Boreal B[l]og

For the tenth time that day, we stop at a log to remove it from the trail. Each of us finds a spot to drop our pack, maybe before the log, because we want to get rid of the weight and bulk before clambering over the log, or perhaps after, so we don’t have to backtrack when we finish to get the pack. Placement sometimes requires later movement to prevent the cut log, a round, from running over it. Before dropping my pack, I need to put down what else I am carrying, usually an axe or a Pulaski, sometimes a large crosscut saw or a pry bar, then take off my gloves, unbuckle the hip belt and the chest strap, the latter often closer to my neck. Then I drop the pack directly through both arms or remove one arm strap and allow the pack to swing, whereupon I grab it, remove my other arm, then more gently lower the pack.

I have a Corona hand saw and a larger 500 mm KatanaBoy saw in the back of my pack that I want available, so I put my gloves back on and pull the two saws out. These, along with a Fiskars handsaw in my pocket, are used to trim branches or finish the cut, when the big saw is close to the ground and we don’t want its teeth to have contact, which will dull them. If I am carrying a crosscut saw, there are three velcro straps or buckles that have to be undone to free the saw from the blade guard. I try to do that with my gloves on, but sometimes I can’t.

I also carry three or four hard plastic wedges in my shirt and pants pocket for the cut. Last thing I want to do when cutting is stop, go to my pack or someone else’s and hunt for them. It’s more bulk to carry, but they are nice to have ready. Wedges keep the kerf—the cut—open and lessen saw binding.

After finishing the cut, which may take a few minutes or a few hours, we sheath the big saw, which on a good day can be done with gloves on and velcro’s behaving. On a bad day, the velcro has to be pried apart, the scabbard won’t line up properly, we put the saw on in the wrong direction, and the gloves have to come off again. Then I put my Katana in the pack, then the Corona, hopefully lining it up with its scabbard inside the pack, a 50-50 chance, which shouldn’t be if I could remember the whole day which way the scabbard curves, zip up the pack, pick it up with one strap and put it on. I now have to make a decision: if I think the next log is a minute or two away, I won’t bother with the hip and chest straps, and I keep the gloves off. Or, if I know from a scouting report the next log is some distance, or I guess right, I buckle up, but that’s a good day. I have to buckle the chest strap by feel, which may take one or many more attempts. If I decide to buckle up and the next log is around the corner, I have wasted energy and time. If I don’t buckle up and the next log is more than a couple hundred yards, I am going to have to stop, because carrying the pack unbuckled becomes uncomfortable. I usually keep my gloves on, because often there is something small that might need my pocket saw, unless I accidentally drop it or leave it somewhere. When one stops ten or more times a day, it is moving a lot of weight and taking a lot of decision making time that generates more fatigue. Other than that, logging out a trail work is just a day hike, with maybe 10-15 pounds extra gear, cutting a bunch of logs, moving the rounds off the trail by pushing with hands or feet, and going to the next one.

Maybe it’s a bit more than a day hike.

The trailhead was several miles closer than I thought and the road better than expected.  Good start to the day.

Then I opened the car door.

Immediately, mosquitoes were all over me. Alone, I had their undivided attention. I have spent time above the Arctic Circle and hundreds of days in the Boundary Waters. I know mosquitoes. Just two weeks earlier at the southern terminus of the Middle Fork trail by Timpanogos  I was the only crew member not to wear bug netting or use bug repellent; generally, that is typical. I heard, “There’s a swarm all around you.”  No problem.

Today was different. I was at another southern terminus, this time Diamond Peak Trail, planning to scout north 2 miles to Rockpile Trail and then head east. Summit Lake was nearby, and there were many ponds near the trail. Figure lots of standing water, one mammal, swatting several at a time on a hand, inhaling some, glad for once I wore hearing aids, since at least the bugs wouldn’t go in my ear.

The day didn’t improve. Two hours later, the last hour at least mosquito-free, I was off trail. I wasn’t lost, because I knew where the trail was behind me and could always get leave the woods that way if I had to. I was annoyed at myself, however, because earlier I had come through the other direction and had no difficulty. I usually need to see a trail on two separate occasions to develop a decent memory of it. 

