Driving to and from a lookout tower isn't for everyone

First of all you have to be somewhere with no one else within 10 or 12 or more miles by yourself for about 4 days 24 hours a day there.

Then if you have a health emergency you might die before anyone got to you or found you. Then there were herds or Wild Boar that would literally kill and eat you if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let me tell you what happened one night while I was driving up to go on duty.

It was getting dark and if the weather was good I took a 1976 VW Rabbit 4 speed with a lot of power for better mileage for the 1 1/2 hour drive there from where I was living on the Coast. then if the weather was wet or bad I took my 1974 International Harvester Scout II which was likely the best 4 wheel drive for off road stuff I ever owned (even though the stick shift blew out my then wife's knee in a traffic jam because the clutch was so strong to push in. So, though it was a stick shift it also had a locked rear end so it wasn't like most 4 wheel drives in a pinch where the right front wheel and the right back wheel might be pulling. No, on this one you got at least 3 wheels pulling in every single situation.

So, I was driving the 1976 VW Rabbit that day because the weather was okay and it wasn't going to be a muddy mess so you might slide right off the dirt road and off a cliff that day. So, I opened one of the ranch gates and it was getting dark so I couldn't see very well.

So, I get back in my car and my muffler was a little loud and I guess some animal attacked my car and pushed it off the dirt road into a ditch. But, since I wasn't allowed a gun to protect myself in these situations by regulation from CDF I didn't have a weapon to shoot whatever this was that attacked my VW Rabbit.

So, I just drove in the ditch until I could drive out of it even though it was scratching the side of my driver's side a little bit and I just kept driving until I got to the lookout in the dark and pulled into the bottom of the lookout which has a built in garage with a garage door you can lock for security so no one can get your vehicle or even climb into the lookout because the stairs start inside the garage for security and eventually go outside through another door up one story or two in elevation. 

But, when I got out after shutting my car inside the garage I looked at my front bumper and part of it that was rubber had been pulled off and there were sort of teeth marks in the bumper too. So, I knew something had bitten off the rubber part of my bumper on the end.

However, when I went off duty I still wasn't sure what animal had done this and sort of believed it had to be either a Bull from a herd of cows or it was a Wild Boar.

So, what I found eventually driving down was the Biggest Female Boar I had ever seen. She was almost as big as my car. But, she had torn her lower jaw off biting my bumper so she couldn't eat or drink and died I guess and nearby were all her 300 pound each babies. I was absolutely amazed as the size of the boar mama and even more surprised at how big her babies were too.

So, this true story happened during the 1985 or 1986 season I worked at the fire lookout too. So, luckily I survived all this.

However, I only had to drive in the snow once when it fell while I was there I think in October and that was likely my last week there then too. But, many times it was wet and since the roads were clay a lot it got very slick and slimy and I had to be careful not to go off a cliff even though I was in full 4 wheel drive there going home.

So, as you can see the Chalone peak lady might not have made it through all that but somehow I did.

So, unless you are good alone in the wilderness and have pretty good health I wouldn't try to be even a volunteer fire lookout for the summer. You have to be very practical to survive doing this for 6 months straight and to survive it. So, if you aren't very practical and level headed it isn't a good idea to be a fire lookout.