September 11, 2017
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.
----------
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.
