Boreal B[l]og

Four years ago, the Crew worked on the Wren Nature Trail by the Middle Fork Ranger Station.  The trail itself was short, flat, but had been subjected to “Snowmageddon” with trees down in so many places we could barely find the trail. That afternoon, we all met as a group in one area to clear brush.  Many of us were new, and it appeared that several wanted to make a good impression by hacking away vigorously at the brush, so close together that I left the scene and worked elsewhere so I wouldn’t get struck by a blade.

I came back later when the power saws were going to be used on a log. I made the bad mistake—I knew as soon as I did it—and slipped behind the sawyer as soon as he pulled the starter cord. I knew it was wrong. Nothing happened to me, however, and we finished the job.

I can still remember afterwards, nine of us out by the ranger station when one of the senior crew members—been around forever—talked to us and pointed to me and basically dressed me down for my unsafe maneuver. It stung. I still remember the direction I was facing (west) and how I felt (like crap).

I worked with that same person a few times and always seemed to be in the wrong place whenever a power saw was going.  The individual loves the Fall Creek National Recreation Area, a beautiful place with soft soil and prone to landslides, fires, and other trail wrecking catastrophes.  It is the Sisyphus for the Crew: we work the area, and then it all falls apart again. He worked in areas with one or two other crew members he chose, mentoring them, and the rest of us worked elsewhere in the forest. I would have loved to have had a mentor, but as it has been for most of my life, I ended up learning the material on my own with practice and correction; most people are not good teachers. And in my defense, nobody ever told me that the Forest Service limited the number of people’s working in Fall Creek due to conditions.

Two years ago, the individual put out a call for volunteers to help him in Fall Creek. I decided to go and worked with him and a few others. It went fine. The second time, he had me do independent work a half mile further down the trail from the others. I did that, although I did not tell him afterwards that while I was downhill from them, several rounds, or cut logs, came crashing down in the woods to my level, a hundred yards from me. The others were cutting logs high above me and did not appear to know I was below them. When I came back up the trail, I saw new logs that hadn’t been there when I came down. I said nothing, told the individual I had finished the job, and he nodded approval. 

Last year, the individual was one of two others who went out with me on a log out at Olallie Mountain in the Three Sisters Wilderness. I was the crew leader, which made me not only nervous to begin with, since it was my first time as a crew leader for a log out, but a newly certified B level crosscut sawyer. The work went well. With one difficult log, I saw a way to slide it off trail along the smooth inner cambium layer of a recent cut log nearby. We were able to do it slick, figuratively and literally.

A few people still went to Fall Creek, and I usually wasn’t among them, until this year, when we worked the Andrews trail, doing brushing. This was my forte, and I was comfortable with the work. I should have been. I have been out with the Crew more than two hundred times in 5 years, and I am the go to person with power brushers, even though this is only my third season using them. 

This winter, the Forest Service allowed a few members of the crew to clear the east end of the Fall Creek trail. This area, damaged by fire, had dozens of trees felled to try to make a fire break during the conflagration. It was a mess. The rules were simple: stay in sight, look uphill a lot for falling debris, and be extraordinarily careful.  One of the individuals was giving steady suggestions as we went along. This did not go over well with the sawyers. I’ve had that happen on crosscut logouts, too. I don’t need extroverts firing away all sorts of suggestions when I just want to process things for myself, quietly. I knew how to conduct myself on this particular trail that day, and I did.

At Mt. Pisgah two weeks later, I was asked by the individual if I would be willing to help out in Fall Creek. I was a known quantity. I knew my way around in the woods, and I knew what needed to be done and how to stay out of trouble.  Not stated but understood was that I stayed quiet unless I had something to say. I accepted.

Ten days later, I was called and asked if I could go that week. I was told I would be doing a lot of standing around and if I didn’t want to do that, it was OK not to come. Are you kidding? Start work in a burn area with incredibly complex and interesting issues? I jumped at the chance and went out. There were only three of us, the other an A level power sawyer, still new to sawing.  We spent the day working on three logs.  A week later, I was asked again, and I went back out again. 

It took four years to go from dressed down in public to being asked to be out there because I knew my way around. 

I have since been out there two additional times. It is dangerous work. I am seeing 2-3 ton logs under enough tension that when released, can fly upward 10-15 feet and a distance of 60 to 70. Clearing aa few of them can take a full day.  We have to watch for logs above us which can roll down. Trying to walk through the mess on the trail is in some places impossible.

