Methow River

Yes, we've given him a new nickname.

But we do appreciate, you know, he does talk us up out in the Methow Valley.

Anyway, whatever valley you're in, David.

Yeah.

I've also become involved in helping preserve and restore Washington's remaining historic lookouts, and I spend a great deal of time researching and sharing their stories.

In those eight years, I also built a little off-grid homestead in the Methow Valley.

I acquired three horses and started combining my love of fire lookouts with an entirely different kind of adventure, visiting them on horseback.

Which brings me back to Columbia.

We spend years visiting them, photographing them, learning their histories, and sometimes putting an extraordinary amount of effort into keeping them standing.

But we know that they may not be there forever.

Back in July, I wrote about losing the historic Slate Peak Lookout this year, a tower that had stood high above the Methow Valley for seventy years, about what it felt like to return to Goat Peak and no longer see its familiar silhouette on the horizon.

Maybe that's part of why I keep going back to these places, why I keep taking photographs, telling their stories, and doing what I can to preserve them, because sometimes the photographs, memories, and stories are all that remain.