The Best Free Tour in Missoula: Smoke Jumpers, Airplanes, and Spam (Not the annoying e-mail kind!)
Introduction
So, you are cheap and broke, but you want to do something. I get it. I am still pretty much there, but it was worse years ago.
It is tough to want to see the sites on a budget. What if I told you that there was a tour so good for your family that you would want to pay money? You believe me? Probably not. You’re like, “What’s the catch, Paulie?” Well, the honest catch is I think they are trying to recruit people, as they need 400 more people to fill all the roles. This is an exciting job. In fact, my daughter and son thought about doing it after the tour.
What is this, you ask? Well, let’s play a guessing game. You get paid to hike in the woods. You get to jump out of awesome airplanes. You are required to stay in shape. You get to camp when you are on duty. Sure, the conditions might get on the hot side. I mean, like you might experience the fires of hell in the worst-case scenario, but that is pretty unlikely. You get to use a chainsaw. You can sometimes use power equipment. You get paid to camp. Did you hear that? “YOU GET PAID TO CAMP!” I think my kids were sold on “Jump out of an airplane” and “CAMP.”
Any ideas? This is a job as a smoke jumper. You might be asking, “Paulie, I’m looking for something to do, and I am in Missoula. I want it to be cheap and free. I can’t be a smoke jumper right now!” Yeah, but do you like airplanes? Do you like history? Then go on the tour! It is totally worth your time.
I am telling you that you want to tour this place if you are in Missoula. We were in Missoula for my son’s soccer and stopped by this place because we had to pass some time. My wife reached out to the organization to find out about tours. We were there during the season when you have to book an appointment. However, the tour is free! That is right: FREE! That is an F-word even the FCC can get behind! If you want to book an appointment through this link.
I didn’t want to put out on the internet all the ins and outs of the building. The real reason I forgot to take more pics of the interior is that I got distracted by the old-school SAB bike. I remember riding my Panasonic DX2000 with the downtube shifters. Man, those were the days! The bike was in great shape for its age! I thought it was cool that the smoke jumpers are retro and keep this beast going. That takes some class and style. So, not part of the tour, but nicely done!
What is the tour?
Well, you start in the main lobby. This is where they have displays and mannequins wearing the smoke jumper apparel. It is necessary gear for the job. What red-blooded American male does not like an excuse to buy more gear? When I heard that they are issued this stuff, I almost signed up right there.
On a very serious note, this is something that is pretty dangerous and adventurous at the same time. You are jumping out of an airplane with about 100 pounds strapped to you. You have to open the parachute and land in a safe place. Then you have to go and find the box of supplies that you dropped. You have not even started work at this point.
When you get to the box, you are going to grab your tools and get busy. The main goal of these fire fighters is to make sure that the fuel for the fire is burned up. You start with the tour of the jumpers doing their things.
Then you work through the building. There is a place where they test the parachutes. We were surprised to see the smoke jumper sewing up clothing. I thought that they just bought their gear and were good to go. Well, no siree, Bobby! That is not how it works. They have to figure out how to fix their own clothing. It makes perfect sense. If you are dropped in the middle of nowhere, you tear something; well, you have to learn how to fix it, right? The best way to be confident in fixing something is building something. So, they sew their own clothing so they can repair it in the field.
You check out the room where they test the parachutes. You also see the parachutes packed in a room. They put dates on the parachutes so they know when they were packed. If the chutes are packed for too long, then they need to be repacked to make sure that nothing has been compromised. One problem is that material can get brittle on fold points. That is a potential failure point. The last thing you want is a parachute to fail when you have a hundred pounds strapped to you.
They also put the person’s name on the packed chute. That way, if one chute does not open correctly, they know to inspect the other chutes packed by that person. If they had a bad day on chute packing, that same person probably packed other chutes incorrectly. It is possible that the one is a fluke, but they want to check them all to make sure. I appreciate the details to safety as the top priority.
They even have replicas of forest cabins that were used for fire spotting. Some of these cabins are still active, and other ones are just there for people to enjoy. I have friends who stay in these forest cabins for a week. As I mentioned, some are decommissioned, or sometimes you can volunteer to spend a week in the woods volunteering to search for fires. Here is an example of a cabin you can rent for a few nights.
The highlight of the tour is going outside and seeing the planes. You cannot go into the plane, but you can peek inside the plane. This is not a first-class private jet experience. However, they get the job done and will carry the necessary gear into the forest so the jumpers can do their work.
What are some of the takeaways?
Spam is still being used. Remember the Monty Python song? Well, that song will be playing in your head as the competition is to see who can make the best meal using Spam! That’s right, stuff invented for the GIs in WW2 is still being used. It makes sense: food in a can that does not need to be refrigerated? You get protein and sodium to recharge the electrolytes.
You learn to read the forest. Yup, fire suppression changed the way the forests are managed. Prior to this, you can see evidence of forest fires, and now the smoke jumpers have helped to suppress forest fires.
Smoke jumpers can tailor their own parachutes and fix their own gear if something goes wrong in the jump. I think that was the coolest thing to realize. These jumpers are always training to survive the worst situations. (smoke jumper kit)
(Hover over the images to get a description)
Conclusion
This is something to check out. It is free and pretty cool to see how the Forest Service works to suppress forest fires. As I mentioned before, this tour is free! I can assure you that the tour is worth every bit of the money we paid for it. Honestly, I felt compelled to buy a T-shirt or two to give them some money. I liked the airplanes the most. I also appreciated seeing the blast-from-the-past SAB bike. That was really cool!
If you are in the Missoula area, this is only about an hour long, so why not check it out?
Don’t miss more ideas to get out with the family.
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