Montana Journal

Yesterday was another picture-perfect day at Baptiste Lookout, completely gorgeous and completely quiet. The only distraction was about noon, when Charlie let me know that there were people down in Silver Basin, a mile or two from the tower. I heard it, too, a voice calling out as he hiked to alert the nearby bears. I put on a fresh shirt and gave the tower a quick, panicked cleaning, hiding my dirty dishes in the oven (which is what you do). But nobody ever hiked the final mile up to the tower, and I heard today that my almost-visitors might have been rangers scouting for a future controlled burn along the trail.

Last night was warm, and I could feel the weather beginning to change, and when I woke up at 3 AM and went outside to pee there was a strong wind from the south, where most of Montana's major fires are. There was a campfire smell in the air and the stars were gone, and I knew the forest-fire smoke was back. The smoke grew worse all morning, and by early afternoon the visibility had dropped to less than a mile, and my sinuses had started to hurt.

I couldn't have seen a new fire out there even if there was one, but the day went on. I baked myself a half-dozen cranberry muffins for lunch, preheating the oven before remembering that my dirty dishes were in there. Talked to some of the other lookouts, did the afternoon radio check, and then made an evening hike down to Silver Basin to fill a five-gallon container of water from the little stream. Before packing the water back up the mountain, I undressed in the stream and poured a few more gallons of icy stream water over my head ... the fire lookout's equivalent of a shower. It felt amazingly good.

And then tonight, as I was eating pasta and talking to my friend over at Numa Ridge Lookout, the wind picked up again ... but this time from the east, stronger and colder. Before long, the smoke started to dissolve and I could see pieces of the sky again. By the time the sun started to go down, this was my view:

When I spent my first summer working in Glacier Park back in college, I discovered and grew to know any number of wonderful places, that together cemented Glacier's status as the most remarkable area on earth for me. Perhaps the very coolest of them all was a remote little backcountry hotel called Sperry Chalet, an ancient, beautifully crafted stone hostelry perched on the edge of a high, spectacular cirque, miles from the nearest road. With no electricity, and with the supplies hauled in by pack mules, the chalet offered wonderfully home-cooked meals, warm beds, fine camaraderie, and one of the most amazing views on earth.

At my urging, my family spent a night at the chalet back then, and it was a fond memory for my parents. I managed a couple more overnight stays there in the years since, and a long series of day visits, lured by both the camaraderie and the homemade pie. A couple weeks ago, I started talking with a friend about the possibility of going back there next summer.

Here's a shot of the main chalet building that I took on my last trip up there, five years ago:

Last week, a forest fire that that had been burning in Glacier since August 10th made a run toward the chalet, and the park's efforts did nothing to slow the fire's progress ... or ultimately, to save the hotel building. It was engulfed before the fire crews even realized it.

At Baptiste, I spent that evening looking for news, calling friends, and listening intently to the two-way radio, as a little fleet of helicopters shuttled back and forth with futile, too-late water drops. I was completely heartbroken, and I still am ... Sperry was the most wonderful place to stay in the entire national park system, and one of the most historic buildings in any of the parks, and now it's gone. 

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Those of you who know me, or have followed this blog for a while, know that I'm a major fan of the Firewatch video game ... not too surprising for a lookout geek, I guess.  I'm one of the moderators on the game's Subreddit, and a few days ago I took a photo here at Baptiste specifically for the Firewatch fans:

The last few days here at Baptiste have been pretty dreary, at least in terms of the sky. We had a front come through a few days ago, but then the wind mostly went away and a temperature inversion built up over the local valleys, and my part of the world filled up with wildfire smoke. When I called in the weather report this morning, my visibility was only a half mile. There's a heavy, warm stillness to the air, and even the thought of exertion just wears me out. I was planning to hike down to Silver Basin for water tonight, but just couldn't face the thought of lugging 40 pounds of water up a mountain filled with so much smoke.

There's a good side to the smoke, though ... the still air and the inversion are keeping the Glacier fires mostly at bay. No more historic treasures have been lost so far, and the Incident team there is going all out to make sure they don't have a repeat of their Sperry Chalet debacle. (I'm not exactly confident, though.) The fires down in the Bob Marshall remain a little more active, and I still find it utterly compelling to listen to the Spotted Bear backcountry guys on the Forest radio. I'm immensely impressed with them.

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The highlight of my week, though, was ... a visitor! My friend Marjorie hiked up on Wednesday, the first human I'd seen in 13 days. Both Charlie and I were thrilled, and Marjorie earned major "Intrepid" points for bravely tackling the long climb through that thick sea of smoke. She even brought up dinner, including lots of organic greens to make big salads. I'm saved from an almost-certain case of fire-lookout scurvy!