I had hiked past ponds, streams, and snow, swatting as much as I tabulated downed trees and possible needed tread work as a result of the 208 fire. There were so many downed trees I listed them by number every hundred yards. Trail scouting in a fire zone is like route finding in winter. With no ground cover landmarks, many spots appear to have a trail. Finally reaching Rockpile Trail and turning east, I quickly lost the trail. I hunted on the north and south sides and got lucky.  I then placed my pack on the ground to scout ahead more quickly, finally making a 25 inch diameter log across the trail my turn around point. I needed my GPS to find my way back. Note to self: keep your pack on when having directional trouble or at the least be extremely certain you can find it again. The phrase “think I can” is inadequate. I returned to the 4-way junction, headed south and after 3/8 of a mile lost the trail again.

Then I saw a balloon. On the ground. In the Diamond Peak Wilderness.

At first, I thought it might be a weather balloon, for balloon soundings are sent up twice daily from Medford and Salem, and the balloons have to come down somewhere. But the gray ribbon bow was clearly not from the NWS. It was a balloon from a gathering somewhere. It still had some gas, probably helium, although I didn’t do a voice test. Someone likely to the west of me, given population centers and prevailing mid to high level winds, released it. Out of sight, out of mind. Sort of like tossing an apple core. You don’t see it again, but it still exists.

I felt like I was a little less in the wild. A balloon can do that. Once, in a remote area of Alaska, I encountered an Epi-Pen cartridge. I know that this region has not always been designated wilderness, but it has been officially wild in one form or another for 70 years and a balloon is as much out of place here as I would be in Times Square. East of nearby Summit Lake people used to drive in to what is now near the PCT. You’d never know it by how it looks now. I picked up the balloon, put it in my pack, finally figured out where I needed to go, found the trail, placed illegal but temporary ribbons for those who were going to log it out so they could find their way, and hiked downhill out of the burn area into the woods, where the mosquitoes were still waiting.’

See you on the trail. 

I couldn’t miss seeing the green, since for the last two hours I had been in the land of black and brown,  black trees, black and brown soil, with occasional orange, which I learned was from clay having been burned. The few times I looked up from my work recovering the Pioneer Gulch trail, I could, if I stared hard enough, see some distant green across a valley through and behind the silent black trees around me. There were perhaps a dozen green plants growing in a pile of large rocks. Presumably the relative lack of fuel here plus the rocks helping to protect soil and moisture allowed the seeds to germinate. The leaves looked familiar but I couldn’t identify them. 

We were working in the post-fire zone on Pioneer Gulch Trail, in and adjoining the Diamond Peak Wilderness. The 208 fire burned 11,263 acres (about 17 square miles) between mid-July and the end of October 2024, when it was contained. Lightning caused, it was never a danger to property, but it burned wilderness in which we had worked for several years along the west side of Diamond Peak, well below the 8700 foot summit and the 1000 foot lower treeline, but high enough above the surrounding valleys, where beautiful Happy, Blue, and Corrigan Lakes were all in the burn zone. I had been on the trail several times but recognized nothing.

The official burned zone is not always a blackened moonscape. Fire footprints are a mosaic, where there can be surviving trees and ground cleared of downed brush. The Rebel Fire in 2017 cleared out the forest floor nicely. The place looks good. The 2018 Terwilliger Fire was another example of a mosaic.

Unfortunately, this part of the 208 fire had burned hot, and all the trees had burned. Pioneer Gulch climbs steeply 1100 feet in 1.3 miles and is used by climbers to access Diamond Peak. The Middle Fork Ranger District made restoring the trail a priority for us. We had finished our bridge and trail building on the Middle Fork Trail the week before and finally finished Cloverpatch work three days earlier. Those two trail jobs occupied 41 work days for me alone, although I missed out on three or four. Our job here was to cut the downed logs, remove them, find and repair the trail.

