Boreal B[l]og

As soon as I discovered Ken would be riding with us to the work site, I realized I wasn’t going to be—or shouldn’t be— sitting in the front seat of Brad’s truck. Ken was a newbie to the crew. He was big, like 6’2 and 230 at least. But his clothes and gear were appropriate, and he lived in a small town up the McKenzie River, meaning he had probably been in the woods a lot more than I had.

We got to the worksite 60 miles later, parking along FS 21. Lot of interesting places out here upriver on the Willamette: Indigo Springs, Chuckle Springs, often called the source instead of a source of the Willamette’s Middle Fork here (there is a North Fork and a Coast Fork); Pioneer Gulch leading to Diamond Peak, and Lake Timponagos. The Middle Fork Trail runs 32 miles from the last, by our work site, to Hills Creek Reservoir. I had hiked and worked much of the trail. The Crew was making a bridge and two puncheons, which were like an elevated bridge. These involved cutting Western Red Cedar, stripping the bark, moving the 1 ton stringer logs by straps, a rope puller, and people to the bridge site, then placing them on smaller logs or sills, perpendicular to the crossing site, leveling everything, pounding large nails through the stringers into the sills, nailing decking, the planks between them, which we had carried in, and finally making ramps at each end.

I have done bridge assembly, but others do it better than I, so I self select and am involved in getting rocks and appropriate mineral soil, moving them to the bridge site and helping build the ramps. The more rocks, the less soil needed, and some of the ramps require a cubic yard of fill. It is exceedingly difficult work. I also help make new trail, and we had a few hundred yards of re-routing to do, because rivers move and can erode existing trail.

In one memorable day, I carried planks a quarter mile down a slippery hill to the worksite and then went back up the hill to get the next—8 times. Then I stripped a 30 foot cedar of bark, followed by rock gathering and hauling. Three of us used a rock sling to haul big rocks, which Ken, by himself, would move into place as a support. We called him when we needed a fourth on the sling. After lunch, I shoveled gravel into buckets and carried them to the ramps. We finally finished the project and removed the dicey log crossing we had used for 3 weeks to cross the stream. I pulled out the larger logs and sent small ones down the stream away from the bridge. We were done with this segment.

But not quite. Before I left, I saw Ken down by the water’s edge. He motioned me to come over. There, I saw two plants by the water, each with an odd-shaped flower, which he told me were wild ginger. I had never seen it, and in eight prior days I had worked here, crossing the stream a couple of dozen times, wading in it with boots once, never studied the growth along the bank. I was focused on other matters. Maybe too focused.

All I had to do was look. It was right there, quiet magic, maybe hoping we would finally leave.

We had Arc-Lin employees help us out on the Middle Fork project the other day for their thrice annual volunteer stint with us. We are making three trail re-routes to deal with erosion by the Middle Fork of the Willamette River and need to build a bridge and two puncheons, the latter low bridges, over perennial wet areas on the trail.

We arrived at the “user trail” on FS road 21, the 28 mile marker visible, well south of Oakridge. This is an unmaintained path about 200 yards to the Middle Fork Trail, with a significant drop, and we needed to carry a few dozen pieces of decking in, each a 6 by 6 cedar log 6 feet long, carried on a shoulder. I went first to show the second level volunteers where the destination was.

No problem. I knew the trail and got to the dumping off point for the planks with two behind me but back a little ways.  I noted one had two planks on his shoulder.  These guys are young and strong.

We divvied up the work among the group; two groups would do bridge work, I was doing the bypass, the most physical part of the job. Four of us worked on the new trail. It had a small but definitely not to be ignored stream in the middle of its 50 yard length, and there were multiple large rocks which needed to be moved. I did some drainage work then returned to the other end of the bypass to do some more digging. I was under an 8 inch log that was about 40 feet long that needed to cut out with a power saw later. Chase, the strong guy who carried two deck planks, came by a little later and rotated the log maybe 20 degrees. I told him to wait for the saw. He agreed.

The morning passed by quickly, and we had lunch, courtesy of our visitors, who bring it for us as payment for their being abused. While eating, I kept thinking about the log and wondered if we could move it. I process slowly, and Chase had likely forgotten about it, but I had an idea.  The bridge work was going well with the others, who were in the water and using various power tools along with some rebar to hold the stringers to the perpendicular sills. 

After lunch, we returned to our spots, and I called Chase over. He lifted one end of the log, which was wedged between two trees, but it wasn’t going anywhere easily. I went down the hill under the log, took the Pulaski and hacked once at the log. Interesting. It seemed breakable.

“Give me ten whacks,” Chase said. I nodded.

I count things.

The log eventually broke in half, and each of us was able to move one piece. Mine was easier, since it was already off the trail. Chase pushed his into the woods.  The other guys were working on moving several multi-hundred pound rocks, using a pry bar and muscles. I keep forgetting when young people work with us, we need to view the workload differently. Movements we think impossible suddenly become possible.

Chase was wrong about his chopping ability. He needed 25 whacks.

See you on the trail. Hope you enjoy the bypass.