Lookout Pam

Kiwi was a trooper. I can't say the same for her two-legged mom. I complained a bit as we trudged up a steep trail to Lookout Mountain's Lookout Towers yesterday. I was still suffering gastrointestinal revenge from the aftermath of something eaten, something deadly at a local restaurant Friday night.

So, my enjoyment level of this Labor Day outing with Bill and Kiwi, was, at times, lacking. Nevertheless, I've got a stock full of remarkable memories from our 5-mile hike on a drop-dead gorgeous day where little Kiwi happily trotted between Bill and me, asking only at the end with her high-pitched, sweet whimper and longing little brown eyes to "please pick me up and carry me." I obliged.

Lookout Mountain sits in the beautiful Selkirks northeast of Priest Lake, almost to the Canadian Border. It took us nearly four hours to get to the trail head, passing through Coolin and then along the east side of the lake--mainly because the last stretch of road was pretty rough. Once there, we donned our gear, grabbed our hiking poles, saw that Kiwi had a nice big drink of water and headed up the trail.

Within a mile, we reached Bill's first appointed stop just off the trail near pristine but fishless Lookout Lake. It was a Wild Rose geocache; she always paints bright red roses on her green army surplus cache cans and fills them to the brim with goodies for cachers of all ages and interests. Bill selected some of her geocacher buttons and put in a pencil from Betty Munis' Idaho Forest Products Commission as well as a card with illustrations and characteristics of Idaho's trout families.

While at the cache, we could hear voices of kids near the lake and grown-ups chatting not far from us. As we proceeded along the trail, we met three adults picking huckleberries. Bill took time out to show the man how to punch in his coordinates on his GPS to find a geocache. Though she continued to pick berries, his wife seemed pleased with the brief educational interlude.

"My wife has been wanting me to learn this," the man said as he held the GPS and computer printout describing the cache we'd just left and planned to search it out.

The entire stretch of trail yesterday was a huckleberry heaven. In fact, Kiwi has now become a seasoned huckleberry hound, thanks to some quick instructions from Sport, a handsome year-old yellow lab, whom we met near the lookout. Sport and his buddies, Patti and Jim, were just leaving the structure after a visit with Patti's sister Pam Aunan.

As an employee of the Idaho State Department of Lands, Pam has spent 16 summers watching for fires on Lookout Mountain. She's about to come down for the season and is getting the lookout ready for the building inspector who's due in tomorrow. Yesterday's project was painting, which was obvious from the white smudges we noticed on her chin when we met Pam with her relatives on the trail just below the lookout.

The knowledge she's gained through her many years in that perch, offering breath-taking views of Chimney Rock, Lionhead and all the rugged Selkirks, as well as the entirety of Lower and Upper Priest Lakes, flows as she continually chats and leads visitors up the steep stairs to the newer lookout of two such structures on that mountaintop. The other tower, built in 1929 and continually restored by a family, stands a short distance away from Pam's summer home.

It was tricky walking those steps and holding Kiwi at the same time, but we made it. While Pam and Bill talked, I walked the ramp around the lookout, taking care to avoid the fresh white paint and snapping photos of the endless mountaintops surrounding the tower. Pam offered Kiwi a bowl of water and raved with pride about her experiences and her tower.

Though I'd endured a miserable time with my stomach, I was glad that Bill kept to his pace of reaching all goals. After all, there was another geocache to be found in the rock pile surrounding that lookout. Sure enough, he located it and chose a package of multi tools from his second find of the day---a cache set out by the legendary MounTENbike.

Pam was happy to see us among her many visitors yesterday. She wished us well as we waved good bye and headed back down the trail where we later caught up with her relatives and Kiwi had her first taste of huckleberries. From that point on, our resilient little pup mastered the art of trotting downhill and grabbing some purple gold.

I'm hoping today that my tummy problems will become a forgotten memory, but I'm also hoping never to forget Labor Day, 2005, as Kiwi's first hike and those phenomenal views of the North Idaho Selkirks while visiting Lookout Pam.