High in the Cascades, a lone fire lookout still keeps watch | Hacker News Reader

High in the Cascades, a lone fire lookout still keeps watch

nytimes.com

60 points8bitsrule13 comments

I used to hike up Granite Peak in the Cascades, maybe 6 times in the 90s and 00s. That’s about 4 miles in, 3800 feet up, to reach a fire lookout tower much like the one in the article. One memorable time, I got passed by a lookout staffer muscling up the mountain with a propane tank strapped to his already heavy pack. By the time I caught up with him at the top, the tank had been put to good use, baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies. He shared :-)

You can still find sherpas in Europe, restocking the Chatas. Really makes you appreciate the food and beer more, knowing someone carried it up on their backs.

You play as a fire lookout in the "walking simulator" Firewatch (https://www.firewatchgame.com/)

It's pretty amazing how well Firewatch captures the feel of that point in time. Your character's backstory was pretty well designed to give you an emotional connection to the game. Back when people first started discussing games creating interactive movies, what we ended up with were mostly electronic versions of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books. Firewatch is a nice evolution of interactive fiction into something an order of magnitude better.

NPR ran a similar story two weeks ago:

A Fire Lookout On What's Lost In A Transition To Technology

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/15/749547034/a-fire-lookout-on-w...

Something I fantasized about after reading Dharma Bums by Kerouac in college.

It's not possible to read this article without paying. Tried incognito as well as the web link.

Never say impossible. http://archive.is/nvSOE

I use Brave Browser with JavaScript disabled... loaded first time and I was unaware that there was a paywall :)

I never get paywalls on the NY Times, I'm not sure why. I'm using Firefox with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger, and my connection comes from the United Kingdom, if it helps.

I think it's an IP thing. Maybe something to do with an interpretation of the GDPR.

I'm in Switzerland and have no problem reading the NYT, but every time I'm in the US I notice the paywall.

Interesting, GDPR to US is the new VPN...

Nope. I use Firefox + uBO from multiple machines/IPs in the US and I never see a paywall either.

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