Adventures in Okanogan-Wenatchee NF (Lookout Territory) + Fireweed Meadow
Field notes: July 2025 - Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
A point where my day job (as an elopement photographer) and my moonlight coalesce: scouting spots in the North Cascades of Washington.
I spent 2 days exploring forest roads, new trails in Oka-Wen NF, where LOOKOUT takes place. I explored a new lookout tower—Slate Peak, the second-highest in Washington State at 7,440 feet. The road to get there is the highest in the state.
I found a meadow like one I had written about, snags with blooms of fireweed from a recent fire—off Highway 20. I had the time this time—I stopped to take it all in.
Oh, and I called in my first wildfire. I was driving back down from Hart’s Pass and saw smoke from the road, maybe 50-100 feet off the road. I stopped to check it out. I could hear the crackles. I pulled out my Starlink (I hate that I have this but it is extremely helpful for these kinds of situations) and called WA DNR. I didn’t stay to watch them come—but I’m glad I was there.
Report a forest fire in Washington:
911 and 800-562-6010
DNR Statewide Wildfire | Information Contacts
By the way, if you don’t have it already, please do yourself a favor right now and download the WatchDuty app. Especially for anyone that lives in the Western USA. You can see active fires, cams, evacuation info and other updates in real time across the US.
Excerpt from LOOKOUT chapter 09 : fireweed
It’s another mile and three quarters before I round a bend and see it. No doubt where Lev was leading me. The divide is immediate and striking. It takes me a moment to realize what I’m looking at—a sea of vibrant fuchsia blanketing the ground beneath a canopy of dark black posts—dead, charred snags of trees. A surreal barcode of pink and black stretching all the way down to the lake below.
I’ve seen this place from my tower. The burn scar. But it isn’t brown or gray—it’s pink.
I fish through my pack for my guidebook and thumb through the pages. Chamaenerion angustifolium. Fireweed, or as it's sometimes called, the Phoenix flower. Thousands and thousands of its blooms several feet high fill the meadow like a fuchsia sea. The air is fragrant and sweet.
A note in the book: these flowers tend to love disturbed places.
The Meandering Fire—it was this close to my tower. Four men died somewhere in these scars. Was it here? Did their ash help feed this meadow?
Near the high edge of the meadow where the snags are sparse I notice one sapling taller than the rest—no, hang on a moment, this is manmade. It’s seen some weather but it’s clearly a cross.
Who put this here? Their families? Their crew?
This is place of death—destruction.
But I look around and all I see is life.
I see the Phoenix flower, rising tall from the ashes—from the final resting places of the four men who fought to beat back the very catalyst which allowed this flower to bloom.
It almost feels like spite.
Fire, the enemy—a malevolent force to be contained, beaten back, demolished. As if lightning had never occurred to a forest before the Service.
Lev’s words echo here—this forest needs us.
Does it? These flowers surely don’t.
Next it’s my mother’s voice I hear—nature finds a way.
I can’t seem to reconcile the two.
If the Meandering Fire had been left to truly meander—what would this wilderness look like today? Would more of these ridges be abloom?
Let it burn. Let it burn. Let it burn.
And what of those four young men, who believed they were fighting a noble cause? Might they still be alive? What's the story of boys dying before they get to become men? Children dying before they even get a chance to bloom?
Let it burn. Let it burn. Let it burn.
I don't know their names but I mourn them nonetheless. I mourn the death of these four firefighters and in a way, too, I mourn the death of the Meandering Fire itself.
At least—if nothing else—there are flowers.
I ask again: why am I here? Why are any of us? What's this all for?
Was it a meaningless sacrifice?
I know what Lev said. I understand his reasoning. I see the danger. But standing here amid this vibrant aftermath of destruction, it still feels wrong.
He is right about one thing. At this point in history we've mucked up the cycle—we've intervened. A hundred years of choking out and smothering every blaze, large or little. Sitting idly by is not an option. We've passed any point of return. We're up against a century's worth of lost fire and waiting fuel, of pent-up brush and duff, ready and eager and itching to ignite at a moment's notice.
Still—I can’t help the small voice in the back of my head:
What if?
↟
beneath the soil a dormant secret
below the forest the fireweed sleeps
latent, quiet, ready to blossom
if only we let the blazes keep