The senior sawyer opened up to me on the drive out one afternoon. He wasn’t sure if he still was able to go in, not because of his cutting skills but because of the work needed to get in there. I told him he didn’t have to carry everything. Others could do that. I am no longer the fastest hiker in the Club, either. I can still hike well, hike uphill and do it with a load, and frankly that’s all I want now in my life. I’ve carried power saws uphill for a mile, steadily.

So when we went into the danger zone last week, I carried his saw and a pry bar in addition to my pack and its gear. I wasn’t going to be holding the saw most of the day cutting logs.  It was something I could do, and when the time came to leave, I didn’t ask, didn’t say a word. I picked up his saw and carried it back out. Then I went back and carried the other saw out that we had.

When I was asked this week if I can go out Friday, I replied,“Yes. I’ll be there.” 

As I hiked down from the top of Spencer’s Butte on cruise control, nice pace on the Tie Trail, suddenly a bird, all white underneath, flew across the trail.  That was unusual. I stopped, heard the bird call nearby and remained still. The bird called again.

I had trouble localizing exactly where the bird was, wondering if my worsening hearing was also affecting my ability to localize sounds. Out of the corner of my eye, however, I saw movement, and the bird appeared behind a few sword ferns on the side of a downed Douglas fir. It looked at first like a nuthatch, but I’ve only seen nuthatches on standing trees, and this bird was too big. Then, as if to give me a hint, it turned and I saw a small patch of red on the back of its head. Continuing, as if to show me all the right places, the bird moved so I could see the large white patch on its back. It was a Hairy woodpecker.

No big deal, really. The bird is common, but it got me to stop and identify it, not call it a Downy, Three-toed, Pileated, a Flicker, or something “interesting.”  Seeing and identifying this bird made this one hike memorable. That’s special.  There is some evidence to suggest that being fully focused on something enhances one’s recollection of it. Why wouldn’t it?

Indeed, I have a fond recollection of an autumn day several years ago when there was a flock of golden-crowned kinglets at the top of the butte. I counted myself lucky in Arizona if I saw one. These guys were everywhere. That day.  Maybe only that day. But I was there when they were, and that mattered. It’s remarkable how a single event may be burnt into one’s memory, perhaps not completely accurately, but often good enough.

I’m not more than a novice birder, and while I keep a life list, I haven’t updated it since before the pandemic. I have trouble with teals, struggle with sparrows, wonder about warblers, ask about accipiters, and blank out with buteos. More than half of the seven hundred birds on my list I saw overseas as part of a solar eclipse trip. One hundred alone were on a single memorable day in Kruger in 2002. The eclipse was clouded out, but the birding almost made up for it. Almost. I took exactly one formal birding trip in Nebraska in 2007 and saw 98 different species, but the most important lesson I learned that week was that such trips weren’t for me, much as I understand why people take them. After all, I volunteered for a week in late winter for ten years at Rowe Sanctuary in Nebraska in spring, doing everything from cleaning toilets to running the cash register, just so I could be in the viewing blinds twice a day with visitors answering questions about the Sandhill Crane migration in weather ranging from a blizzard to 85 degrees.

I am not disappointed if I don’t see wildlife in the woods. They have their schedule, and I’m only a visitor, probably an unwelcome one at that. But every animal I see is a gift, and this woodpecker made my day. Do I have low standards? Perhaps. But if  I’m easily pleased, that’s a gift, too.

See you on the trail. 

From the Obsidian Bulletin, March 2023

I pulled up my ski pole, and the basket was gone. Just like the other one 10 minutes ago. I was flailing in deep snow in a pile of Ceanothus brush, pretty in summer, a royal pain right now, thinking I would find the trail, but in snow, a lot of gaps look like trails. Eventually, we gave up and backtracked to a road that led to the other end of the loop where we had tried to go. Two of us went in, found some blue diamonds on trees, and kept going. We got to within 100 yards of where we had been, before realizing we needed to rejoin the rest of the group, and we hightailed it—as much as anybody can hightail it on snowshoes— back to the vehicles. The leader was not happy with us. Not a great decision of mine to explore, but I knew more about the trail.

Nickerson Loop

A month later, same Sno-Park, same leader, different trail, same thing happened. The markers disappeared, and after a sufficient amount of floundering, this time in a stream bed as well, we gave up. I muttered, “This is crazy. There are no loops where they should be, and somebody needs to fix this.”N

I knew (1) that fixing wouldn’t happen soon, if ever, unless (2) I was that somebody.

After snowmelt, I went back to Nickerson Loop, the first trail, followed the road to where it ended in a the trail through the woods. There were many logs down that needed to be removed and a few diamonds needed to be put on trees in order to mark the trail better. 

