Boreal B[l]og

Tree swallow nesting boxes, each with art work painted on the plywood, were spaced more or less evenly on my left, like mailboxes on an avian country road, which disappeared around the bend ahead. On our right was a pond from an old gravel pit where Jim told me occasionally he had seen otters, although there were none today.  He said the pit would soon overflow from rain, flooding the brown grasses nearby. We were on Green Island, north of the confluence, and Jim, with extensive experience with the 90 nesting boxes, explained how he and others did a swallow survey. Both of us carried binoculars, because one does so in this kind of place. Jim was a good birder; I, not so much. 

Jim told me that Kit, part of the survey crew, didn’t believe in the idea that touching a bird was bad for it. “Kit opens the door, and usually the bird flies out, so he counts the eggs or young and then closes the door. If he has to, he can lift the bird off the nest to do it.” In any case, the survey crew had been dealing with 90 nesting boxes and counting every bird there for a long time. They had useful data, and I was impressed with their skill and dedication.

My route to this spot was 15 miles and 8 long months with biopsies, prodding, a PET scan, and bad news, for I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, the same disease that killed Barry Lopez. I began androgen deprivation therapy in July, rendering me chemically castrated, estrogen side effects that made things on my body too large or too small, and gave me hot flashes. Only one knew my disability when I was doing trail work in the wilderness, my plantar fasciitis being a silver lining why I couldn’t hike as fast as usual. My 45 radiation treatments occurred from mid-October to Christmas Eve. Each day I had treatment, I left an outdoor essay, appropriately numbered, in the waiting room. The essays were for anyone to read, but they were my daily therapy as surely as the photons that were shot into my pelvis.

I discovered that hormonal changes seemed to improve my observational skill and ability to find beauty in unexpected places. I removed encroaching brush on Lowder Mountain trail in the Three Sisters Wilderness, eschewing trail work rules by refusing to remove a clump of Cascade asters I found, moving cone flower and tiger lily stems out of the way rather than cutting them, as I wrote in my essay “Not Quite by the Book.” I slept poorly during my treatment, but many of these nights I had a useful revelation I could later use in my writing. Jim arrived at the radiation center my 42nd treatment day. I acted like a welcome wagon host in the waiting room, totally foreign to how I perceived myself, perhaps again an effect of my mixed-up mischievous hormones. I introduced him to our small group who had similar times for treatment, how we all supported each other, our camaraderie. These were without question the best 15 minutes of my day. I went early to my appointment, just for those minutes. Jim found interesting my then 42 essay pile in the room for those awaiting photon beam treatment, figuring the author might be interesting as well. I had been about to take the essays home after I finished at the center. However, the prior day the techs told me that many were reading them, so I left the essays there. I told Jim he could take them home as long as he brought them back. He must have realized that even in this short time, I might be interesting enough that it might be worth showing me Green Island, so here we were on a gray day that promised drizzle but not much else.

Back near the river a couple of miles north of the confluence, there was a red tail hawk that flew over along with a couple of flickers, some robins, and my only contribution, a spotted towhee. Jim said he was interested in my story about iron in heme and magnesium in chlorophyll, the only difference between the two structures in their central part, adding he needed to do a lot more reading.

We continued walking, not seeing much this time of year, until we reached the Willamette, with what looked like a 2-3 knot current with significant erosion on the east side where we were. While I was nautically investigating, Jim spotted a pair of eagles on a tree across the flow. It’s been a while since I have seen a pair of eagles. He got closer to the edge of the river than I, who thought the water looked cold with no easy egress if one went in. We talked about radiation. Jim had finished his sixth treatment and told me he now had fewer than forty to go. I liked his attitude. I counted up my treatments on my essays. Jim felt like he had some changes he needed to make; I told him what I did, but we both knew that each of us has to find his own way.

We finished our walk with a good look at many wigeons in the distance and then returned to the vehicles. 

