minutes, he wanted to sign up. He is a pilot who lives in Reedley. He gives me his contact information.

My last set of visitors were from Virginia and were the most inquisitive. First there were two women and a young man. They started off by asking, what does a lookout do if they spot a fire?

My Farewell Committee

From there it went from one explanation to question to another explanation. It was fun. Then an older gentleman who was part of their group came up. He talked about how his grandfather was a lookout in Idaho. I think they must have stayed for an hour. It was fun answering questions and hearing about what they had seen so far in their travels. As they were leaving, I made a snarky remark to be sure to rate us on Yelp! I do not think we are on Yelp! though and even if we were, I do not think I would care one way or another.

Just because a lookout is talking with someone does not mean that they are not paying attention to their surroundings. For the most part, I was also looking around at the front country. Was there something which looked out of place? Occasionally I would raise my binoculars to see. Sort of like what Lord Peter Wimsey said in Guady Night, it won’t tell us anything, but it impresses the spectator and inspires confidence. Hopefully, if there is something out of place, I would notice it, even if I am talking with visitors.

By 16:30, I start to tidy up and take a few things down to the car. My imprint on the lookout is getting smaller and smaller. Today I got most of the windows cleaned, but the ones facing west got too hot so someone else will need to clean the inside. By 17:30, I am down to the last bit of cleaning-swiftering the floors. And at 18:00, I go out of service with Ash Mountain Fire-at 17:50-and Porterville-18:00. Rats! I almost forgot to take down the flag. I do that. My folding is not up to par yet, but it is better since Jose did his time at training. Everything is locked up and I am off by 18:10. As I approach the gate at Panoramic Point, I realize there is one thing I forgot-the bag in the refrigerator. About that time, I saw the next lookout coming in. I tell him feel free to eat up, just save the bag. I make it home by 19:50. Sherri feeds me some beef stroganoff before I shower. It was good to be up there and it is good to be home.