I reached the meadow and after an hour or so realized the trail was never in the meadow but rather at the edge of the woods along the meadow. I found a few beat up plastic blue diamonds on trees and started to see where the trail went. Then I saw nothing. After another half hour, during which my GPS recorded a bunch of slashes like a drunk person’s using an Etch a Sketch, I decided to bushwhack to the Forest Service road where the trail came out. That in itself was a lesson in how one gets lost.

I knew the road was about 3/8 of a mile through the woods, and I thought I was going in a straight line. But there are trees, downed logs, gullies, and brush to dodge, and I made changes to my route and more changes. It took me a while to get to the road, and when I did I realized I had veered 45 degrees to my right from the track I had projected. I had no idea I was that far off, and I consider myself to have fairly good trail sense, except this wasn’t a trail. This is why people get lost. We go in a straight line, then in another straight line angled to the first, then in another angled to the second….

I walked up the road to where the trail began and worked my way back to the meadow from the opposite side, and after a couple of hours had the trail marked. 

Four months later, in autumn, I worked with the Salamander Trail Crew out of Salem to help log it out, remove the downed logs, put up a few more diamonds, cut out some brush, and the next winter, I was clearing a few logs when I saw a group coming the other way on snowshoes. I asked them if they had had trouble navigating.

“No. Everything was great.” 

**********

The second trail, Prairie View Trail, was more problematic. I started to mark it the following autumn by going to the far end of the loop, off a Forest Service road, where there was a trailhead marker and followed the diamonds to…..nowhere. In the meantime, my feet got tangled in blackberry bushes, and I face planted on the ground. This was going to be more of a problem. I went out to the road, made a different track, and had a rough idea of where the trail markers could be placed.

That winter, I went out with the diamonds, nails, and hammer from the other end of the loop, the Sno-Park parking end, found where the second meadow portion left a road, put up several diamonds and got two-thirds of the loop done before I ran out of diamonds and had to use orange ribbon to mark. I didn’t bother to go to the old trailhead.  I had marked the trail with ribbon or diamonds, and more importantly, I now had it on my Gaia map on my GPS.  I never got back there later in the winter, mostly because I was nursing some ailments from too much vigorous snowshoeing into other places.

This winter, I began by going out from the Sno-Park, realized the snow was too heavy to complete the whole trail by myself, and came back out a week later, with diamonds, when the snow was a little easier to walk on, cleared brush, and came to the second meadow part. I was pleased with how well the diamonds guided, and I added several more in place of the ribbon, some of which was still present, going to the road. The diamonds have to be placed for both directions, and it should be possible to see the next one from the prior one.  Hiking with a hammer, diamonds, nails, all in a canvas bag, at the same time snowshoeing, requires some skill. The effort was not without a misplaced glove, falling into a snowdrift, but I reached the road, and the trail cleared. 

This winter, I will lead a Club snowshoe over the trail.  There aren’t views of any prairie, but there are some nice wooded and meadow areas, and it is a flat snowshoe for the most part, good for beginners and novices.

I’ve finally got both trails, both loops, marked in the Sno-Park. They 4.3 and 6.4 miles respectively, give or take. Maybe next year I will try to snowshoe both in a single day. Not sure why, but it’s the kind of thing I would think about doing.

Nearly 11 miles qualifies, however, as a “vigorous snowshoe,” which has produced physical consequences in older people.  

Like me.

Prairie View marker at the beginning. It is slightly angled to the left to show that the trail is to the left of the tree.

There were only three of us working a short day on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River, a wild and scenic river that flows out of Waldo Lake into the main Middle Fork just below Westfir. We had two vehicles, because I had  both power brushers in my car, and there was only room for me. I might be the only guy in the crew without a truck or other suitable hauling vehicle; for a while, I was the only one who didn’t know the difference between an Italian grinder and a DeWalt grinder. The former you eat; the latter can cut metal.

DeWalt Grinder working on a nail

Our job was to brush out the northern end of the North Fork Trail, starting from its northern terminus and moving south along the North Fork of the Middle Fork River. That’s three norths and three forks, but I can only use one fork on a grinder, not the DeWalt one.

The Crew has worked a good share of the trail two years ago, logging it out, deconstructing three failed bridges, and filling in root wads.  We hadn’t been back until now, and while the Traill had recently been logged out, it needed to be brushed. The forecast was for rain, which had started in Eugene, but the front had held up, and it was dark but dry at the trailhead. Good day for brushing.

