When I was a kid, I used to sleep on the roof in the summertime and stare at the stars for hours, wondering what was out there! Then a few years later, I watched man land on the Moon and my fascination with space was renewed!

This is a story about what I was doing during the Apollo 15 mission: one of those marvelous trips to the Moon!

Imagine climbing into a helicopter, being flown to a remote mountain top in the middle of a beautiful wilderness area, then being dropped off for a 3 or 4 day stay and being paid to do it! That was me, I was that transient visitor to this beautiful place, being paid to do this work! From her awesome fury, to her gentle beauty, I was a fleeting witness to some of nature's most outrageous moods because it was my job!

It happened while I was a Fire Prevention Technician on the Clackamas Ranger District, of The Mt. Hood National Forest. Being in the business of preventing and suppressing forest fires, I was always in tune with what the weather was doing. Well one day in July of 1971, I was on my way to work, when I noticed that there were a lot of Cumulus Castellanos & Alto Cumulus clouds moving up from the south. These particular types of clouds are considered to be "thunderstorm indicators" and though it was still early in the "Fire Season", the threat of "wildfires" was a legitimate concern and I could feel the adrenaline begin to flow.

You see, I'm not a normal person! I have an aberration and mental fixation, regarding thunder and lightning. I got this way from spending many days, weeks, and months, as a "Fire Lookout" for the Forest Service; and whenever Mother Nature decides to get outrageous, I get anxious & disjointed! It's not my fault, I try to control it, but the excitement just takes over!

I checked in at the Ranger Station, then I got in my truck and headed down the road, trying to keep my mind on what it was I was supposed to do that day.

Four or five hours later I was called on the radio and was told to return to the station!

I arrived back at the Ranger Station and immediately I knew something was happening. Fire patrols were checking their inventories, fire crews were aimlessly wandering around with various fire fighting gadgets in their arms, and the fire dispatch office was full of people with telephones stuck in their ears, feverishly filling out some kind of fire-dispatch form. A brief look at the situation by an unwary observer might indicate complete chaos, and they might be right!

I finally found the fire dispatcher and he told me that Southern Oregon was "getting pounded" with lightning, the Willamette N.F. was reporting rumbles, and I was being flown to Bull of The Woods Lookout for a two or three day stay!

Bull of The Woods L.O.? How many times had I watched the sun set behind Bull of The Woods L.O.? 150 times at least, but now I was actually going there! Without hesitation, I went home and threw together what I would need for a 2 or 3 day stay and drove to the heliport.

The next thing I knew, I was soaring over an unfamiliar Ranger District, in a gold & purple Hughes 500C helicopter with less than 50 hours on its hour meter, and lovin' every minute of it.

"Bull of The Woods" is an old logging term, meaning "the boss", or the "head man"; but its' definition has been stretched to include, "the biggest and the meanest man in the camp!" Though according to Oregon Geographic Names (fifth edition), "Bull of The Woods", the mountain, was named after an unusually large and unfortunate bull Elk, who was caught grazing near there, by a proud and somewhat boastful, local hunter.

The only Lookout I had ever been assigned to before was Sisi Butte. Sisi Butte is located several miles to the east of Bull of The Woods and from there, "The Bull" is part of a seemingly, two dimensional ribbon of mountain tops that stretch North and South to form the western horizon. There in the center of that part of the horizon where sunsets travel; Bull of The Woods sits!

We circled the helispot a couple of times so that the pilot could work out his approach, then we sat down.

There I was, standing on the highest point of that two dimensional band of mountain tops and suddenly everything had three dimensions! There they were, all around me; Big Slide Mtn., Schreiners Peak, North Dicky, South Dicky, Mother Lode, & Battle Axe, and all of the others I had become familiar with from a Sisi Butte perspective. But there were some surprises too! There were a few ridges I had never seen before. Overall, it felt strange and magical; sort of like exploring another planet, one that you've seen before from a distance, but never close enough to see the marvelous details! Well sorta'!

After helping me unload all of my "various fire fighting gadgets", my friends Bill & Ernie wished me a nice stay and an exciting adventure; then they climbed back in the ship and soon they were airborne again!

