In this second installment of Overland Bounds travels in Sequoia National Park, we explore Buck Rock Lookout, one of the last operational US Forest Service lookouts. Travel with us as we ascend 172 steps to the breathtaking perch atop a granite dome with breathtaking views of the Great Western Divide. By the end of the 1930’s, there were over 800 lookouts in California. Buck Rock Lookout casts is gaze from 8500 feet!
The Lookout
Way above the forests, that are in my care.
Watching for the curling smoke—looking everywhere,
Tied onto the world below by a telephone,
High, and sometimes lonesome—living here alone,
Snow peaks on the skyline, woods and rocky ground,
The green of Alpine meadows circle me around,
Waves of mountain ranges like billows of the sea—
Seems like in the whole wide world there’s not a soul but me.
Peering thru the drift of smoke, sighting thru the haze.
Blinking at the lightning on the stormy days,
Here to guard the forests from the Red Wolf’s tongue
I stay until they take me down, when the fall snows come.
— Robin Adair
California District Newsletter, April 1927
Trackbacks/Pingbacks