We started off with two brushing and I acted as swamper to move everybody’s gear up the trail with them.  If I am behind the brusher, the way I like to swamp is to move two packs forward, along with a rake, then drop the packs when I am close to the brusher.  Then I rake the trail back to where I started, trying not to fall backward or trip over a blackberry runner that has my leg. When I reach where I started, I pick up anything else, like fuel, and move it forward. It’s a real bummer if one is in the groove brushing, which doesn’t last too long, runs out of fuel, and has to go back a quarter mile to get more. It’s also a bummer to want a drink, or lunch, and have to walk back a half mile to get the pack. On Winberry four or five years ago, I was by myself with the brusher, got a mile past my pack to the end of where I needed to go, had to walk back all the way to get my pack that had my lunch, and when I got back to the brusher, the rest of the group was on their way back to the vehicles, having eaten lunch. 

When it was my turn on the 25 cc Stihl brusher. I put on my yellow hard hat with ear muffs attached. I like brushing; I have reached a point where I can troubleshoot the beast. It starts for me right away (that would be fewer than five pulls) even having been stashed in the rain for a week. I went ahead cutting low to the ground, swinging the brusher back and forth across and the trail to the sides, and worked my way uphill for a third of a mile before a gradual descent.

Stihl power brusher with blades folded for storage

We stayed dry until about 11, when it became flat out dark suggesting the front was moving in. With a hardhat on and a motor running, the only way I can tell it is raining is to look at my shirt or gloves. If it is raining hard enough, I can then see it come off the hardhat in rivulets. My gloves were wet, but my shirt wasn’t as I started the descent to the creek, swinging the brusher, cutting out plants near the trail, occasionally a thick blackberry bush, sometimes repeating the swing to cut out some ferns that I had missed. Blackberry bushes are difficult, because in addition to having thorns they can grab feet and trip, and some of the stems are thick.

Soon enough, I arrived at the creek, followed by the other brusher and the swamper moving the packs. We had deconstructed this bridge two years ago in the rain and mud. Two of us went into the water further than we had planned. I remember moving about 20 good sized heavy planks up on to the bank, briefly carrying, mostly pushing and cursing from below. The remains of the bridge looked about the same as they had then. I went down to the stream, discovering the the logs were smooth like ice, and the crossing, while safe enough, would be significantly more difficult if we tried to pass a brusher from one person to another. Once we were across the stream, we would have to come back, too, an important reminder in the woods when one does an out and back hike. You have to get back.

Deconstructing a failed bridge, 2021

One of the guys asked me what my goal was for the day.  I didn’t have one other than to take a crew out, brush the trail as far as we could get, and not overdo ourselves. Stopping here seemed reasonable.  None of us wanted to go further. We don’t take a formal vote on such matters; usually we are all in agreement.

It would rain harder on the way back to the vehicles. We ate lunch in one at which time it was pouring.  Nobody commented that it was nice we weren’t on the other side of the stream working. The brush would be there another day. It was a good feeling to be on the way home after a productive day’s work in the woods, especially when we beat the rain.

Brushing the Hardesty Trail, 2022.

It was my eleventh time as crew leader, only three of us and a short day on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River, a wild and scenic river from where it leaves Waldo Lake until it flows into the main Middle Fork just below Westfir. 

There is a trail running from Westfir up the west side of the river, crossing various Forest Service roads, going about 10-12 miles, and we were at the northern terminus. The Crew has worked a good share of the trail, logging it out, deconstructing three failed bridges two years ago, filling in root wads.  We were not working there last winter, and in a short period of time a good deal of work accumulates on any trail. We are trying to get in the mode of having people scout the trail in advance, looking not only for downed logs, but for the need to brush plant life off the trail and repairing the tread.  That way, we know what size crew we need for the job and the tools required. I scouted a trail last year for a joint crosscut log out. Knowing how much work we had to do was valuable in the planning.  The North Fork trail had been scouted and logged out; our job was to brush it to High Creek, maybe a mile, perhaps beyond, depending upon what it looked like and the weather, which was forecast for rain.

With three of us and two brushers, a mile is a reasonable day, too much if the trail is overgrown, too little if it isn’t. I took the brushers in my car, leaving no room for anybody else other than me; the other two drove together up to the trailhead.

We started off with two brushing and my job as swamper to move everybody’s gear up the trail with them.  That meant a lot of walking back and forth, making sure that the gas for the brushers was nearby when one of them needed to be refilled. If as the swamper, I had time, I needed to rake the debris off the trail.

