I was a fire lookout for the Forest Service in northern Montana, flathead National Forest.

If you've never been up there, it's one of those places that makes you feel like you're standing on the edge of the world.

Mountains in every direction.

Trees so thick you can't see the ground from

the air in some spots. In a silence so total it almost hurts your ears the first few nights.

I took the posting in 2022. I was 32, recently divorced, and I needed to be somewhere that

wasn't my apartment in Missoula.

A buddy of mine who worked for the Forest Service told me there was an opening at a lookout

called Sheepherder Peak.

Elevation around 7,000 feet.

The tower had been staffed on and off since the 1950s, but had been unmanned for a few seasons.

They were bringing it back into rotation because of the fire risk that year.

The job was simple on paper.

You sit in a 14 by 14 glass room on top of a 60-foot tower and you watch for smoke.

You log weather observations.

You radio in anything unusual. You do this for about four months, June through September, mostly alone.

They fly in supplies every two weeks by helicopter,

and you have a radio and a satellite phone for emergencies.

That's it. No internet, no cell service, no neighbors. I loved it. At least for the first two and a half

months. The tower itself was old but solid. The cabin sat on a steel frame with a catwalk around all

four sides. Inside, there was a cot, a propane stove, an Osborne firefinder bolted to the center of the room,

a desk, and a chair. The windows gave you a 360-degree view. At night, when the sky was clear,

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