I went out to Green Island not knowing what I would see, remembering the North Country writer Sam Cook’s thoughts that “you don’t go out looking for cool things to happen, but you go out knowing that cool things could happen every time. I just tell people, just go, just get out… You never know what you’re going to see, but you aren’t going to see it in the living room.” 

It wasn’t until afterward I realized the connection I was destined to find that day was not with plants, the sky, or even the eagles, but with Jim, from the welcome wagon and essay writing side of me to his welcoming me into an important part of his life. When I by illness was unable to find connections in nature, I developed others in the radiation center. I wasn’t going to find it in the living room, but I could find it in the inner waiting room of a radiation therapy center.

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This past year I discovered that I had yet another chapter in my relationship to the land. The first chapter occurred during my fifty-odd years when I lived for outdoor adventure, a land shark who needed to keep moving, each trip planned to see a maximum of new country. I often spent hours planning trips, some real, some more fantasy, poring over maps, fingers tracing blue spots of lakes, dotted black lines in between, occasionally with red numbers denoting distance in feet, yards, miles, rods, chains, kilometers, or meters, wondering what was out there. The maps were on my wall at work, dots where I camped, lines where I paddled, portaged, or hiked. I was discovering the “Open Horizons” of Sig Olson, one of the first wilderness writers.

When I reached my late fifties I began to base camp, visiting a familiar, well-liked area—an old friend— more closely, looking more up and down than out, noting birds, butterflies, clouds, flowers, greenery, the Moon, moss, roots, stars. The past eight years I have not camped but done trail work on scores of the same trails each year. I cleared logs and brush, repaired tread, made reroutes, helped build bridges using on site materials. I write about these paths, now my old friends, the Quiet Magic of the land, described by North Country writer Sam Cook.

Last May, I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, the disease that killed Barry Lopez, who forty years ago in Tucson signed my copy Of Wolves and Men. My androgen deprivation therapy began in July by removing all my testosterone, decreasing estrogens I had, my body larger than I wanted above my waist, smaller than I wanted below, with hot flashes. Work was difficult, although I hid my testosterone absence from others on the crew because of an odd silver lining of plantar fasciitis, a good excuse to hike slower.

Without proof, I wonder whether this hormonal minimization mischief led to a burst of creativity ushering in a third stage of my relationship to the land. I was and still am discovering connections among the close in experiences I have and had in the woods. For example, at the end of a particularly difficult day working Black Creek near Waldo Lake—hot, humid, and ending early due to smoke—a California sister butterfly landed on the shirt of another crew member. I had never seen one before. On the long drive home we stopped near High Prairie Road so a herd of elk with at least three young could cross. That led to my essay “Payment in Full.” A brief glance across a trail after picking blueberries near Gold Lake, seeing one red berry hanging down, led me to identify a twisted stalk plant. A five foot high fireweed on Little Bunchberry showed a downward transition on the stem from blooms through seed pods to open pods to floating seeds, the seed connection occurring because this had been a good year for noble fir and hemlock cones, the latter I first saw a week earlier working at Gold Lake Sno-Park.

I had 45 radiation treatments. Each day, I brought an essay. Some were read, but my writing and bringing them was more important to me. The formal title of essay #23 is “Not Quite by the Book.”

Twenty feet ahead of me were many Cascade asters on the side of the trail. I decided I would work to them—on my knees—then take a break. I adjusted my position and continued hacking with a handsaw at the stems of encroaching thimbleberry, occasionally using loppers. I was in the middle of a brilliant green several acre steep sloping meadow where the forest gave way to low plants.

I was crew leader, not quite halfway up Lowder Mountain trail, which began at FS 1993, the summit 600 vertical feet above. I led the trip to Lowder because I wanted to get in the woods, my sore foot wasn’t going to tolerate hiking up nearby Olallie Mountain, and brushing Lowder meadows was as important as removing logs, since the couple hundred yard stretches of thick brush in several meadows were both difficult to follow and concealed large holes of some so far undetermined rodent.