After an hour I asked one if he wanted a break. He agreed, and it was my turn on the Stihl brusher. I wear ear muffs attached to my hardhat to dampen the sound; I like brushing, and I know how to start the brusher, how to use it. A year ago, I was told in front of the crew to brush lower to the ground, not high up, which I had been doing. Someone asked how low?  I said “sea level,” which got a laugh. Next year I should be able to change out and clean the spark plug on a regular basis, which I could probably do now, although I am not mechanically gifted. I went ahead cutting low to the ground, swinging the brusher back and forth across and the trail to the sides, and we worked our way uphill for a third of a mile before a gradual descent. When the brusher runs out of gas, it quits suddenly. I filled up and started cutting again.

It had been raining when we left town, but the front had stalled out briefly, and we were 30 miles east of town. Being December, in the woods, it was dark enough, and the ground damp, but we stayed dry until about 11, when it became flat out dark suggesting the front was moving in. With a hardhat on and a brusher motor running, the only way I can tell it is raining is to look at my shirt or gloves. If it is raining hard enough, I can then see it come off the hardhat in rivulets. My gloves were wet, but my shirt wasn’t as I started the descent to the creek, swinging the brusher, cutting out plants near the trail, occasionally a thick blackberry bush, sometimes repeating the swing to cut out some ferns that I had missed. Blackberry bushes are difficult, because they can grab feet and trip one, and some of the stems are thick.

Soon enough, I arrived at the creek first, soon followed by the other brusher, and the swamper moving the packs. We had deconstructed this bridge two years ago in the rain and mud. Two of us went into the water further than we had planned. I remember moving about 20 good sized heavy planks up on to the bank, briefly carrying, mostly pushing and cursing from below. The remains of the bridge looked about the same as they had nearly two years ago. I went down to the stream, discovering the the logs were smooth like ice, and the crossing, while safe enough with just ourselves, would be significantly more difficult if we tried to pass a brusher from one person to another. Once we were across the stream, we would have to come back, too, an important reminder in the woods when one does an out and back hike. 

One of the guys asked me what my goal was for the day.  I didn’t have one other than to take a crew out and brush the trail as far as we could get. Stopping here seemed reasonable.  None of us wanted to go further. We don’t take a formal vote on such matters; usually we are all in agreement. If not, we discuss what the best option is, which usually is to stop and return.  

It would rain harder on the way back to the vehicles. We had lunch in one at which time it was pouring.  Nobody commented that it was nice we weren’t on the other side of the stream working. The brush would be there another day.

Below: Left the day deconstructed in 2021; right, late 2022,

Last winter, I spoke with the Executive Director of Rowe Sanctuary in Nebraska, where I volunteered for a decade, leading well over a hundred trips to the viewing blinds.  I donate to Rowe, and every year the ED calls me to catch up for a few minutes. I know his family well; his daughter is almost exactly 50 years younger than I and now a biologist in the Deep South.  I first met her when she was ten. I do miss seeing the Sandhill cranes, teaching people about them, hearing the unique call from an ancient species, and viewing their migration is one of the top three events I’ve seen in nature (the other two were a wolf in my campsite on Isle Royale, and a total solar eclipse, of which I have seen 18).

At one point, the ED asked me what a “logout” was, which I had mentioned, without realizing it, several times. I explained it to him, although I didn’t delve further into the fact that the word may be used as a noun or a verb. We go to the woods in order to log out or cut out the logs blocking the trail (the verb form) the trail. On the last logout (noun, object of a preposition), I hurt my arm.  

I wasn’t using the term to impress, which as a newcomer I might, to try to show people I understood the work, when I really didn’t.  No, I used it automatically, because for the past 25 weeks, I had participated in at least one two man crosscut logout each week, sometimes two, spread out in five wilderness areas.  This work is a big part of my life, and so comfortable with the words that I didn’t realize they had two different grammatical forms until now.  

Learning the vocabulary of a new subject is an essential step en route to becoming competent. I would call it necessary but not sufficient. Learning the vocabulary takes time and effort; it can’t be pushed, and using the vocabulary before one has really lived or understood it brands one as a beginner, a layman, or otherwise not part of the group, unless, and this is important, one admits their newness at the outset. I know the vocabulary of medicine, but if I am explaining a skin problem to a dermatologist, I will preface my comments as, “I think it is one of those actinic thingies, or whatever you guys call it.” That means I am sort of using the language, but I admit to my ignorance. The dermatologist nods, smiles, and continues the evaluation. I told my urologist I couldn’t pronounce the generic name of the med I was on, only that it was an alpha-blocker, alfu-something or other. He laughed and told me what it was. 

