#westernrec

Lookout Mountain Fire Lookout | Field Notes Labor Day Weekend

Kelly planned this trip. I am usually more involved in the planning process, but when I asked what he was thinking for this weekend he just said we’re going here: 

I’d drawn this picture a few weeks ago. I’d been daydreaming of a little lookout in the woods and sketched it during one of my meetings at Planes by Mal.

We were giddy. We don’t do much hiking and a lot of the camping we’ve done recently has been car camping. We’re bike people, we really just like to use our feet for pedaling :) We planned our food, packed our bags and headed north.

We ventured up to Marblemount, WA. I’d never been there. Its a little mountain town off route 20. I think its the last town before the Washington Pass.

Saturday we hiked up 4.7 miles to the tippy top of Lookout Mountain in hopes of snagging a bed in the Fire Lookout. If you’re interested in the details of the hike, check them out here: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/lookout-mountain-1 . To sum it up, it was HARD. The hike in its self would’ve been challenging for us anyways, and then the fact that we had packs full of supplies didn’t make it any easier.  Here's a picture from the meadow.  Mad fog zones!

We were ecstatic to reach the fire lookout and see that we were the only ones there for the night. The lookout consisted of a cozy room with two beds, a kitchen table, a few shelves full of emergency/survival supplies, and a little kitchen. Putting on dry clothes and filling our tummies with warm food made us forget about how tough the trek up had been.

For our entire stay in the lookout, we lived in a cloud. Throughout the next morning, the clouds would move about and give us glimpses of what was around us. On a clear day, this lookout would seem like paradise. Mountains every way you looked. What a dream. Since these were not the views we got to enjoy, we spent the morning in our sleeping bags, eating oatmeal and drinking coffee. We took turns reading chapters of East of Eden by John Steinbeck. These moments might be my favorite memories of the trip.

After lunch, we decided to pack up and say goodbye to the lookout. By this time, the sun was trying to poke out and it finally started to warm up. Figures… right as we were leaving.

We began the hike down, and were happy to come up to a stream so that we could refill our water bottles. Nothing eventful happened en route to the car, other than tired legs. We were both pretty happy to see the car 3.5 hrs later!

Even though we didn’t have the best weather, I’m happy that we went. I hope that we backpack more in the future, and I’d definitely like to visit more lookouts. Those things are rad! Enjoy some photos I took from the trip, they are a mixture taken with my iPhone and with my Fuji Instax:

Lassen Volcanic National Park, 4:09 PM: Whichever model train landscape and "nature" diorama designer-artist set the tone for what would become the "Gold Standard" for model train landscape and nature diorama artifacts clearly modeled his natural wonders, their color, shape and texture, after actual subalpine and alpine environments/microclimates in Lassen National Park.

California State Fair, 3:23 PM: Keywords for the CSF: sugar, sweat, gnashing, gnawing, jerky, tawny, tan, feet, toes, wrinkles, goatees, tanktops, K-Swiss, corndog, Monster Energy, vomit, sweat, sugar, sweat, sunburn. #itsthebest

Shores of Lake Tahoe, CA 3:15 PM: Quote of the day runner up #2: "Wearing a t-shirt is like putting a holiday sweater on a German Shepherd." - Emiliano Granado

Yosemite Valley, CA 3:15 PM: The Yosemite Wildlife maintains a strict congruency with the American Public in terms of both weight and regard for personal space.

Tuolumne Meadows Campground, Yosemite CA 10:35 PM: Necessary Field Fact: "S'more appears to be a contraction of the phrase "some more". The first recorded version of the recipe can be found in the publication Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts of 1927."

Looney Bean Coffee, Mammoth Lakes, CA 11:49 AM: Reaffirming the idea that "recreation finds you, you don't find recreation."

395 South, CA 2:59 PM: Ominous in-car gasoline smell prompts Car Fire Evacuation Plan: 1) Grab Shot Film; 2) Leave car out of nearest door; 3) Get away from car.