It was great so see you, Marjorie, and thanks so much for coming up. You'll have to do it again when there's no smoke, so you can actually see my view! :)

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As for the weather, there's supposed to be a front passing through tomorrow, but then we're back to more of the same, for possibly another week or so. (Things might cool off a bit after that.) This is the time of year when Montana fire-lookout seasons start to end, but nearly all of the lookouts here are still up, and both the forest and the park are planning to keep some of us on duty a few days longer than planned. It will depend on the weather, but I'm guessing I'll be up here another 7 to 10 days. (Last year, Baptiste went out of service for the season on September 3rd.)

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That's it for now, I guess. Here are a couple of evening shots of my lookout for you.

With all the smoke the last few days, Lookout Dog hasn't had to do very much looking out ... but that seems to have been OK with him:

That finally started to change this weekend, though, when the winds picked up and a cold front made its way into northwestern Montana. The winds started picking up yesterday, the temperature dropped, and the relative humidity increased. By this morning, nearly all the smoke was gone, and the temp stayed in the 50s most of the day, with big banks of cumulous clouds moving across my valley to the east. Made it feel like fall.

The wind of course brought new worries for the area's firefighters, especially the folks down in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. A major fire advanced frighteningly close to one of their backcountry patrol cabins yesterday evening, forcing the guys stationed there to abandon the place, surrounded by gas-powered pumps and sprinklers, and hike down to the South Fork confluence for the night. Everyone was anxious this morning when they made the trek back, to see if the cabin survived ... but it did.

It's still cool and really blustery up here at Baptiste, but the weather's supposed to warm up again tomorrow. A larger cold front is supposedly heading this way late this week, though, and some folks are wondering if that one might actually signal the beginning of the end for the fire season.

We'll see. In the meantime, here are a couple of shots I took of my lookout this morning ... this first one is from the trail down to the outhouse:

And this shot is from the lookout helispot ... looks pretty autumn-like:

Day 19 at Baptiste Lookout ... a quiet and lovely one up here, as nearly all of them are. A warm day, only a hint of smoke in the air. Good conversations with the other lookouts, and an evening hike through autumn colors to Silver Basin for water.

Right now, a lot of the lookout thoughts are focused on the cold fronts that are supposed to be heading our way soon. If there are a couple of good autumn rainstorms (or snowstorms!) up here, there will be little reason to keep most of the lookouts open any longer, and so we're all starting to think about shutting down. My boss said today that it was up to me to decide when to close Baptiste for the season, and I'm thinking that I'll ride out the smaller cold front that's due here Thursday, but then head down Sunday or Monday before the extended bad weather gets here. I'll hate to leave, but it will be time.

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Anyhow, I imagine you're all getting tired of fire-tower photos by now, but here's one more. This is how Baptiste looked during yesterday's sunset.

Some of you enjoyed seeing the view from my outhouse door a couple weeks ago, so I thought I'd show you how that same view looked this morning. I's not for the faint of heart:

I have to confess, this morning I really wished my outhouse had a heated toilet seat. ;-)

It was another cold night here at Baptiste, but in the early-morning hours the wind finally died down and the clouds started to break up, and when I finally crawled out of bed to start the coffee this is how my world looked.

After all the days I've spent gazing at the view from this mountain I think I'm getting a little jaded ... but the way the valley looked this morning really made me happy.

I used to know a guy who spent his summers as a river guide in Utah, taking people on multi-day raft trips through the desert wilderness. He and his fellow guides had a ritual that happened after every trip: as soon as the boats were pulled out of the water and the guests boarded their bus back to town, the guides all headed straight for the closest Wendy's, and ordered large Frostys for themselves. They started talking about those Frostys long before the end of the trip, with great wistfulness ... that cup of soft ice cream was the symbol of civilization they missed the most, more than clean clothes or hot showers or anything else.

I was on a trip with him where he sliced his hand open very badly with a kitchen knife, prepping dinner the first night out. He needed stitches, but he also had to row for two more days to get to a doctor, and so he did it, a roll of tape and gauze wrapped around the wound. The last morning, the guides were talking about the trip's end, trying to decide if they should go to the hospital first, or go to Wendy's first. Their decision: get the Frostys first, and then hit the ER.

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Anyhow, I've developed a similar ritual at the end of my lookout hitches: as soon as I get back to town and drop off the Forest Service radio, I treat myself to one of these: