A quiet couple of days up here at the fire lookout. Beautiful weather all weekend, and I was half-wondering if any hikers would come by ... so I made sure the lookout was clean, and I made sure I was wearing pants! Nobody tackled the trail, though.
Did some more baking the last couple of days, which somehow always seems more satisfying up here, for some reason. And the last lookouts left me a package of pork sausage, which was an excuse to make a big eggs-and-sausage breakfast yesterday.
The conditions here started to change yesterday afternoon, though. A big forest fire near Thompson Falls really took off yesterday, and despite my distance from it the valley here filled up with smoke pretty quickly. Visibility dropped to a couple of miles, and a hard, cold wind started up and continued for most of the night. And that's how things stand this morning ... nothing but smoke out the windows, and a burnt smell in the air.
It's all part of the experience and I wouldn't mind, but for the fact that my friend Scott arrived in the area yesterday afternoon as well, with plans to hike up to the lookout for a visit today. He's decided to delay the hike for a day in hopes of better weather, and I really hope it works out ... especially since the poor guy had to do the hike a year ago in a similar sea of smoke. It really sucks, because Scott has put a huge amount of effort into getting up here, and he deserves to be rewarded with a pleasant hike and a stellar view. (And of course if he doesn't get to see the view this year, it means he'll have to come back next year and try again!)
Finally, here's a picture I took here a couple of days ago for Reddit, which has proved to be a big hit:
I know most of you are just rolling your eyes and going WTF? at this ... but that's because you haven't played the Firewatch video game. If you had played the game, you'd be going "awww" right now.
