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September 12th 1100 hours
Tens of thousands of flying ants are making me a prisoner in my own
home. More voices down the ridge. More tent stakes jabbing at the earth.
More hunters preparing to stalk the bull elk I've heard bugling below
the lookout. A test exit to the catwalk covers me with winged-ants,
making me feel like a human pest strip. I quickly retreat back inside
my glass-walled house.
September 14th 1400 hours
Another bee enters my humble abode, the uninvited guest joining his
buddies who are beating their brains against the invisible glass walls.
Having enough of the annoying buzzing, I capture them in an empty margarine
container and set them free. Twenty minutes later and they're all back,
beating themselves up once again.
A plane's engine cuts through the momentary silence after another game
of bee "catch and release". Then another plane lances through
the otherwise blank sky. A year after America became a target for terrorists,
it's refreshing to know that these planes are heading for airports to
land, not towers to smash into. A year of residual fear though causes
me to look for any kamikazee pilots who might want to use my tower for
a target. Only a couple of hawks are anywhere close. My momentary fear
subsides...
Voices down the ridge. The staccato of tent stakes jabbing into the
grassy flat two hundred yards from my home. The hunters have arrived.
A raven cackles out over Bluff Creek. Another one answers. A bee from
an earlier "catch and release" mission has returned. The wind
feels its way around and through the west-side shutters, making the
familiar tune of every breezy fall afternoon.
September 16th 1100 hours
I stare out at the inviting Selway Crags, a twenty thousand-acre island
of gray talus sloped mountains that form the backdrop for my view to
the north. The wilderness tempts me to take my days off to wander the
ridges and sink into the red, orange and yellow foliage that fingers
into the gray. But I'm stuck. Out of allergy medicine for the beargrass.
And out of interest to drive back down my twelve-mile winding-every-which-way-eroded
driveway to drive up thirteen miles of winding-every-which-way eroded
Fog Mountain Road to get to the trailhead. The decision is made. Stay
put. Absorb the Indian Summer weather from my elevated perch and relax.
The wind rushes around the north side of the lookout building, feeling
it's way over and under the shutters. I sit on the leeward east side,
just out of the increasing breath of air that flaps the dish towels
on the rail-hung clothes line like a couple of flags. The real flag
to the south comes to life, the red, white and blue flapping with the
renewed breeze.
A chipmunk chirps below my forty one-foot nest. A pine squirrel chatters
down off to my east. A bee buzzes around my head. A fly off the east
railing makes an approach to the Indian Hill airport.
Indian Summer on Indian Hill..
September 17th 1000 hours
A solid gray curtain of fog seals me inside my home, erasing my multi-million
acre view. Only an occasional glimpse of the Stars and Stripes hanging
limp from the top of the hand peeled twenty foot tree flagpole to my
south. A fire crackles and pops next to me, the stove barely offsetting
the thirty five degree cold that is penetrating my glass walls. Another
day off to wander the ridges, explore the deep canyons that surround
my home. But also a perfect day to stay warm and dry by the fire ...
writing and reading.
A Canadian Gray Jay lands on the railing three feet from my writing
table, looking thoroughly drenched. In need of a good toweling off and
a spot by the fire to dry. He cocks his head, giving me that "look",
wanting a handout. The robin-size bird hops on the railing, slipping
and sliding towards the northeast entry where I'm waiting with a bag
of bread for my buddy. Enough of the slip and slide railing, he does
a swan dive off the lookout, arcing up and landing on my outstretched
hand. A lightning quick peck and he's got the bread in his beak. Then
suddenly he springboards out of my hand, diving over the edge of the
tower, gliding across the lookout clearing.
I return to my writing nook, capturing the scene. A west wind brings
Old Glory to life. A light rain leaves waterbeads on the southwest comer
glass. The wind gets stronger, sweeping the rain under the shutters,
the waterbeads becoming tears streaming down the windowpanes. Curtains
of fog continue to sweep across the mountaintop, fingering into the
trees on the eddy side of the ridge.
