On April 19th the University of Idaho is holding a conference on the art and architecture of fire lookouts.  You can find a reference to it here-- https://cdil.lib.uidaho.edu/lookoutconference   I love both art and architecture...... [...]

Yikes it is getting busy firewise on the south end of Ross Lake with the fire on the south side of Ruby Mt at 700 acres and growing, and  new fires on Sourdough and [...]

Last week on the trail above Ross Lake Resort I met a couple visiting from Germany.  Jorg was very knowledgeable about Jack Kerouac and had climbed Matterhorn peak in California some years ago.... He [...]

Upper Lake Chelan has a 12,000+ acre fire burning called the Pioneer Fire.  There is a massive response going on with something like 12 helicopters and 700+ firefighters.  Here is a photo taken by [...]

You will see on the main menu -- a new section on the Sourdough Mountain lookout.  I staffed that lookout twice and will be posting some pictures from those days including a painting I [...]

Currently starting to read a memoir -- The Last Lookout on Dunn Peak.  It is about a couple from back East that staffed some LOs in St. Joes Forest in Idaho in the early 1970s. [...]

Here is a similar shot of me one time manning the nearby Sourdough LO --- which has a long series of steps up ---  good times !

My son took this picture of me standing in the Deso  doorway. I am usually smiling  LO duty but I looked at little pensive that day.....probably quiet with little radio traffic, no smokes  and no [...]

As many of you know---back in the 1930s the USFS had photographers do panoramic photos from many lookout sites in the West---and that includes Desolation Peak.  This last Sunday's Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine had [...]

My good friend Bruce R. sent me a small version of one of those classic old time National Park posters. I didn't know there was one for the North Cascades, a mostly unknown park. But [...]