Job Change And A Side Trip
As we transitioned from the month of July to August, so transitioned our job. Having run short of volunteers the Forest Service chose to close the buildings on the Swett Ranch and leave it to self-guided tours of the fourteen acres. We are taking up a new post in the cab of the Ute Mountain Fire Lookout Tower. Our commute to work is now a 15 mile trip, about half of which is a dirt road climb to the summit of Ute Mountain. Like the Swett Ranch, the Lookout Tower is on the National Registry of Historic Places. While there was voluminous history and hundreds of family stories to get to know about the Swett Ranch that was not the case of the tower. It came into existence 28 years after the Swett Ranch was founded, was only operated during fire season, usually May to October, and went out of service in 1968. Occupancy was a string of entry-level firefighters, rarely the same people from one season to the next. So our stories to tell visitors was pri...