From Mahoney Peak

waltonk - Jan 11, 2022 6:20 pm - Voted 9/10

I spent the summer of 1959 on Mahoney Fire Lookout. It was my third summer out of high school, and the work paid for my first two years at Weber College, Ogden, UT, That was the summer the US Coastal Geodetic Survey came up and made the triangulation station. They worked at night so the lights from the other two mountaintops could be seen. It was a great experience for a young man. In the daytime I couldn't get much on my AM radio, but at night I listened to KOB, Albuquerque KOMA, Oklahoma City KBOI, Boise, KSL, Salt Lake City , KOA, Denver, and Wolfman Jack from Mexico. I reported several fires, and on one watched the smokejumpers drop out if the plane not far from the lookout. One day I reported a smoke, and was told, "You have a good eye. That fire is 100 miles from you, and we've been on it for two weeks." My bush pilot was Marvin Hornbeck, who later died in a crash at the Boise airport. He sure knew his way around the Idaho wilderness area as it was then called. Thanks for the memories.