In the Navy, I had to learn nautical language: I knew about knots, port and starboard, but I had to learn about deck, overhead, bulkheads, topside and below, reefers (refrigerators), scuttlebutt (water fountains), heads (bathrooms), wardroom, officer’s country, the difference between the 01 (oh-one) deck (first deck above the main deck) and the 1 (first) deck (first deck below the main deck), forecastle, after steering, CIC (Combat Information Center, or “Christ, I’m Confused’), snipes (engineers), pork chop (supply officer), First Lieutenant (head of the Deck Department), or dog down something (tighten it). For some, a gig is a side job; in the Navy, it has two different meanings; 1) the Captain’s personal boat (noun) that we carried, with an outboard motor, and (2) a verb that meant to discipline someone, often used in the passive voice. Nearly a half century after leaving the Navy, I occasionally will use gig, along with gundeck, which means one has accomplished a job when in fact one did nothing. Like certain words in other languages that describe things better than we have in English, Navy-ese still is used by me along with “scosh,” from “scoshi” or a little (Japanese), example: “Give me a scosh.”  

On a ride back from a logout a while back, I explained the injury I had suffered to my forearm when I slipped and slid down a rootball wad flat on my back, fortunately cushioned by my pack. My forearm immediately swelled, and I knew I had a hematoma. My explanation of it I later heard had the guy in back think that I had to be a physician, because I was talking so smoothly about something medical.

Having started at the bottom of many ladders in many fields (chemistry, medicine, statistics, medical administration, amateur astronomy, guiding canoe trips, learning a language, and now doing volunteer trail work), is that learning the vocabulary is the first big step towards competence. Pathology, which I took the second year of medical school, is where I really learned the vocabulary of medicine, even more than anatomy. The pathologist who taught the class said the first day, “This is where we turn medical students into doctors.”  Well, at least vocabulary-wise.

When I went to the canoe country to work, or to wilderness trails in the Cascades, I originally knew nothing about the work. I asked about strange words, like kerf (the opening in a saw cut), bind (where the saw is grabbed by the wood), leaner, buckskin (light brown log), or “how a log can talk to you,” for logs certainly have all of those characteristics. While knowing the vocabulary doesn’t make one competent, someone who neither knows the words nor pronounces them correctly stands out as a beginner, not to be ridiculed if the person is trying to work, but perhaps needs a slight toning down if they are trying to impress you.  I learned from an old timer, on a snowy drive to doing trail work one winter morning, that “to roll the road,” is to drive breaking down the sides of snow (or mud) that will form tire grabbing ruts if one doesn’t do that.

Little by little, through now eight-five logouts, the noun form, I have graduated from Apprentice, past Beginner, to some Competence, to Deal with more difficult logs, to Explain my work to others, and to Follow the Great masters whom I know. 

The route begins with learning the language of the field, asking questions, and showing up, for a large part of success is showing up. When I started, I thought a raker was an individual, not a piece of a crosscut saw that acts like a small chisel during sawing. I now speak the language, and while I will never stop learning, will neither be a C Sawyer nor an instructor, I have reached a skill level I never once dreamed existed, either in life, let alone for me.  

I’ve come a long way, far to go, but with good people who have “rolled the road” for me.

I noticed the cold for the first time this season when I got out of the car at Patjens Lake Trailhead. I had al- ready noted how dark the morning was when I left town, a predictable astronomical phenomenon for this time of year. Less predictable was when I would note the day each year, usually in August, when one felt the first tinge of autumn. I was doing a straightforward hike, a seven-mile loop into the Mount Washington Wilderness with a few hundred feet of elevation gain, scouting the trail in preparation for an upcoming one-day logout by the joint Scorpion-Salamander Scorpomander crews. I was expecting to find between 75 and 150 logs needing removal. Knowing the location and size of the logs would help the crews plan the day, as they worked the loop from opposite directions.

I had my rain jacket on when I drove in but had removed it before starting, knowing I would warm up as I moved. Af- ter all, it was I who told people at the onset of a hike, “If you’re warm now, you’ve got too much on.” People listened po- litely, nobody took anything off, and the hike proceeded, with my being the only one cold. It was only uncomfortable for ten minutes.

I learned this approach of starting a hike cold 38 years earlier on the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska. The second morning of that backpack, ten miles up the trail, it was cold, and the leader suggested I remove my shirt, because we were going to be carrying packs uphill all day, over Chilkoot Pass into Canada. When we stopped to rest, sweaty, we could put on a dry shirt and be warmer, until we started again. I was a ‘layer minimalist’ for years afterward, until my body changed.

Twenty years ago, I stopped wearing shorts when I canoe tripped in Minnesota in September; five years later, I stopped bringing shorts altogether. On winter trips, my fingers now are cold for the first mile in the morning and for the first mile right after lunch, too. Along with losing hair, vision, memory, and hearing, I’m losing degrees. The world changes; my body is no exception.