1300 hours
Waves of misty gray still wallpaper my windows. Hunters, somewhere in
the invisible world, are waiting for a break in the weather, holed up
in their wall tents.. Or they're crashing through the brush, getting
soaked and possibly hopelessly lost.
Another log in the fire and the crackling and popping increases. I move
my chair farther away from the stove, coordinating the distance with
the hard-to-regulate heat.
September 18th
One cloudbank at a time and my view slowly reappears. A day and a half
in the fogged-in lookout and I was feeling like a caterpillar in a very
tight cocoon. Claustrophobic. Closed in. Out of touch with the scene
now before my eyes. The rain-washed sky brings the colorful vegetation
back to life, lifting my spirits from the gray-day depression.
September 19th 1400 hours
A confused wind, my changing chair positions on the catwalk responding
to the changing wind positions.
But the sun is not hiding behind the clouds anymore. Today it's one
big bowl of blue sky, the solar heat offsetting the chameleon wind direction.
Still feeling the effects of the fog, I can't keep my eyes off the view
today. It's so big, so grand, so damn beautiful. The mountains are wearing
their fall coat; the brush slopes a colorful patchwork of yellows, oranges,
reds and purples.
1700 hours
The dreaded "D" word is announced by two more lookouts. Sheepeater
will go down in early October. War Eagle will go down on the 27th. Eight
days and counting.
The west wind picks up, making a whistling sound through the shutters.
A couple of hawks play in the invisible currents above the lookout,
screeching as they do their mating dance. I stand on the catwalk and
watch, mesmerized by the aerial acrobatics and the spirit of the wind
that carries them aloft.
September 28th
Lookouts are falling like aspen leaves, scattering to the cold west
winds that precipitate snow in the high country. I feel lonelier with
each mountaintop sentinel lost, a feeling that otherwise goes unnoticed,
the voices disappearing from the radio that I've programmed to maximum
scan. Silence. Only the wind whistling now. A crackling from the stove.
An unidentified bird chirping from a nearby tree.
September 30th
The wind eddies around my airborne ship, escorting the gray away. Veils
of snow cascade down from low Selway valley clouds, the wintry contents
forming a curved line of white dropping into the deep shadowy green
below.
October 18th 1000 hours
A loud disturbance of airwaves. I jump up, looking for the military
jet that is screaming by my firetower somewhere to the south. Ahead
of the sound, my probing eyes stethoscope the larch-candled mountainsides.
More screaming jet engine noise. More searching of what sounds like
should be easy to see. But, as usual, the United States Air Force wins.
If I were an Iraqi anti aircraft battery, I'd be shaking my head, shooting
at ghosts.
Two "hawks" catching a thermal, spiral up and out of Bluff
Creek to my east. At lookout elevation, they paddle out of the airstream
and glide by the tower, exposing the hawk-look-alike ravens. I do a
raven impression and they casually look down at me. One cackles as if
he's laughing at my poor attempt to be one of them.
The staccato of a woodpecker pounding on a tree to my east. A chorus
of pine squirrel chatters. Bees and flies buzz by my head. Not a tickle
of a breeze as I absorb the peace of the mountaintop, my thoughts as
far away from civilization as they can get. Feeling free...
2000 hours
I sit on the catwalk, watching the nearly full moon cast deep, dark
shadows behind every ridge, the glow frosting the east-facing mountainsides.
It is silent. Not a breeze. No coyotes yapping. Nor owls hooting. A
deathly still silence that permeates the night, settling in over the
mountaintop.
A sound! Chewing of a back leg of my chair on the wrap-around deck.
I get up and jiggle the antique captain's chair. A mouse darts out and
scampers along the east wall, around the corner of the building and
down the stairs.