I don’t like removing wildflowers, but trail work requires it, unless I break the rules. I purposely avoided power brushing a few dozen trilliums last spring on the Middle Fork National Recreation Trail. Three years earlier, I left a large false Solomon’s seal hang over a trail on Fall Creek, because it would have been criminal to cut that beauty out. That story was essay #4.

I finally arrived at the asters and had to decide what to do. They were on the downhill side of the trail, but there was adequate room to hike by. I couldn’t see removing all of them with my hand saw or loppers, because they were really pretty, so I carefully removed a couple and left the others. They would shortly go to seed, their job done, part of which was giving me pleasure.

A few minutes after reaching the asters, I found two tiger lilies over the trail. I didn’t cut them; I bent the stems and moved the flowers behind some thimbleberry safely away from the trail. They could still be pollinated. There is a manual for trail work; it is subservient to my opinion about wildflowers. 

Western coneflowers appeared, and I slowed to ensure they were left alone. Their stem has a whitish cast, which I had not previously noted, although I never had been in the position—hiking through a meadow on my knees—to look carefully at one. The brownish cone top with green leafy bracts was a standout. The stems could also be bent so I could move the flowering top away from the trail, hooking one flower around another.

At lunch, a crew member thanked me for saving the “purple flowers,” the asters. Nice my work was appreciated.

Turns out there was a third stage, and who knows, there may be yet more.

We trudged a mile back to the vehicles from near the Middle Fork of the Willamette River at Elijah Bristow Park, having logged it out after the ice storm. We went the wrong way into a flooded area but logged that out too, then backtracked to a trail where we were supposed to be.

When I reached the car, I noted an email from someone I know but not one from whom I would expect a message. The contents were strange, in that I was asked to buy something and send it to a friend of the sender, some sort of birthday present, but I wasn’t clear why I would be doing it, except the sender would be out of town. I wrote her (it was a she) back and asked for more information. I never heard back. The whole exchange was strange, and I felt like she needed money for something and I was available. But then why didn’t she respond to my request for more information? I never knew.

Periodically over the last two years, I have occasionally thought of the exchange, never hearing more, and not even having seen the person, which was somewhat unusual, although I didn’t think much of it. I never knew.

On New Years’ Day, I was leading the hike up Spencer Butte for the Club as part of a three pronged hike on the day to have the annual club celebration on top. I noted the woman of the strange email had signed up, and I was maybe intrigued, but I decided I would come across normally, but not ask anything and just lead the hike. She showed up and we exchanged greetings. It was raining, so I let her and some others go early to the top. They at least would be warm until they stopped hiking, and well then, it was my problem as leader to ensure that nobody got hypothermia. I planned to tell them shortly after I arrived that they could descend whenever they wished.

They summited, and I came soon after, soon talking to several who were sitting on the rocks at the north end of the bare spot, just out of the way of people arriving. The woman was seated in front of me, and suddenly interrupted the person on my right who had been talking to me.

“Mike, you met my daughter up here once.” It was like she had to get the words out, and get them out now.

I vaguely remembered that day.

“She had breast cancer.” I wasn’t so sure I remembered, but I think I did. I was staring at a green line of moss on the rock below. This wasn’t going well.

“She died two years ago. She was 52. I miss her so much.” 

Happy New Year to a guy who had never known what was going on. Two years ago at Elijah Bristow, the bizarre letter appeared. I wasn’t about to ask about the letter. I wouldn’t ever know about it, but a whole lot of things came into focus, not the least that every bad feeling I had had about her in the past two years was just plain wrong. I can’t label this shameful, because in good faith I did not know. I did not send an email again, but I could have done at least that. I never knew.

She continued, “I wonder if the chemo she didn’t take was the reason she died.” I couldn’t answer that for sure, so I didn’t. It was a pill and someone else said that it likely made no difference in the outcome. I was still staring at the green line of moss below me on the rock.

“She had cancer involving the covering of the abdomen, which was odd,” was the next thing she said. That I could answer and told her it was generalized carcinomatosis, and this sadly occurred all too frequently in the peritoneum, along with the meninges and any organ coverings.

