Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sit atop a mountain and watch the horizon for the faintest hint of wildfire smoke?
That was Philip Connors’ job for 23 years as a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout and he chronicles his experiences in his new book: The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary.
KUNM sat down with Connors to unpack the book, which intertwines deeply personal journal notes and poetry created on a lonely mountaintop.
PHILIP CONNORS: You know, the fundamental thing was I had missed one entire season [as a fire lookout] as I recovered from a couple of surgeries. And so I had a long run there interrupted. Every year I was going back for five months or so, and I'd had 14 consecutive seasons of doing so, and then I missed a season.
In my mind, the mountain still lived and still was a major presence in my imagination, but only in my imagination.
I was lucky enough to recover and be able to return to doing the work after missing a year. And I just wanted to try to see everything fresh. It was almost like a reset. And, part of that process was trying to keep a very detailed notebook of observations of the life of the mountain. It did help me see things new and I also tried to bring fresh language to some of the old rituals that I resumed once I came back.
KUNM: This book feels very different than other traditional books in my bookcase. It tells your story, but it's also clearly a love letter to a place that is very intimate to you and deeply personal to you. It's also filled with these drawings and poems. Why include those?
CONNORS: Well, it was interesting. When I was convalescing from those two surgeries I mentioned – one on each hip – I spent many, many months in bed in chronic pain. And, during that dark interlude, I happened to mention to a friend of mine that I had lost the ability to read. Chronic pain had so eroded my attention span, I couldn't really get from the top to the bottom of one page in a book anymore.
Next thing I know, there's a package from her in the mail, and I open it up and it's a book. And my first thought is, well, this is a good joke. I tell her that I can't read a book, so she sends me a book. But the beautiful thing was, it was a collection of Haiku, and her message to me was: if you can't read a book, start with 17 syllables and three lines of poetry.
I think that first day I opened it up to some random page, and there's a poem by Basho, one of the greats of Japanese haiku. And it was: ‘Year after year, on the monkey's face, a monkey face.’ And, I was like – A, that's kind of funny; B, that's kind of deep and says something about the human condition in an observation of an animal.
I didn't realize the form could grapple with philosophy, social commentary, existential angst, and humor. I fell in love with the form, and I wanted to try my hand at it.
KUNM: I couldn't help but think about the fantastic way you teleport me to the mountainside with you, giving me that indescribable feeling of loneliness that wilderness brings, but also a sense of awe about Mother Nature. What keeps you grounded in a place like that, with only your thoughts?
CONNORS: One way is by recognizing that I'm a seasonal visitor there with immense privileges to live on the top of a mountain where I can see four states and two countries… Texas, Chihuahua, southern New Mexico, southeast Arizona…
And two, recognizing that part of the privilege is sharing a place on the face of the earth that's alive with all of the other creatures that should be there, the full array of native life that should be flourishing in a wild and healthy ecosystem is indeed still there. They're its true owners. To my mind, they were there long before I ever showed up. Their kind will propagate, with any luck, and still be there long after I'm gone.
So, to be an observer and a participant in the dramas of their lives is a very good way to stay grounded.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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Philip Connors is a New Mexico based author and his new book, The Mountain Knows the Mountain: A Fire Watch Diary, came out on Sept. 16, 2025.
Connors will have a reading and signing of the book at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21, at Bookworks in Albuquerque.
