Burned Into Memory: Community Building in a Remote Fire Tower?

When I first worked as a fire lookout in the early 2000s, my duty station was perched on a mountaintop accessible only by foot or horseback at the end of a trail that climbed more than 5,000 feet of elevation over the course of seven, shadeless miles. 

“Only a slight improvement to a miserable goat path,” was the way a friend I’d convinced to hike up for a visit once described the trail. But that miserable goat path sure weeded out the riff-raff. 

This year I’m in a tower that has an access road. This means I can drive myself and my supplies right on up to the front door rather than slogging up a trail for hours with a 60-pound backpack. What this means, of course, is that others can do the same just as easily.

A few nights ago, while washing my dinner dishes, listening to an audiobook of A Tale of Two Cities (since I’ve never committed to reading it), I spotted a trio of UTVs kicking up dust on the road below. The noise that followed sounded like an outboard motor trying to drive a boat across dry land. The nerve, I thought, driving up my mountain, disturbing my evening, interrupting my audiobook before I even get to the French Revolution.

Alas. 

The first thing you do if a vehicle pulls up when you haven’t seen people in a few days is look in a mirror. It’s important to check if your features are still assembled into something that looks like your face. You might even test your voice out with vocal warm-ups, or a few “hellos.” 

The next step is to look down at what you’re wearing, and hope the pieces all add up to a respectable outfit. 

In this case, my leggings were on inside out, but it was too late to do anything about it.

There is a sign posted with the lookout hours—9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.—but people don’t seem to see it. Granted, the white paint has worn off, making it hard to read, but I marched down the steps with an attitude anyhow.

As it turned out, the people I was planning on reprimanding were a pleasant, respectful family from Wisconsin composed of a mom, dad, and a grinning eleven-year-old kid.

I greeted them halfway down the path and the kid, delirious with awe, asked, “Do you really get to live here?” 

He wondered if I’d ever been struck by lightning, or run out of food.  What about ice cream? And why are those flowery things that look like Q-tips called bear grass? Do bears actually eat it? And my favorite question of all, “Does a person have to be really, really smart to get this job?”

He must not have noticed my inside-out pants.

He was able to point out, even without binoculars, three of my neighboring lookout towers, barely discernible white specks on mountaintops miles away. I shared funny anecdotes about each person staffing those towers, and how we use walkie talkies for unofficial after-hours chats. You’d have thought I was telling him I had a direct line to Santa Claus. I think the word I’m looking for here is “enchanted.”

He fired off questions about the lookout tower. What was it like inside? Was there a bed? A telescope? He asked, with raised eyebrows, if the view was even better if you are actually in the tower, but his mother cut him off at the pass with “the look.” You know the one. 

When I was about his age, my family took a trip to the east coast where we visited Washington, DC. I remember emerging from the subway, the first I’d ever been on, and spotting a limousine parked at the curb, the first I’d ever seen.

The driver, wearing a uniform that I somehow remember included gloves, had indulged my questions about the fancy car, and what it was like to drive. I’m sure my modest, Midwestern parents were giving me “the look,” too, but the driver was friendly, if not amused, and must have given them a look back to say I wasn’t bothering him. 

I’d spotted toys in the back seat, and, intrigued, leaned in to ask the driver if kids actually got to ride in the limo. Moments later, he opened up the huge, rear doors, and I ducked inside the cavernous vehicle which felt like a visit backstage, or a trip to Hollywood. After the tour of the car, he presented me with his business card with a slight bow, maybe a tip of his cap, the way that only someone who understands kids would do. I kept that card, which I had him sign on the back like he was a movie star, tucked in my journal for the rest of the trip. It still lives somewhere in my shoebox archives, but even more vividly in my Kodachrome memory.

Meanwhile, back in the present tense, I could tell the question was still burning in the kid from Wisconsin, digging in the dirt with the toe of his cowboy boot. 

“Do you want  to come up into the tower?” I asked the question for him. “I mean, you didn’t come all the way from Wisconsin for nothing.” 

Inside, the yoga mat I’d rolled out at 10:30 a.m. and never used, took up half of the walking space, but he just walked around it. There were dog toys, maps, notebooks, flip flops, colored pencils, and a hula hoop. The only thing missing is a sign that says, “Marie Kondo Doesn’t Live Here.” Truth is, there’s no point in tidying as you go in a 14-by-14-square-foot living space because it’s easier to bring the whole unruly place back into shipshape in less than 10 minutes, all by lantern light while brushing my teeth before bed.

I couldn’t resist my genetic propensity to apologize for the untidiness, but the kid, kneeling on the maps unrolled on the floor, was completely unfazed. “It’s just like hunting camp,” he smiled, surveying the cluttered room in amazement.

I showed him how the fire finder works, let him use my binoculars, and pointed out a big plume of smoke on the far, southeast horizon that made him gasp. 

A page from the 1966 Forest Service Handbook depicting proper and improper use of the fire finder. My method lies somewhere in between.

When his parents called to him from below, he paused at the door, looking quizzically at the cottony white puffs dotting the screen. I started to explain how I was using stuffing from the toys my dog tore apart to fill holes in the screen so the mosquitoes don’t get in, but I realized he wasn’t looking for an explanation for my weirdness; he just wanted to linger a minute longer.

After the boy from Wisconsin and his family buzzed back down the hill, their headlights disappearing in the dust, I was alone again with A Tale of Two Cities, still in London, feeling a tiny bit lonely. 

I realized I hadn’t gotten the kid’s name, and I hadn’t given him my name, either. But the truth is I’m more likely to remember his face, shining with curiosity, than his name, anyway. 

I wondered how would he remember me. Maybe as the crazy lady living in a packrat den on top of a mountain, or maybe he’d remember me the way I remembered the DC limo driver. Maybe everything about me and our visit would just blend into the 360-degree view he saw of wilderness spanning from Idaho to Montana. 

Maybe the snapshot that the kid’s mom took of him beaming down over the railing will be like the limo driver’s business card was for me, treasured for a lifetime, or maybe the photo will be forgotten and just live in the Cloud, wherever that is. 

Best case scenario is that our visit will be burned into his memory the way it’s burned into mine: bright, clear, and in full color. That’s the most important part, after all. 

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