Lying on the hillside, strung out between the helispot and the lookout tower, were 2 five gallon cans of fresh water, my personal pack & sleeping bag, an official Forest Service fire pack (fresh from the fire cache), a pulaski, shovel, and bladder bag, 2 five watt portable radios (with extra batteries), 2 cases of C-rations, a bag of misc. tools, a compass, maps, binoculars, and even a panoramic photograph (circa 1925), with all of the mountain top's names & azimuth's from Bull of The Woods, noted on it. Everything but an "Osborne Fire Finder"! But there was even hope for that!

Shortly after arriving, I heard a couple of rumbles to the Southeast, but now the weather seemed undecided, so I took advantage of the lull & got situated!

Bull of The Woods L.O., had not been occupied or maintained in several years, but hikers had been kind to it, and because of it's design, it had weathered very well. That is, all except for the damned shutters!

It's not that the shutters hadn't done their job, 'cause they had! But in the process of protecting the windows, they had become eternally rusted in place! I tried everything I could think of to loosen the nuts and bolts from eachother; I pried, I twisted, I hammered and cussed, but despite all of my efforts, I had only managed to undo a few of them, and not one of the shutters was completely free yet! The problem was that the bolts were turning with the nuts and the only way to stop them was to reach up between the shutter and the window & try to hold the bolt so that the nut could be turned. But they were so badly rusted together, that the wrench kept slipping off.

"WD-40", that's what I need! Or at least some reasonable facsimile. I searched thru all of my stuff, but found nothing! My only hope was to find something inside the lookout cabin.

I worked some more on the shutters that covered the cabin door, 'till I finally got them free! Then I lifted one corner of the overhead shutter in place just long enough to get a nut started on the bolt, and I proceeded to unlock and open the door.

Immediately, I was surrounded by a frenzy of large, black, sticky flies! Some of them flew, some of them crawled, and some of them fell all over me, from the doorway where I stood! All of the commotion had awakened hundreds of semi-dormant flies, whose only reality until now, was a 14'x14'x8' space of dead air and little light! When I opened the door, it was too much for them, they had a religious experience, went berserk and headed for the light; and instead of discovering the grass, the flowers, and the outhouse, they were discovering me. Perhaps they were trying to express their hopes and dreams for the future, and in the midst of their exodus, they stopped to thank me for their emancipation, but I didn't think so!

Inside the cabin, it looked like someone had sprinkled raisins everywhere, except that some of the raisins were moving! I don't know what they lived on, or how they got so big, but there they were! There were dead ones with their feet up, and live ones with their feet down! They were on the window sills, the floor, the cabinets, the stove, the bed, and the firefinder! "Firefinder"? That was the question of the day; "Was there a firefinder up there"? Well there was! I quickly forgot about the flies and began to examine it.

The Osborne Firefinder is a device similar to a surveyor's transit. It was developed in the early 1900's by a man named William B. Osborne. It's pretty simple to operate, you just find the object, (or place), you want to locate, in the crosshair/sight; then read the scale to find the azimuth (direction), and estimate the distance. Transfer this information to a good map, & there you have it! It's the Lookout's friend! Without it, he would be reduced to using a map and compass to plot fires! How absurd! I protest! It's just unthinkable that a "Fire Lookout", should have to lower himself to such mediocrity! Ok I admit it, I was prepared to compromise myself that way if I had to; but I was pleased to see that I wouldn't have to.

I rummaged through all of the cabinets and drawers, till I found a rusty old can of " 3 in 1 Oil "; "It lubricates, It loosens, and it protects!" I grabbed it and went back to work on the shutters!

The oil was a godsend! The nuts & bolts were coming loose and one by one, the shutters were going up. I still had trouble tightening them in place though, because the overhead bolts that they attached to, were so rusty that I could only get the nuts screwed on part way; hopefully though, it would be enough to keep the shutters from falling down and as long as there wasn't any gale-force winds, everything should be ok!

The next thing I tackled was the flies! Most of the live ones had left by their own volition, but the dead ones remained! No problem; with the wind blowing in & out through the open windows, most of the dead ones just blew away and the rest of them were taken care of with the broom & dustpan that I had found behind the woodstove.

A couple of hours later, all of my domestic chores were finished! The floor was swept, the cabinets & shelves cleaned & organized, all of my stuff was put away in drawers; and the Osborne Firefinder was cleaned, lubricated & adjusted; and ready for action! Problem was, there wasn't any!

