OK, this will be the last show I spend talking about staying the night in a fire lookout tower. At least until I get to go stay in another one.
My wife and I stayed in the Blackhall Mountain Lookout Tower last week, up above Riverside and Encampment. If you’ve never spent any time in a fire lookout tower, even if you’ve seen pictures other people have posted from their visits, you can’t wrap your head around how amazing the view is from up there.
We could see all the way to the Wind River Range to the north, to the Snowy Range to the east, the Sawtooth Range in Colorado to the south, and maybe to the curve of the earth to the west. I couldn’t help thinking how cool it would be to be up there during a full solar eclipse. I bet you could see the entire shadow of the moon.
I understand why they post fire lookouts up there. You could see the whole forest. Granted, there are places that would be behind other mountains, but you’d still be able to see the smoke drifting up. The view during the day was breathtaking.
But I’ve never seen a sunset so incredible. The clouds opposite the setting sun were lit up pink and purple. And it lasted for what seemed like hours. That high up, it takes longer for dark to settle in, so even though the sun set at 7:30, it didn’t get truly dark until about 10:30. The forest was dark, but the sky was still doing its color show all that time.
When it did finally get dark, the stars came out. All of them. Satellites were clearly visible to the naked eye. And the Milky Way was right there. It seemed like you could just step right on it.
If you’re into stargazing, go gaze from a fire tower. You can’t beat the view.
