Spending a season as a fire lookout is one of the most romantic ideas I can think of - the key word being "idea," as I'm not sure I was raised right to be alone for that long. Poet Gary Snyder applied to be a lookout in 1952 and when he asked for the “highest, most remote and most difficult-of-access lookout,” he was put 8,129 feet high, on Crater Mountain in North Cascades National Park. The next summer he was stationed at Sourdough Lookout (pictured above in the 80s) where Philip Whalen and Jack Kerouac would both visit. The National Parks Conservation Association's quarterly magazine, National Parks, has an article this fall entitled "The Art Of Mountain Watching" that profiles the lookout rangers and their history at North Cascades. It's a quick and interesting read from an amazing organization:
When you work as a fire lookout in Washington’s North Cascades National Park, your day begins at 5:30 a.m., when the sun rises over miles of immense glaciated peaks, blasts through your window-walled cabin, and pin-balls off the propane stove, lightning stool, and Osborne Fire Finder, sending diamond light in all directions. There is no snooze button on this “alarm clock,” and even if there were, North Cascades park rangers like Gerry Cook and Kelly Bush wouldn’t push it. There is work to be done: snow must be boiled for drinking water, the cabin must be tidied should a park guest come to visit and, most important, a vast expanse of pristine wilderness needs to be looked after. It is July, fire season in the North Cascades, and despite the early hour, the day is hot, forest dry, and punctured purple clouds brood on the horizon.
Read: "The Art Of Mountain Watching"MP3: Neil Young - Lookout Joe