So many times in the past, I could remember watching thunderstorms march up the Cascades from my lofty perch on Sisi Butte. Sometimes they would seem to appear out of nowhere! One moment there would be nothing in my windows but blue skies and mountains, then taking me by surprise, a little while later I would see white puffy clouds forming to the South of Mt. Jefferson. At first they would be nothing more than innocent, white, fluffy clouds; and most of the time, they wouldn't progress any further then that; but occasionally, if the conditions were right, they could evolve into full fledged Cumulonimbus clouds; the kind that spits lightning bolts! Then they would start their trek northward behind Mt. Jefferson, and drift off toward the Northeast, missing the Mt. Hood N. F. entirely!

Another scenario, much like the first; has all of that moist air/meeting dry air jazz, happening further to the West; and in this situation, Mt. Jefferson acts like a big rock in the middle of a river; part of the energy goes East, and part of it goes West; and the part that goes West, usually zaps the Olallie Lake area a few times, then it'll move up the Clackamas River drainage (much to my delight), meandering back and forth between Rhododendron Ridge and The Pinheads; happily zapping its' way North.

The last scenario, the one most applicable for this story is that occasionally in Western Oregon, the perfect conditions for vigorous thunderstorms will develop! This doesn't happen very often and when it does, the storms are usually harmless because of the abundance of rain that comes with them! If there are fires, they're usually small because of all the rain, so it gives those licensed pyromaniacs like me, a chance to see the power of nature, but without the destruction that could result if the conditions were different, like in dryer parts of the country. This kind of scenario is what was being predicted for now, but standing there on the catwalk, waiting for something to happen, it appeared as though the storm might just fizzle out. The scattered cumulus build-up to the West, over the Willamette Valley, had come together to make a spectacular sunset, but not an electrical one!

It was a full moon that night and while I sat there at the bottom of the steps eating C-rations, I watched it rise over Sleepy Witch Ridge; the last piece of terra firma I could see in that particular direction. The lookout tower made a stark silhouette against the moonrise, so I took a picture and I began thinking about the men who at that very moment, were sitting on the same kerosene colored orb that I had framed in my viewfinder, and I realized that we had something in common! I was alone in the wilderness and so were they, but their wilderness was the "coup de grace" of all wildernesses, and while I was sitting here on earth, eating a piece of dry pound cake, with something labeled "peanut butter" smeared on it, they were up there on the moon, drinking Tang, "cutting cookies" in the virgin lunar dust; redefining man's place in the universe. I felt tired, lonely, and profound, so I went to bed!

The next morning I was awakened by a tremendously loud clap of thunder right above my head! The windows rattled and the whole cabin shook! It took me about three seconds to realize what was happening; the storm had arrived! I jumped out of bed and quickly looked around in all four directions, to make sure that a raging forest fire hadn't developed while I slept.

This was the moment that all of us Lookout-types live for; all of the mundane routines, and the uneventful hours spent waiting for something to happen are offset, when there's thunder & lightning all around you, and "St. Elmo's Fire" is dancing on the tips of your radio antennas!

St. Elmo's Fire is a phenomenon that occurs when there's a lot of static electricity in the air! In the daytime you can actually feel your hair standing on end, but at night, you can see it glowing as a faint blue light on your radio antenna, especially at the tips! Sailor's have witnessed this for hundreds of years on the masts of their ships!

That little wake-up call was the only tangible clue that the storm had arrived until 5 hours later! (This isn't unusual though, sometimes when you least expect it; BOOM! "Wow, where'd that come from?" And then not hear or see another hint of a thunderstorm).

Then they began, one after the other; for the next 14 hours storm-cells marched from South to North, through the Mt. Hood National Forest. The first storm cell in my neighborhood moved up the Elk Lake Creek drainage, but I was sitting above the Dickey Creek Drainage, one drainage to the Northwest, so the ridge that separates the two drainages was preventing me from seeing where the lightning bolts were hitting the ground; I kept a mental note though! Then as the cell approached the point where the two drainages come together (Dickey Creek and Elk Lake Creek), it started to zap the ground on my side of the ridge. There be exploding trees & puffs of smoke!