Now standing near the kiosk at the trailhead, pack on, ready to go, I stopped. Admit it, I said to myself. You’re cold.

I shook my head, dropped the pack, retrieved my jacket and put it back on. I don’t have to be cold right now. If I get too warm, I’ll deal with it. I then shouldered the pack and began hiking. My, it felt comfortable. Sure enough, a half mile into the burned area, when I needed to stop to measure the diameter and location of a downed log, I removed my jacket and stuffed it back in the pack. I was warm the rest of the hike, noting 79 logs for removal, in addition to the 13 smaller ones I removed as I went.

Those who are naturally comfortable in certain situations or subjects often have difficulty understanding others who don’t share or have such comfort or skill, whether it be interacting with strangers or dealing with the ambient temperature. But that day at Patjens, I finally understood and could admit that layers are for putting on and taking off, and it really doesn’t matter when one does what, so long as one is comfortable.

See you on the trail.

The above appeared in the Obsidian Bulletin November 2022. I was “commissioned” to write something after I followed up to a favorable comment about “Lunch Time,” which appeared in Cascade Chronicles (below). Readers of my blog will know of my strong belief that opportunities come disguised in many forms. As a Navy veteran, I have always liked the motto, “Fortune Favors Boldness,” the Cruiser-Destroyer Squadron motto.

Lunch time

Thirty years ago, when I was a summer volunteer wilderness ranger in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, I was so hungry that I downed a large Hershey Bar mid-morning out on the trail or water. In the interim, I have become a little healthier in my food choice, but I still like a mid-morning snack and may often be seen wolfing down a protein bar, either at rest, while hiking, or even sawing. Around 11:00, I start thinking “lunch is within an hour, I hope.” Sometimes it is earlier; sometimes we want to finish a log and it is later. Either way, I have a half hour where I can eat, often lying down, which I probably shouldn’t do but do anyway, and gaze at whatever is to be gazed at. 

There is much to see; I’ve spotted hawks, woodpeckers, nesting holes, squirrels, aircraft, the Moon, interesting tree shapes, and spider webs, the latter’s crisscrossing the forest at all sorts of angles and elevations. I listen to conversations around me for my mouth is too full to talk as I rapidly scarf down the modest five course lunch I made the night before.

Unlike group hikes, where we look for waterfalls to sit by or mountain tops with views, on a work day, lunch is where we are. On the Erma Bell log out, I was ahead of the rest of the crew when I was called on the radio asking for my position. I wasn’t exactly certain, and I wasn’t going to give a smart aleck answer like “near the county line,” which I once told dispatch at noon when we were working Hand Lake Trail (it was true). I said I was a few hundred yards ahead and would eat where I was. I had plenty of work ahead of me, but food is food, and I sat in the shade, watching ants, marveling at the deep blueness of the sky, and enjoying the quiet.

Lunch in winter is finding a sunny spot or a dry area under a big tree. I remember to bring a warm hat in my pack, because hard hats aren’t good insulators. I also keep lunch breaks shorter, because I cool off so rapidly. Summers, of course, I look for shade, which sometimes disappears, because I didn’t plan on the Earth’s rotation. I’m an amateur astronomer and should have factored that in, but when I am working the trail, I think of other things. Working the Middle Fork Trail several months ago, I sat on a thick pile of moss, my back against a log. It was so comfortable, but I realized that must be a one and done spot. My feet were in danger of kicking the moss, and it takes time for it to grow back. I worked in the same area several more times, but I never ate lunch there again, often on the bridge we were building, feet hanging over the edge, rushing water below.

We had a particularly good lunch spot working Rebel Creek, where we could sit on the trail, lean against the bank, let our legs drop over the edge, the creek far below, and I stared at one particular fir where it began far below and ended far above me. I bet I could find that same tree again. This past week, I led a crew to brush out Lowder Mountain Trail, and I timed it so we could have lunch on top, overlooking the Cascades as well as Karl and Ruth Lakes. The choice of lunch spot impressed a newcomer. Made my day.

Nobody formally calls an end to lunch. With varying degrees of stiffness, we get up, make needed adjustments to our gear, and move on. More work awaits us.

Last winter, I spoke with the Executive Director of Rowe Sanctuary in Nebraska, where I volunteered for a decade, leading over a hundred  trips to the viewing blinds.  I donate to Rowe, and every year the ED calls me to catch up for a few minutes. I know his family well; his daughter is almost exactly 50 years younger than I and now a biologist in the Deep South.  I first met her when she was ten. I do miss seeing the Sandhill cranes, teaching people about them, hearing the unique call from an ancient species, and viewing their migration is one of the top three events I’ve seen in nature (the other two were a wolf in my campsite on Isle Royale, and a total solar eclipse, of which I have seen 18).

