The day after we went to the fair, Ron decided he wanted to go visit Bill Williams Mountain, which sits behind Williams at a height of 9,000 ft. From pavement to the top was about 6 1/2 miles of rutted road. We enjoyed the ride and took pictures of the surrounding area below as we went up. This mountain has all kinds of microwave towers bristling at the top, but, what surprised us the most was that there was a fire tower. There was a sign at the bottom telling us it was okay to climb up the stairs, so we did, but, as we were getting closer, Ron saw a lock on the bottom of the trap door. At first, we thought it was locked, but, then, Ron decided to go closer and try to open the door. Well, it was locked, but, the next thing we knew, someone was opening it up from the inside!
We were invited in, one at a time through the door and met a most congenial fellow, by the name of Gilbert, who was working the tower. It was an awesome view from up there and the windows were squeaky clean. We introduced ourselves and he showed us how he uses his map to report fires in the area. We learned the tower is manned most all the time from May to October. Gilbert works there 8 hours a day and there is a fulltime occupant who lives on the property all summer. He had just mentioned he'd seen a fire out by where we're working and had sent out a fire truck to investigate. It's nice to know, in our area at least, there are tower lookouts looking for the telltale smoke that may mean a forest fire in the making...and ready to nip it in the bud.
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