My Mountain Trail

Move Forward – Lookout!

Today I completed my training to be a lookout at the Mt. Tamalpais fire lookout (the small building at the very top of the mountain here).  I have completed a 4-hour orientation session, a dispatch/ECS tour and orientation, and now some OJT.  It’s not that hard.  You are a set of eyes, with the ability (let’s hope) to communicate what you can see to those that need that information.  Then, let the pros in the field work.  I can do that.

The county is no longer funding paid lookouts, so they have been looking for volunteers.  I found out about the opportunity through my activity as the Assistant Chief RACES radio operator at the Throckmorton fire station. 

Don Keylon, an engineer at Throckmorton mentioned the need for volunteers during one of our emergency planning meetings for the neighborhood RACES guys.  Sounded like an opportunity to me.  It’s an even better way to serve the community than RACES.  It includes real training and actual work.  RACES doesn’t do real (or at least not effective) training and the real work is, fortunately, infrequent.  Lookouts are needed all summer, and we have to actually do the job.  I have enjoyed the training, and look forward to gaining experience. 

My initial impression is that the hardest parts are understanding the radio communications and landmark reporting.  The radio communications are easy enough to understand, but getting a picture for what is actually happening is more difficult.  There is a lot going on, and only some of it matters to the lookout.  Of course, talking on the radio isn’t a problem because of my amateur tradio and Navy experience, but talking at the right time is the difference between the novices and the veterans.  I’ll get it eventually.  Nothing wrong with being a novice I guess; as long as I learn as I go along.

So, for you readers, this means that you get to work your way through a bunch of pictures of the Bay Area from the Mt. Tam Lookout.  I may also work some in the Barnabe Lookout, so you may also see pictures for West Marin and Sonoma from there.  I hope you don’t mind that view of Paradise.

The hike from our house to the top of Mt. Tam took me 50 minutes today.  That’s not too bad.  It takes 40 minutes using a car to get to the parking lot and then hike the last .5 miles anyway.  Of course, if there is a lot of stuff to take up there, the hike may not be an option.  I guess we’ll see.

Ah well, this is my first non-test post.  Hope it looks okay…