Room with a view

Solitude.

That’s what Craig Phillips, the lookout on Eddy Mountain outside of Thompson Falls, says he really likes about his job.

“I really like the solitude and I love watching the wildlife,” he said.

Solitude is right. The road to the Eddy Mountain lookout is Eddy Peak Road, and it is a one-lane dirt and gravel road that circles up the mountain for around 10 miles. Once you get to the top, there is a small parking area, which at most could hold around three cars. From this parking area there is still about a 100-yard walk/hike up smallish rocks to get to the lookout. Once getting close you can see Phillips’ smiling face and his constant companion, his yellow lab, Brandy, excitedly wagging her tail to greet you.

While Phillips does enjoy the solitude, if you were to ask him what his favorite part of being a lookout was, he’d tell you the sunrises and sunsets, along with protecting the country he sees.

This is Phillips’ second year being the Eddy Mountain lookout full-time, and his third year being a lookout at Eddy Mountain, and he said the life of solitude doesn’t bore him at all.

“I’m constantly looking for smoke,” he said. “With this scenery in front of me, there is no way I could be bored.”

No ordinary view

The lookout tower perches Eddy Mountain at an elevation of 6,957 feet — the highest lookout out of the three in Sanders County. Phillips can see for the Mission Mountains, the western Cabinet Mountains, as well as mountains in Idaho as well.

“The elevation takes a little bit to get used to,” Phillips said. There have been people who have driven all the way up to the lookout, just to turn around because the heights are too much for them, he said.

The lookout is a small building with the main area being on the top floor. Windows stretch in all directions for optimal smoke watching. A twin-sized bed is tucked into one corner and a small propane stove in another. The desk is pushed up against one wall with a map and a compass on it to help Phillips locate the precise location of fires. The radios in the room are powered by solar panels on the roof. In the middle of the room is the antique looking Osborne Fire Fighter. Despite its antique physique, the Osborne Fire Fighter is one of the best tools Phillips has to give a location of a fire.

“It has been used since the turn of the century,” he said. To use it, Phillips looks through the sight and moves around it in a circle until he is lined up with the smoke, from there he reads the numbers on the sides to help pinpoint where the fire is.

Even though the lookout itself isn’t all that large, with the big windows and expanse of mountains and land outside, it feels much larger.

He spends on average from the first part of July until the middle of September staying five days a week in the lookout tower. Although, depending on how the season is going, those times may fluctuate a little bit.

“I feel it is a big responsibility and I take it very seriously,” Phillips said.

Phillips starts his day at 9:30 a.m. with checking the weather and then reporting it to the Plains dispatch. He reports the weather twice a day, once at 10 a.m. and then again at 5 p.m. For his weather report, Phillips has to check the temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction and the cloud make-up.

In between his weather reports, Phillips is on the lookout for any sign of smoke in the miles and miles of mountains he can see from atop his perch.

He said that, so far, the year has been pretty slow and so far there have only been two small fires that he has had to call in. Last year, he explained, was anything but small.

“It was a big year last year,” Phillips said. “We had lots of fires last year, including the big one out in Chippy Creek.”

Phillips has pictures hanging in the lookout of the smoke from the fire, which he photographed last year from the lookout.

Phillips started being a lookout in 2000 when he was asked by the Forest Service to watch on Cougar Peak. When the full-time lookout at Eddy Mountain retired after 20 years, Phillips was asked to take that job because of his knowledge of the country.

He also knew about fires, as he served as a firefighter in his younger years, and both of his sons have served as firefighters as well.

Phillips said that most of the fires are caused by lightening strikes and watching lightening storms from the lookout is an amazing experience.

“I don’t think you’ve lived until you’ve seen a lightening storm from a lookout,” he said.

However, he said that something that is worrying him this season is the number of manmade fires that are left unattended. He said unmanned campfires are a big problem. Although they’ve been lucky with it being moist and the fires being caught before they can start a big blaze, he said people really need to be careful.

“Luckily we’ve had a wet year, but it is getting dryer, and people really need to be careful with their campfires,” he said.

Phillips added that fire fighting is a whole team effort between dispatch, the lookout, firefighters and air patrol, and that he has a lot of respect for firefighters and what all they do.

Joys of solitude

There are some people who might think being alone for such an extended period of time would drive them crazy. While it is pretty remote and while Phillips does spend a lot of time to himself, he has Brandy. The two of them take nightly walks around the lookout.

“Last season I probably had around 250 visitors,” he said. “People come from all over the country, and even as far away as Japan.”

While being a lookout is a 24-hour-a-day job, Phillips does have some free time in the evening, and that is when he works on his art.

“This is quite a break,” he said with a laugh. “It gets me rested up until I have gallery season in the winter.”

Paintings and bronze sculptures hand around the lookout. Phillips said that he is mostly self-taught, In his 30 years as a professional artist, his works have been displayed in galleries.

When he doesn’t have to work, art is a kind of relaxation. The beautiful view gives him lots of inspiration and a chance to take reference photos.

He is currently working on a clay sculpture of an elk that sits in the corner of the lookout. On average, Phillips spends three months finishing a sculpture. Once he is done, he’ll send it to Oregon to have it bronzed.

The Eddy Mountain lookout has been around since the 1930s, although it has been remodeled since its original inception. When it was first built it was just one story, but changed to help give the lookouts a better view of the surrounding mountains.

Phillips said that a lot has changed since the days of those first lookouts in the 1930s. The lookouts used to be the first line of defense and if they spotted a fire, they were the ones who went out first to stop it.

“It isn’t like how it is now, where we can make a call and there is a whole team working together to put the fire out,” he said.

Phillips said that the time right now until the fall is their most severe time for fire, and August is usually the critical month. “This is usually when we see a lot more and bigger fires,” he said.

He said that you can get a really great night sleep in the lookout because of how quiet it is and the lack of light pollution. Phillips also said that the stars are absolutely incredible at night.

Phillips also loves the wildlife and said that he regularly sees elk, deer and bald eagles. He has several ground squirrels that hang around the lookout and are so tame, will just about eat out of his hand. They scamper through the rocks leading up to Phillips’ perch. He has also encountered some less common animals during his time up in the lookout.

“I did have a bear visitor last fall,” he said. “He circled the lookout a couple of times, but I was able to shoo him away. We don’t usually see many bears up here, they keep away.”

While the bear was unusual, Phillips said that the most unusual thing he has encountered was a “big bull moose” that hung out around the campsite all last summer. “That was pretty unusual,” he said. “I didn’t think they came up to elevations this high, and he hung around quite a bit.”

Not just anyone could work as a lookout. It takes a lot of know-how, as well as patience in being able to look outside all day and possibly not see anything. However, it is something that Phillips really loves to do.

“I don’t mind the quiet at all,” he said. “And I take all of this very seriously. This is a big responsibility and there is a lot to look at. The lookouts never stop looking.”