Lookout life has its ups and downs

Matthew Ward has either got one of those dream jobs or something close to a nightmare. I'm not sure which. He's spending the summer at the Prairie Reef Lookout in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It's the highest lookout in Montana. Glacier's Mount Brown Lookout, for what it's worth, is actually a few hundred feet lower.

The thing about Prairie Reef is the exposure. Three big steps out the front door of the lookout in the wrong direction and you'd plummet thousands of feet straight down to your death.

In the other direction, however, it actually is prairie-like. Tree line ends at about 8,500 feet, and there's short grass the rest of the way.

It's awfully pretty on the one hand. On the other hand, there's not much up there, save for a few marmots and some bighorn sheep and a nest of prairie falcons.

Off one ledge, down in the valley, there are the remains of a plane wreck. The bright blue wings are still visible, even though the plane crashed in the mid-1960s. The pilot died, but the passenger somehow lived.

You look down at it and you wonder how anyone survived any of it. Forty years later, it still looks painful.

On busy days, Ward says he'll get about 15 visitors. Most come up on horse. The horses don't like the exposure much. The mules like it less.

At another lookout in the Bob, a mule actually kicked a packer and he went over the edge. Luckily he landed on another ledge about six feet down.

"I'd shot that mule," I said.

But I guess the mule is still part of the pack.

On slow days, like when it rains, no one will come to visit.

Ward gets a couple of days off once in a while, but he doesn't come down. From the lookout to Benchmark is pretty close to 20 miles, I'd guess. Not undoable in a day, but not exactly a stroll in the park, either.

Once you got down, you'd just have to come back up again. You'd barely have time to take a shower.

Speaking of showers, there's no water on Prairie Reef. Mules pack up 40 gallons at a time.

The thing about wilderness living is everyone stinks to a certain degree. I mean, I had access to water and I still couldn't get the stink off of me. My white T-shirt turned grey and my white feet turned black. I had to soak them for awhile to get the crud off.

Thing is, when everyone else stinks, you get used to the smell, so no one really stinks anymore. Funny how it works like that.

The bathroom at the lookout, as one might guess, is simple. It's a pile of rocks with a throne inside. I didn't use it, but I've used similar pit toilets.

A memorable one is at Boulder Pass in Glacier. You sit on what amounts to a box in a pile of rocks that overlook Kinnerly and Kintla mountains. It's a commode with a view. But it sure gets breezy when a front blows through. Pikas play at your feet.

I've always wanted to get my picture on one of those toilets. It would make a good Christmas card, but there was no one around to take it.

Ward has to stay close to the lookout from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. He paints the lookout. He reads. He looks for fires. He listens to the radio. He reads some more. After 4:30, he takes an evening stroll.

Life is simple up here. But the wind always blows and it is always cool, he says.

It's a lookout life. It's not for everyone. But it's a living. Just watch your step off that front porch. It could be your last.