I said I was so sorry she was suffering so badly this wet, cold day on top of the Butte. She wanted to tell me, and she did. I wished I could have replied better, and I didn’t. I never knew.

She departed down soon after to get warm. When I got home, the first thing I did was to email her and to again express my sympathy and then to apologize for my behavior.

“Mike, there is no correct time or way to communicate this.  Thank you so much for your kind thoughts.  All the best to you and Jan, and Happy New Year!”

I never knew.

I led Jean and Roy up Winberry Tie Trail, a three part trail that intersects a Forest Service Road twice up to the Winberry Divide itself, climbing 1200 feet through 2.5 miles to the height of land separating Winberry Creek from the drainage leading to Lookout Point Reservoir, part of the Middle Fork of the Willamette drainage.

I used the term “leading” advisedly as I happened to be first. Yes, I organized the hike, but Jean and I had both worked on the trail at least a combined 25 times, and Roy’s experience in the outdoors was a league or two above mine. He didn’t know the trail, so I introduced him to it. It was wet down in the first brushy part, and I had worn my summer hiking boots because they were lighter. I didn’t care that my feet got wet, which they soon did. We noted one downed log on the first part and that the trail needed removal of encroaching growth. The second part of the trail needed less brushing but had a couple of downed logs that Jean and Roy cleared the branches from. The logs themselves would require a power saw to remove.

About half way up the third part, I was finding my respiratory rate way too loud and way too fast, which it has been ever since my testosterone was removed and the hormonal mischief has additionally given me both estrogen side effects concurrently with estrogen withdrawal effects. Earlier, on the first crossing of the Forest Service road, I had one of the worst hot flashes I had since starting the drug nearly six months prior, sweating far out of proportion to my effort.

I thought my breathing wasn’t as bad as it could have been but did a rate check and disappointed to find it 51 per minute, what I have at the top of Spencer Butte. That was disconcerting, so I took a break just after a switchback near a root wad that Jean and I had worked on with a few others four years ago. She and Roy were right behind me. After they stopped, they began to loosen their rain pants, and then I noticed they didn’t continue to remove them, just tied them up a little bit to put them out of the way. I think they thought I was ready to keep hiking.

Maybe it was my fatigue, maybe it was hormonal, I mean, it is a good excuse these days for anything I don’t like, but I noticed what they had done, and lately my ability to notice subtleties seems to be enhanced.       

They wanted to take off their rain pants. I could see that. And I needed to tell them to do so: “Go ahead and take off your rain pants and put them away. We’ve got plenty of time.” Roy had commitments later that day, but one of the things I do really well on the trail is to have a sense of time of day and distance. I know both virtually every minute of a hike. We had plenty of time for the remaining distance, even factoring in the time that I was going to be acting as Santa Claus at the end of the hike, which they did not know.

With pleasure, I noted that the pair continued to remove their rain pants and put them in their respective packs. When they looked ready, I shouldered my pack, and we continued up the trail. I said nothing. I don’t know if anything was noted by them, for it was such a minor event, but my stopping and letting them deal with their gear was a very major action by me. I noticed and acted on it, rather than kept hiking when they weren’t ready. Maybe my hormonal lack was doing something positive.

The remainder of the hike went fine. I played Santa Claus, where Jean ended up with a saw along with a turquoise bolo tie, which she promptly put on. It looked great. The saw was obvious; she does trail work. The bolo tie was a first choice of 30 that I had donated to the radiation center, because it was her idea that I wear something special daily for my therapy. So, I counted only one present. I then asked if the two wanted to leave or have lunch where we were. Jean wanted to have lunch, so we all ate, then I drove them back out to their vehicle, where they had plenty of time to deal with the afternoon’s commitments.

It was a great hike. We scouted the trail, I know what needs to be done, Roy learned a new trail, the pair had a fun outing together without having to worry about driving out there, navigating, or worrying about time. I managed all of those and tried to make it all happen quietly.

And played Santa as a bonus.

You know, I guess I really was a guide after all.