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New digs at the top
 John Dean watched for smoke from this World War II-era radio and flight control trailer for 18 years. The surplus trailer was moved to Ship Mountain in 1969. Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service A project to replace the temporary fire lookout structure on Ship Mountain in the Smith River National Recreation Area should be completed by June, said Dean, a fire lookout for the U.S. Forest Service. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “It will mean a lot less driving.” Dean has spent the last two years since the construction project began in 2007 as something of a fire lookout nomad, driving from one high spot to another during the fire season in search of smoke. “Due to the construction there wasn’t room for me to be up on Ship Mountain,” Dean said. “There is really only enough room for two vehicles, and the construction crew managed to fit four.” Ship Mountain, 27 miles east of Gasquet by road, became home to a lookout station in 1922. The mountain has four peaks, and the original structure was on a different peak than Dean’s new “office.”
“They had to pack in all the construction supplies on mules,” Dean
said. “The top of the mountain is so small that they couldn’t turn the
first mule train around and so had to construct a trail that day that
circled the summit.”
That first station was eventually burned after it had been decommissioned, Dean said. Just when the decommissioning occurred is not known because the historical record is spotty. “In 1963 the Forest Service burned down the original structure,” Dean said. “They then put in a radio activated weather station,” which was only a skeleton of aluminum.
 Construction was started on the permanent structure that will replace the trailer in 2007, and will be done in June. Courtesy of U.S. Foreset Service “The previous station was on the second peak from the north,” Dean said. “When they installed the portable trailer they put it on the third peak from the north.” Each fire season since 1989, except for the last two, Dean has been in that trailer, eight hours a day, watching for smoke signals. Many times, fires are quickly extinguished after he reports the smoke. However, Dean was the spotter for the 2007 Jedediah Fire, which consumed much of the top of Jedediah Mountain in the Smith River Recreation District, and required eight smoke jumpers and two hand crews to be controlled. Is it lonely at the top? “It’s my style,” Dean said of the work conditions when he was atop Ship Mountain, where he’ll soon return. “I enjoy the solitude; the wind has a very unique sound.” The station is in the national forest 27 miles from Gasquet, seven of which are on dirt roads. Dean doesn’t ever get cabin fever, even though he stays for the duration during active fires and thunderstorms. “The longest I have ever stayed up there was for three days,” Dean said. Three days with his only contact to the outside world being through a radio that can only be used for official fire-related calls. “I get thoughts,” Dean said. “My wife asks when I get back from a shift, did you have any thoughts today?” Asked what sort of thoughts, Dean, a pastor and instructional assistant in Gasquet, responded, “nothing profound.” “God created flowers that no one will ever see. Who did he create them for? Himself,” Dean said, citing an example of something he has pondered while sitting in solitude with nothing but the horizon and the tip of Mount Shasta to see.
 The only work that remains is finishing the roof, and that is waiting until snow melts. Courtesy of U.S. Foreset Service “I always welcome visitors,” Dean said. “But not many people tend to come up there. On average I see about two a week.” Once the new station is finished, Dean may get more visitors than he is prepared for because the Forest Service is planning on having an opening ceremony. The ceremony’s date is still uncertain because snow has halted the remaining work on the mostly finished lookout. “The best way to get up there now, because of the work on South Fork Road, is to take Little Jones Creek Road, which turns into Jawbone Road and then after Bear Basin Butte is seven miles of gravel,” Dean said. “The roads might be closed, so it is always good to check.”
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