Boreal B[l]og

It was really Jean’s fault. Or maybe Daphne’s. Or both. I got an email with a picture of their Twin Peaks hike near Waldo Lake on a perfect day, enough snow on the ground to be pretty without making the hike dangerous. There ought to be a law against sending those sorts of letters and pictures to fog bound gimpy trail workers unable to hike.

The picture of snow on the trail then began to trigger connections. I don’t know how these connections form, but they do for me, day or night, especially often after awakening in the middle of the night, far more common since I started taking hormonal blockers, androgen deprivation therapy, for prostate cancer. It took me only seconds to remember I led a hike to Four in one Cone each autumn. I knew it was in October and before the pandemic, so I started with 2019, and I found the picture. Our hike happened to coincide with a recent snow, so when we hiked up the cone itself, nearly five miles from the trailhead, snow was on a foot wide spot on the entire north facing rim and no more. It took two more weeks and 7 radiation therapy treatments to mess up my sleep enough so that when awake at zero dark thirty, more connections could be formed, and I had yet another recollection.

With of course less sleep.

The last connection took me back to the November morning up at Willamette Pass three years ago, 15 November to be exact, when it was 18 degrees, also exact, and not Celsius. I was standing in my snowshoes at the east end of the ODOT shed, Pulaski in one arm, pry bar in the other, a couple of hand saws in my pack, fuel for the saw, and ski poles. This was nuts.

It was really Sig’s fault. All because I said yes to him. He had called me and asked if I could help log out the PCT from the pass to Lower Rosary Lake.

After swallowing my initial reply of “Are you crazy?” I told him there was only one log up there to cut because I had scouted the trail the prior week when I checked my winter trails for diamond markers. I tried to remove the log using a hammer to knock rotten wood off, hoping I could make the log smaller. No great surprise, a hammer wasn’t the right tool for a logout. I then tried to rotate the log and made matters worse, taking another 30 minutes to undo my error. Sig said he went up there after the snow fell, and there were about a dozen logs needing removal, blocking several stretches of trail. The worst, naturally, was two and a half miles from the trailhead that absolutely, positively had to be removed with still another at Rosary Lake itself.

Job security. Two and a half miles in and out, minimum, maybe three. In the snow, 18 degrees Fahrenheit. I’d wait for spring, myself. Or at least Celsius.

Back at the ODOT shed, my first decision before I moved was whether I could carry two poles with a Pulaski, or whether I would use a single pole and the Pulaski as a partial. The pry bar strap went around my neck. I hike with one pole, but not in snow. Back then, my arms were stronger. I used both poles alternating the Pulaski with each arm. I’ve never liked carrying a Pulaski or axe in my pack, but that have might of been a better idea this day.

We snowshoed up the trail about nine-tenths of a mile to the first log, the one I unsuccessfully tried to move. The power saw made the removal a lot easier, hammering home the need for the right tool. The next two logs I dealt with using my hand saw, while Sig continued on up ahead. I knelt on the snow, difficult while in snowshoes, and started cutting. I was successful, although my knees got cold and kept sinking into the snow. Logs cut in winter don’t drop when they would in summer, and they are additionally frozen into the ground, so I needed the pry bar and more effort than expected to break them loose and then move them off the trail. Everything takes longer in winter.

I caught up to Sig, his snowshoes off, at a large log that fell right on the trail. I continued to keep mine on. We pushed the rounds off the trail using our hands, after first breaking them loose from the frozen ground using the pry bar. The next log had many branches frozen into the ground or the log, a messy job, since there was almost invariably a branch that would get tangled up in my feet. I still kept my foot gear on. At this point it was either a point of honor or a measure of stubbornness.

We finally made it to the troublesome log between the tie trail that went steeply uphill several hundred vertical feet and almost a mile to the west of the Rosary lakes and Lower Rosary lake. Indeed, there was no path around the log without removing skis or snowshoes. We stopped for lunch to try to restore our energy. Now 600 vertical feet above where we started, the snow was less tracked and deeper. It was impossible to sit anywhere and eat, so we stood, ate,  and after 10 minutes cooled off so much that we decided to cut the log from our side. My snowshoes stayed on. Finally successful, the trail was now open to Lower Rosary lake. Sig asked me if I was interested in going up to the lake for the last log. Hearing that as a query rather than an order, I answered no. He agreed. Somehow we both got back to the trailhead without falling. Or if we did, we stayed quiet about it.

We didn’t hear any complaints about the logs that winter. I finally removed my snowshoes back at the shed.

This entry was posted on November 5, 2025 at 14:06 and is filed under UNPUBLISHED OUTDOOR WRITING. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.