Where in the Wild is Chris

Fire Lookout Friday: Lookouts and Lightning, Part 3

What lightning leaves behind

For the last two weeks, I've been talking about lightning. What it's like to ride out a storm from a fire lookout, and what our eyes miss inside a lightning flash. This season, I hunted down three different trees hit by lightning strikes I witnessed from Goat Peak. Come join me to see what happens when lightning hits a tree and what it leaves behind.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: Lookouts and Lightning, Part 2

What happens inside a lightning flash?

I was planning to talk this week about what lightning leaves behind. But then I went back through some footage I captured during an extraordinary August 2024 storm from Goat Peak, and frame by frame, I realized I'd been watching something far more complicated than I understood.

This week, we slow lightning down to see what our eyes miss and explore everything happening inside a lightning flash in just a fraction of a second.

Visit my substack page, to see the videos and frame-by-frame sequences of some pretty incredible lightning captures.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: Lookouts and Lightning, Part 1

What It's Like to Be Inside the Storm

Lookouts and lightning go together like bread and butter, and after six seasons staffing Goat Peak—a fire lookout with a well-earned reputation as a lightning magnet—I’ve amassed quite the collection of lightning stories. I've seen lightning hiss past the windows, heard the explosive crack of a direct strike, and witnessed electrical phenomena I never imagined possible.

This week, I'm taking you inside the storm with some of my favorite audio and video recorded from Goat Peak, to explore what it's actually like to sit inside a glass box on top of a mountain that acts like a lightning rod.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: The Oldest Tool in the Box

A brief history of fire lookouts, and why they still matter today

For more than a century, fire lookouts have watched over the American West. With the rise of technology, including satellites, cameras, lightning detection, and AI, human lookouts have been called antiquated, obsolete, and destined to disappear.

This week on Fire Lookout Friday: a brief history of how fire lookouts came to be and why human fire lookouts are still relevant and important today.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: On Presence, Ponies, and Scooping Manure

Musings from the likely end of another fire lookout season

Fire lookout work requires you to pay attention. As it turns out, so do horses and living off-grid. After another intense summer at Goat Peak, I've been thinking about the strange life I've assembled and why all of it seems to ask the same thing of me.

This week on Fire Lookout Friday: some end-of-season musings about presence, ponies, and scooping manure.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: An Invitation to the Yakama Reservation

Some adventures are earned. Some are simply luck.

Most of Washington's fire lookouts I reached through stubbornness, problem-solving, and a truly unreasonable number of failed attempts. Satus and Signal Peak were different. These two lookouts stand on the Yakama Reservation and getting there required something I couldn't manufacture on my own: an invitation.

This week on Fire Lookout Friday: a story about luck, timing, and Bigfoot stories. And one unforgettable June day on the Yakama Reservation.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: War Creek Ridge

A trail to the past

Once upon a time, hundreds of fire lookouts stood on mountaintops across Washington. Many are long gone, including the fire lookout on War Creek Ridge, high above the Twisp River.

This week on Fire Lookout Friday, join me on a steep climb up a nearly vanished trail, following breadcrumbs of history along the way, including the story of a tough-as-nails Methow cowboy named Cliff Libby.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: Goat Peak—More Than Fire, Smoke, and Radio

The relationship between a bird and a tree

Fire lookout life isn't just smoke on the horizon, bearings on the fire finder, and radio traffic. It's also about developing a relationship with a place. And with the neighbors who share the summit.

This week is a story about a threatened tree, a raucous corvid with an extraordinary memory, and what happens when you stay in one place long enough to notice the relationships between things.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: Goat Peak, Then and Now

A hundred years of Tuesdays

When I unlock the Goat Peak fire lookout each summer, I'm not just opening a fire lookout. I'm stepping into nearly a century of stories. Log books. Historical photographs. Osborne panoramas. Names scratched into the ceiling hatch by generations of lookouts.

Join me for a walk through Goat Peak's remarkable living history, and discover the surprising ways today's lookouts still share the same mountain with the people who kept watch nearly a century ago.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com

Fire Lookout Friday: From the Summit of Goat

Questions about Fire Lookout Life

Six seasons on the same mountain, and the questions don't really change. What do you actually do up there? Don't you get bored? How does a thousand pounds of groceries get to a 7,000-foot summit?

This week, straight from the catwalk at Goat Peak, I'm answering the questions I hear most from visitors, including what nobody ever thinks to ask about: the sleepless nights, the Murphy's Law of mountain breaks, and why staffing Goat Peak is never, ever lonely or boring.

Fire Lookout Friday is a weekly podcast and newsletter about Washington's historic fire lookouts—their stories, their history, and the ridiculous things that happen when you decide to visit all of them. And then staff one.

whereinthewildischris.substack.com