As an avid hiker, Leslie keeps detailed notes on her hikes and explorations. After visiting 500 fire lookouts and lookout sites in the Western US, she decided it was time to start sharing what she had learned. Rather than republish what other lookout enthusiasts had compiled, she dug deeper, found new information, and added a coherent historical narrative to each fire lookout hike chapter.
Leslie was introduced to hiking to fire lookout sites by two southwestern Washington hiking groups, the Tuesday Trotters and The Olympians, near the start of this century. These two clubs had cohorts that focused on hiking to fire lookout sites, which she joined enthusiastically. Two outstanding leaders who inspired Leslie were Harold Lloyd of The Olympians, and Olive Hull of the Trotters. Olive was also the creator of The Mountaineers Olympia Branch Fire Lookout award badges.
Leslie soon heard about Ray Kresek's fire lookout books, and realized there were many more fire lookouts and fire lookout sites to visit, beyond the ones introduced by the local experts. She acquired a GPS, learned to use it in combination with digital maps, and became a Lookout Hunter, as well as a trained hike leader.
When not hiking, she started writing for publication. Early articles were on environmental issues that interested her for the GREEN PAGES, faith-based environmental action pieces for THE OLYMPIAN, and occasional hike reports for the Washington Trails Association website, www.wta.org.
Trips to Iceland inspired her to write a book about that island's volcanic systems and their stories. The manuscript earned a Finalist rating in the 2015 Pacific Northwest Writers Association non-fiction contest. The book has not been published. Leslie attributes this to her not being Icelandic, not being a geologist, and not being an established writer. The final straw was not being able to get permission to include Icelandic and European photographs of volcanic eruptions in the book.
In 2016 Leslie started turning the detailed notes of her driving directions and hike routes (written mostly on the backs of printed maps) into coherent text. Romer had joined the Olympia Writers Critique Group (OWG) while working on her first manuscript, and began bringing them new chapters.
Most of that group are fiction writers, with a few poets. She thought she should include historical notes, based on Ray Kresek and Ira Spring/Byron Fish's tabular data, turned into short paragraphs. The creative writers wanted stories, so she started looking for more historical material. What can she say? Seek and ye shall find!
It took five years to complete this book, with a prod from the Covid pandemic to help her concentrate on finishing the work. The total number of fire lookout sites she has visited is now 510. She suspects her writing work is not complete.
