Hook Up and Get in the Door: Smokejumping Stories, 1972-1974 - Paperback

In this volume of memoirs, John Doran recounts his years as a smokejumper based out of the North Cascades Smokejumper Base in Washington's remote Methow Valley, home the original smokejumping experiments in 1939. His stories from his service from 1972-1974 are fascinating. "I guess I could probably find more stories than the ones I've collected here," says Doran. "But these are the ones-when I sit on the whiskey porch of an evening watching the sun go down and this jump plane flies over like it did this morning-that make me think, 'God, be with those boys. I know what they're getting into, and I wish I was on that plane with them.'"