Hi friends and family,This is my last week of fire school and preparation for the summer season. We did a big "power hike" today up Big Southern Butte adjacent to Craters of the Moon. For a power hike you wear full fire fighting gear (fire proof pants, boots, and shirt, 45 pound pack, and a tool). My crew finished the 3.5 mile uphill hike first. That's right, I got paid to hike today, and I hiked fast.
This is the view from the top of the butte.
This is my engine this year. It is a "light" engine. That is a Ford F550 SuperDuty with 300 gallons of water on it. I will take my turn driving since I don't need a CDL for this one.
6 comments:
That just looks VERY hot-- and I mean sweltering hot! I can't imagine hiking with all that gear on. Do you ever get to spray yourself down with the firehose? Water fights? (you work for the government-- you ought to be able to do that once in a while:)
Those are so e sweet shots. Its fun to see what it looks like for you on the job. I love being outside in the summer time.
I am very impressed. Hope Ian got to see these pictures. Must be pretty cool to have a dad who is a fire fighter and one who gets to the mountain top first! Now for your mother's sake stay safe. OK?
I am impressed as well. That sounds like hard work to this desk jocky. Those are pretty cool pictures.
Julie, that water fights idea sounds kinda...well..you know..gay. Three guys hosing each other down? 100 gallon per minute hoses leave bruises, but yeah, in this heat, the cold water sounds nice. I just spent 16 hours a day of the last two days walking around the burned area of a fire on the mountain west of town. We were doing a search and destroy of the last hot spots on a 5 day old fire. Day 1 I carried a chain saw up and down a thousand feet of mountain 6 times or more. Day 2 we played some hacky sack.
When did my cousins become such burly mountain men? But I have to admit, that's the nicest Butte I've ever seen. We miss you guys, always...I gotta see all those babies!
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