By working virtually every inch of the trail, we could make it visible for hikers. Burns kill roots, which disappear, leaving tunnels in the ground that can collapse under a hiker’s weight. They often move logs and rocks to where we don’t want them, like on the trail.

Seven months earlier, we worked on Bunchgrass Trail 30 miles north, two years after the Cedar Creek Fire. That was a moonscape with minimal regrowth and soil like powder, easy to dig in but difficult to find something solid below that would qualify as a trail. Here, there was a hard packed trail with frequent large holes, where the trail had disappeared. We filled the larger holes with rocks and then found nearby dirt to cover them, not unlike the approach to building a ramp to a bridge. Some places, the trail had eroded or would soon erode, so we moved it back into the hill a foot or more. Other places it was difficult to see the trail, but sometimes looking where a trail might be allowed us to find it. I used a Rinehart tool, a cross between a hoe and a shovel that had been bent 90 degrees. We had a Pick Mattock, a cross between a pick axe and a Pulaski, and other digging tools: Travis, McLeod, Rogue Hoe and a square shovel. I wasn’t sure what I would encounter, but the Rinehart worked fine. It could dig, acted as a small shovel, could cut many roots which were destroyed by the fire, lever moderate logs off the trail, and tamp down my fill dirt. It was light and easy to carry, doubled as a walking stick.

As we ascended, we found more trees that had survived the fire, so there was some shade. It would take us two work days to repair the trail, and we would need to do the same further south on Rockpile Trail, as well as the connector trail between Pioneer Gulch and Rockpile, and  south of that junction with an east-west Forest Service road, ending a series of trails that started at Salt Creek Falls, 20 trail miles, 65 road miles away.

A short while later about ten yards past the group of plants, I had an “of course” moment when I saw one more living plant with similar leaves as the others, but this time blooming, immediately recognizable as a Bleeding Heart.

Bleeding heart plants (Lamprocapnos spectabilis)

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.

Amazingly, it wasn’t raining, despite the forecast. It sure was wet in the woods, though, and the two streams that we had put bridges across in the past 16 months were really flowing. The Crew was back at Cloverpatch working on the third bridge. 

I had already done some work here, having carried in my share of tools, planks, and one memorable day figured out how to use a small log as a runner for a 1-2 ton stringer to get it to the bridge site. But the last few times out, I was either relegated to, or had the honor of, being the lead for the work party building the trail to the next and last bridge site, a half mile further. After three days with tread tools there we were now within about 50 feet of the end, maybe a bit more given some rerouting that I thought might be necessary.

But on this wet day, I stayed with the rest of the eight person crew, hiking in, debarking cedar logs that would be used for stringers, posts, supports, and rails, a couple hundred linear feet required. Counting the posts, that comprised about 1000 square feet of bark that needing removal, although I was the only one crazy enough to calculate that.

Additionally, we had rock “cribs” needing filling so stringers and sills, the latter large diameter shorter length logs perpendicular to the crossing stringers, would rest minimizing wetness and rotting. We needed to make a ramp at each end for smooth travel at both ends of the 21 foot long bridge. This entailed more rocks, soil to fill in the spaces, and repeating until we had a smooth ramp.

I used a straight draw knife, sharp 10 inch blade, couple inches wide, beveled, handle at each end. Grabbing each handle, one straddled the log, leaned forward, put the blade under the bark, and pulled towards oneself,  strips of bark peeling off. In the right season, strips could be several feet long, but this time of year two feet was good. We cut down to the cambium, worked our way down the log, and rotated it, continuing. I debarked a 12 and a 25 footer and then took a break collecting rocks, which were plentiful in the Tire Creek area. I had filled the lower two feet of the crib several weeks ago mostly by myself. Now, the rocks needed to go above the sills to support the ramp, to take up volume, each rock removing the need for the equivalent volume of mineral soil.

I was not the strongest. Jeff was carrying rocks I would roll, and in some instances he stopped to talk while carrying. Wow. My legs were good, so I could still do my part by carrying smaller rocks with more trips, taking time from that task to knock some rocks out of a root wad with a shovel. Before I knew it, time for lunch. I was beat. Rock work does that.

