Adventure Reading #8: Is This the Most Scenic Fire Lookout?

Over a year ago in April, I came down with a nasty cold on a rare sunny weekend. I wanted to be outside, running through forests and clambering over rocks, but since I was stuck on the couch, I did the next best thing - running through forests and clambering over rocks in the virtual world.

I was soon immersed in the video game Firewatch, playing as a man trying to leave his troubles behind by working at a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. I found the story to be a similar experience to summer camp. Relationships formed hot and quick and campfire mysteries gnawed at the mind in the dark, but both sputtered out at summer's end.

Artwork by Olly Moss from Firewatch

After all the tense speculation, I felt a little let down by the game. (I also still don't understand how a guy who climbs cliffs couldn't climb over a chain-link fence).

To be honest, my own experiences with fire lookouts haven't had the most satisfying endings either.

Three years ago, a summer's day unexpectedly turned to pouring rain just as a group of friends and I started on a hike up to the Granite Mountain lookout. I spent the whole climb shivering and complaining. At the top, the ranger living there showed us a picture of the usual stunning view and map of the surrounding peaks. We just had to take her word that the mountains were somewhere out there beyond the impenetrable gray shroud.

On another summer, the crowds were so dense at the fire lookout atop Mount Pilchuck that I grew anxious and headed back down the mountain as soon as I arrived. When I'm hiking alone, I sometimes want to stay alone.

But since almost 100 fire lookouts still stand in Washington state, all at sites with incredible views, it was inevitable I'd cross trails with one again.

Would Hidden Lake Lookout break the trend of disappointments?

The Place: Hidden Lake Lookout, Washington, USA

My rating: 5/5

Nash meditating on the boardwalks.

The 8-mile hike to the lookout is found in North Cascades National Park. It starts in your typical Washingtonian dense forest, switchbacks over 3000 feet up through meadows, traverses some ice patches, and emerges over a saddle to a view of the aptly named hidden lake.

We were treated to a clear September day and middling temperatures, warm in the sun and cool in the shade. I found a nice rock and settled in for a long reading break.

The Book: Winter by Marissa Meyer

My rating: 4/5

This is the fourth and final book of the Lunar Chronicles series, which is a fun reimagining of fairy tales in a sci-fi setting. All the heroines from the previous books unite to help Princess Winter (Snow White) take down her evil moon-queen stepmother, Levana, and save the world.

These young-adult books are easy to read and include a good mix of adventure and romance. This last book, however, suffers from having too many main characters, so the reader's attention is constantly divided between all these badass girls and guys and robots. (Who knew that could be a bad thing?) Therefore, I didn't find this book to be the strongest in the series, but I still enjoyed it.

Sitting on this rock, I could imagine I was in the gleaming white palace overlooking Artemisia Lake, sealed away under a biodome on the moon.

Some girls showed up and wanted to use my reading spot for a thousand yoga-pose photos, so we decided to head down to the lake for a picnic lunch.

We scrambled down over the rocks for what felt like ages, but the lake never seemed to get any closer. Eventually, all traces of cairns disappeared and we came to an unappealing dropoff. The lake still looked like it was just out of reach.

We were frustrated as we ate our sandwiches. Once we had restored enough energy, we hopped from boulder to boulder to climb back out of the lake basin.

The trail toward the lookout went up and to the left, marked by more cairns. The lookout structure itself only came into view at the end of the scramble. It looked worn and drab until we reached the top of the pile and saw the lookout in its proper context. It had a 360 degree view of peak after peak after peak bumping away into the distance.

Chills ran down my spine. Even Nash was impressed, and he normally doesn't enjoy scenery.

The lookout sits on this rock pile.

Here's Nash being an excellent model as usual.

Just look at that ridgeline! Don't you want to walk along it?

The lookout was only in commission from 1932 to 1953. From 1960-1980 it served as the Skagit Alpine Club before being adopted by a volunteer group for historical preservation. They were in the process of installing a new roof, helicoptered in earlier that week, so that the structure will make it through the winter. However, a sign inside warns that if the building will not be replaced if it ever burns down.

The lookout now acts as a first-come, first-serve overnight shelter for hikers. Sure enough, people had already left their gear on the bed inside to stake their claim. I felt a pang of envy - what must the sunrise look like?

I sat at the table inside and pretended I was alone there, a radio my only connection to society for months at a time. In a moment, I imagined whittling away the minutes, hours, and days by scanning the horizon for tendrils of smoke. I'd pass the time singing, cooking simple meals, and scratching out journal entries, just like Jack Kerouac did on Desolation Peak in 1956. (You can read all about it in his autobiographical essay, Alone on a Mountaintop.) But try as I might, I couldn't pack the feeling of boredom and isolation into that one moment.

My daydream was broken by a man looking for help to retrieve his daughter's cell phone that had fallen down a crevice. I went back to taking in the view as a passing tourist.

There are probably more scenic fire lookouts in the state (maybe even nearby Three Finger, Sourdough, or Winchester?), but at that moment I couldn't imagine any other lookout being as beautiful as Hidden Lake.

For once, my fire lookout story had a proper climax!

!steemitworldmap 48.495627 lat -121.187787 long Hike to Hidden Lake and pause to take in the view at a stunning fire lookout. D3SCR <--[SteemitWorldMap](steemitworldmap.com)

Thanks for reading! Here's the profile banner I created using an image from this hike. Reading outdoors is kind of my "thing", so I wanted my banner to reflect that.

- Katie, @therovingreader

“She would be brave. She would be heroic. She would make her own destiny.”
- Marissa Meyer, Winter