Title: June 4, 2026 - Park Ridge 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.
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| 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.