October 19th 1600 hours
The loaf of bread that I baked in the log cabin wood cookstove doesn't
cut it for any upcoming issue of Martha Stewart. But my lack of bread
for the last three weeks has me sawing into the bomb-blast-proof crust
for three hot-out-of-the-oven pieces. Smothered in what is left of my
margarine and swimming in the last of the honey. Uhhmmmm... .good. Gray
jays must have heard my call.. .Jack, Jill and Judy showing up before
I consume it all. No more crumbs for them. Nice big pieces to fly to
wherever they take them. One, two, three, they land on my hand, do a
lightning quick peck and float away, doing an I'm sure happy chirping
as they do a series of graceful jump-rope-arced flight paths across
the clearing.
Clouds today. Summer like alto-cumulus shaped clouds. The 20th of July
and I'd be getting ready for a thunderstorm to arrive later in the day.
Today I just sit and watch them float by. Nothing to prepare. No fires
to call in. The fire season is pretty much over. But wait! A blue smoke
at the head of Five Mile Creek! Maybe it is not over! I quick get off
my butt and take an azimuth shot on it. 240 degrees 20 minutes. My excitement
is squelched with the realization that it is only a hunting camp. Another
legitimate smoke.
2100 hours
Ghost like clouds stretch across the eastern nighttime sky. The moonlight
accenting the eerie looking cumulus cloud shapes. The wind ebbs and
flows through the west-side shutters, singing a familiar tune.
October 20th 0800 hours
The clouds tease me, as tendrils of fog play tag with the treetops,
closing off my view one minute then lifting the next minute. Rain percussions
off the roof. The west windowpanes spotted with moisture.
Thirty-nine degrees. An eight blanket night. Barely could breathe under
all those covers. My bushy tailed wood rat neighbor, better known as
a pack rat, was running laps around my house in the middle of the night,
his calling card droppings left for me to step on outside my door. Thoughts
of using the finger-breaking trap came to mind. Then guilt plagued me
as I nearly did break my finger setting it. I'd let the little guy live.
This is his home, even more than mine.
October 21st
Fire crew shows up and help with closing the lookout for the season.
Boxes, bags and backpacks are hauled down the four flights of stairs.
Cables are loosened. Solar panel unbolted from the antennae and stored
in the lookout. Water containers draining. Ashes from the stove dumped
in the outhouse. The routed Indian Hill sign put away in the log cabin.
The refrigerator, stove and floor cleaned one last time. And last, the
shutters close my eyes for the eight month long winter.
The support crew leaves and I lag behind. Sadly I get into my pickup
that will take me back to civilization and start the engine that has
been dormant for weeks. Slowly I pull out from behind the log cabin
and make my way below the dried wildflower-covered ridge where I wandered
on my before and after hours hikes. I passed the grassy helispot, the
old corral, and the outhouse at the edge of the woods. Then I ascended
the short rise that would take me to my twelve-mile long descent to
the world below. At the spring trail junction I let off the accelerator
and came to a halt amongst the dried beargrass remains, small brown
balls of once beautiful cream-colored flowers hanging from the stalks
like ornaments on thousands of little Charlie Brown Christmas trees.
Turning off the ignition I got out of my rig and looked back at the
tiny stick model of a lookout that sprouted out of a bunch of rock outcrops.
The white shutters reflected the last of the afternoon's cloud-filtered
light. The boarded-up structure looked so abandoned. So without its
occupant. Tiny wing flecks of my gray jay pets fluttered around the
catwalk railing, getting the last of the bread pieces that I left them.
A wind gust breathed through the firs, spruces and pines above my head,
bending their tops in graceful arcs to the leeward east side of the
ridge. A tickle of breeze waved the beargrass wands, feeling my cheeks.
It was time to go. To head to warmer country. To finally say goodbye
to my friend in the sky. To say goodbye to a mountaintop. I raised my
right hand and saluted the tower as tears flowed down my cheeks. "Goodbye
Indian Hill!" I yelled into another wind wave that crested over
the ridge.
Once more I got into my pickup and started the engine that squelched
the wind crescendo. I put it into gear and let off the clutch, taking
one last look at the reflection of my summer home in my rear view mirror.
"Until next summer!" I said to my friend as the tower faded
from view...
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