Washington State Fire Towers and Lookouts
/Washington was once home to more than 700 fire lookouts, but now fewer than 100 remain.
Author Jack Kerouac spends 63 days as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the summer of 1956.
During the summer of 1956, author Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) spends 63 days as a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the Mt, Mount Baker National Forest in Whatcom County. Kerouac hopes to use the solitude to write, but he will be disappointed. His experiences in the Northwest and his journal entries will provide material for two novels: The Dharma Bums (1958) and Desolation Angels (1960).
"And suddenly I saw the Northwest was a great deal more than the little vision I had of it of Japhy in my mind. It was miles and miles of unbelievable mountains grooking on all horizons in the wild broken clouds, Mount Olympus and Mount Baker, a giant orange sash in the gloom over the Pacific-ward skies that led I knew toward the Hokkaido Siberian desolations of the world.” — Jack Kerouac
Salmo Mountain Lookout, Colville National Forest
48.968442, -117.103019