At one point, the ED asked me what a “logout” was, which I had mentioned, without realizing it, several times. I explained it to him, although I didn’t delve further into the fact that the word may be used as a noun or a verb. We go to the woods in order to log out or cut out the logs blocking the trail (the verb form) the trail. On the last logout (noun, object of a preposition), I hurt my arm.  

I wasn’t using the term to impress, which as a newcomer I might, to try to show people I understood the work, when I really didn’t.  No, I used it automatically, because for the past 25 weeks, I had participated in at least one hand crosscut log out each week, sometimes more.  I live with this daily, so comfortable with the words that I didn’t realize they had two different grammatical forms until now.  

Learning the vocabulary of a new subject is an essential step enroute to becoming competent. I would call it necessary but not sufficient. Learning the vocabulary takes time and effort; it can’t be pushed, and using the vocabulary before one has really lived or understood it brands one as a beginner, a layman, or otherwise not part of the group, unless, and this is important, one admits their newness at the outset. I know the vocabulary of medicine, but if I am explaining a skin problem to a dermatologist, I will preface my comments as, “I think it is one of those actinic thingies, or whatever you guys call it.” That means I am sort of using the language, but I admit to my ignorance. The dermatologist nods his head, smiles, and continues the evaluation. I told my urologist I couldn’t pronounce the generic name of the med I was on, only that it was an alpha-blocker, alfu-something or other. He laughed and corrected me. 

In the Navy, I had to learn nautical language: I knew about knots, port and starboard, but I had to learn about deck, overhead, bulkheads, topside and below, reefers (refrigerators), scuttlebutt (water fountains), heads (bathrooms), wardroom, officer’s country, the difference between the 01 (oh-one) deck (first deck above the main deck) and the 1 (first) deck (first deck below the main deck), forecastle, after steering, CIC (Combat Information Center, or “Christ, I’m Confused’), snipes (engineers), pork chop (supply officer), First Lieutenant (head of the Deck Department), or dog down something (tighten it). For some, a gig is a side job; in the Navy, it has two different meanings; 1) the Captain’s personal boat (noun) that we carried, with an outboard motor, and (2) a verb that meant to discipline someone, often used in the passive voice. Nearly a half century after leaving the Navy, I occasionally will use gig, along with gundeck, another verb/noun, which means to say one has accomplished a job when in fact one did nothing. Like certain words in other languages that describe things better than we have in English, Navy-ese still is used by me along with “scosh,” from “scoshi” or a little (Japanese), example: “Give me a scosh.”  

On a ride back from a logout a week ago, I explained the injury I had suffered to my forearm when I slipped and slid down a rootball wad flat on my back, fortunately cushioned by my pack. My forearm immediately swelled, and I knew I had a hematoma. My explanation of it I later heard had the guy in back think that I had to be a physician, because I was talking so smoothly about something medical.

Having started at the bottom of many ladders in many fields (chemistry, medicine, statistics, medical administration, amateur astronomy, guiding canoe trips, learning a language, and now doing volunteer trail work), is that learning the vocabulary is the first big step towards competence. Pathology, which I took the second year of medical school, is where I really learned the vocabulary of medicine, even more than anatomy.

When I went to the canoe country to work, or to wilderness trails in the Cascades, I originally knew nothing about the work. I asked about strange words, like kerf, bind, leaner, or “how a log can talk to you,” for logs certainly have all of those characteristics. While knowing the vocabulary doesn’t make one competent, someone who neither knows the words nor pronounces them correctly stands out as a beginner, not to be ridiculed if the person is trying to work, but perhaps needs a slight toning down a little if they are trying to impress you. 

Little by little, through now eight-five logouts, the noun form, I have graduated from Apprentice, past Beginner, to some Competence, to Deal with more difficult logs, to Explain my work to others, and to Follow the Great masters whom I know. 

The route begins with learning the language of the field, asking questions, and showing up, for a big part of success is showing up. When I started, I thought a raker was an individual, not a thing on a crosscut saw that acts like a small chisel during sawing. I now speak the language, and while I will never stop learning, never be either a C Sawyer nor an instructor, I have reached a skill level I never once dreamed existed, either in life, let alone for me.  

I’ve come a long way, with far to go, but with good people with whom to travel that road.

Before and after log out of a trail in Gold Lake Sno-Park. This log would be trouble on a snowshoe. Power saw used, because we were not in the wilderness.