Unfortunately, about the time that I saw the first couple of smokes, the rains came and dowsed them! I didn't even get a chance to find them in the cross-hairs of my Firefinder; and that was pretty much the way the rest of my stay at Bull of The Woods went, as far as fires go anyway. For the rest of the day, I was totally socked-in; the ensuing storms lumbered over me like a giant ooze, reducing my visibility to zero in all directions. As the storm progressed, I could see flashes of lightning all around me, but I had to count the number of seconds between the flash and the thunder to know how far away it was.

It was very frustrating; it turned out to be one of the most active thunderstorms I've ever experienced and I was missing all of the action. Further east it was a different story though; there was lots of visible action there! My friend Mark, at Sisi, was getting pounded and he was turning in fires as quickly as he could get them plotted on the map.

All I could do was to report to the Fire Dispatcher where I thought most of the activity was occurring. I knew that there were fires around me because a couple were sighted & plotted by ground patrols. How humiliating; ground patrols reporting my fires!

Later in the afternoon I was called on the radio and warned about a particularly active storm cell coming my way. The winds associated with this cell had been clocked in excess of 80 mph near Salem and so I was told to "batten down the hatches"!

Batten down the hatches? But I can't "batten down the hatches", the bolts are too rusty! Remember the rusty bolts? I went out & took another look at the shutters, but there wasn't much more that I could do; they were secure, but just hangin' there, with lots of room for up & down movement on the bolts!

The cell arrived and I thought I was going to be blown off the mountain! The shutters started flapping up & down like a young bird trying his wings out for the first time. The sight of the shutters flapping up & down like that, was hilarious, at first that is, but as the winds increased I admit that it got a little scary. How much of this abuse could this old Lookout Tower take? I really expected to see some broken glass at least; but as it turned out, me & "The Bull" survived without a scratch!

The wind storm was the highlight of the day and things began to quiet down after that, except for the rain; it had become a fairly steady downpour now and I knew that any chance of wildfires for me to report, was pretty much out of the question.

There wasn't much I could do now, so I dug into my c-rations to see what was left. As for food, I was in pretty good shape; my friend Mark on the other hand was out of food! Apparently Mark had scheduled to have his groceries delivered just before the storm hit, and then his deliverer was rerouted to one of the fires that he himself, had turned in. Finally after complaining a bit, someone found a case of oranges to take to him! So Mark had better lightning but I had better food! Well, a more diverse selection anyway.

It was getting late in the afternoon and the storm had, at least in my part of the cascades, degenerated to a typical Western Oregon rain storm and I knew that my adventure was nearly over. Weather permitting, I would probably be picked up tomorrow and have to say good-bye to Bull of The Woods Lookout.

The temperature wasn't very conducive for sleeping, so I drifted in & out for the next 3 or 4 hours. Then all of a sudden during one of my awake spells, I saw a huge orange glow to the West, but just as fast as it had appeared, it was gone again. I jumped out of bed, threw on my coat, and went out on the catwalk to see if I could see anything. There it was again, a non-distinct orange glow! Could it be a fire? Could a fire survive all the rain that we had? I didn't think so, but who knows; maybe the area where this was coming from wasn't rained on as much as I was, and there was a raging Forest Fire down there somewhere. Whatever it was seemed awfully big, so I thought I'd better report it just in case.

I rummaged around in the dark to find my headlamp, and I plotted a rough location on the map, where I thought the glow was coming from! Then I called Allyn, the Fire Dispatcher, and reported to him what I had seen. I probably woke him up in his chair; cause by then, it was two or three o'clock in the morning. I told him that it was probably just west of Whetstone Mountain; but that was about as close as I could get, since I only saw it for a few seconds at a time. He said that they didn't have any reports of anything in this area, but they would have someone check it first thing in the morning!!

I kept looking, hoping that I would get another glimpse of the mysterious glow, then I had a startling revelation! That's about where I had seen the moon set the morning before at about this time. "Oh no, did I just turn in the moon?" Should I call the dispatcher back? Despite my embarassment, I called Allyn back to offer the "Moon" explanation; and to save me from looking like a complete idiot, I very nonchalantly said: "ya know, this could've been the Moon that I saw"! He replied: "Well if it's the Moon, we already have it manned!"

Comments?.....Ray Wyatt







For more information about Fire Lookouts, be sure to visit
Rex's Forest Fire Lookout Page
he has a lot of interesting links and pictures!