After eating, I rolled left and gradually stood, now needing to move rocks to the crib on the other side of the bridge. There were no rock shortages there, the distance shorter, but the weight the same. Most of the crew was about a decade younger than I, although Chris was only a year younger. He may be a little slower the past two years, but so am I; there is nothing wrong with his arm strength.

We didn’t finish, which would require more visits, and hiked out a mile and a half with plenty of uphill. For the first part, in addition to my pack, I carried only a light strap. Easy enough. I caught up with Hal, who had stopped, putting down 20 yards of coiled cable for a no longer needed come-a-long. I was polite, asking if he wanted to trade the cable for my light strap. I expected—and hoped—he would say he was fine.

“Would you? To the top of the next hill?” Crap. He’s serious.

I picked up the cable, coiled, 35 pounds plus. I let my right arm take the weight, and I started up the hill. My hiking speed dropped like a stone, and I went uphill about the same rate I could push one.  But I was going to carry it up the hill, and once I got there, I wasn’t going to relinquish it. I would carry it to the trailhead. 

I did make it. I finally felt useful; perhaps this will be another good year.

I don’t know why I turned around. 

I was looking at a “mess,” term I use for trail blocking organic material: several broken large logs, assorted attached and unattached branches, other greenery, and mud, noting where it was—on the descent to Harper Creek on the South Willamette Trail—and the size.  I must have heard something, despite my removing my hearing aids due to the rain.

A young woman stood about 10 yards from me uphill on the trail. Didn’t see a pack; she wore sneakers, not the best foot gear to hike, especially on a wet day, although I have encountered this before, once in pouring rain where the wearer planned to wear a plastic bag around her feet. I strongly suggested she not hike; she went anyway.

“Is this the Eula Ridge Trail?”

Uh Oh.  She’s going to be unhappy with my answer.  

“No, This is the South Willamette Trail. Eula Ridge is back about a mile. Remember where the trail forked? You went right. You needed to go left.”

About a quarter mile from the trailhead, the trail bifurcated; to the right, a sign on a tree said this was the South Willamette Trail (SWT), 5.1 miles to Hardesty Mountain Trail. Left went up Eula Ridge, which joined Hardesty Mountain Trail near the top of the mountain with the same name. It was a 14 mile loop. The junction was a mile back. She hiked that mile, including a nasty stream crossing, and had to climb over logs in eight different places. I knew that because I had just hiked it, scouting the trail for logs needing removal. At least, she didn’t have to traverse the mess we were at. If there had been fewer blowdowns, I would have been further along the trail when she caught up with me, and she would be further from where she was supposed to have gone.

This was neither time nor place to suggest a map, a compass, or better clothing. Most of us have been guilty of shortfalls in outfitting or taking hikes. I hoped she would learn something today from her mistake. I like maps, and carry a compass, which I almost never use. The times I have used it, however, were important. Next time, maybe she will prepare in advance for the trip. On my trips to areas I haven’t seen for awhile, I usually check a map or CalTopo, and I have good trail memory. 

I have worked the SWT 17 days; I have hiked it and Hardesty at least a dozen other times. I had power brushed the section where we both were now last year. I was wearing a hard hat on a day that promised wind, I had two small saws with me, lunch, water, and a space blanket in my pack.  My wife knew where I had gone and what time I should be done. This woman was hiking alone. I understand that and don’t criticize others who do; solitary hikes are often the best ones I take. Before I left the house, I threw in my golden yellow rain jacket, because it is better than my windbreaker. I ended up wearing it. 

The stream was 4 feet wide, 15 inches deep, flowing fast, which made me stop a bit to think whether it was worth crossing, and if so how I was going to do it. I had gaiters, faced upstream when I crossed—quickly—using my walking stick to triangulate. I had no problem, and while my boots were wet, my feet stayed dry.

I continued, scouting the next mile, stopping at the last log which I knew from the report. I figured out how to log out the trail, with two crews, one from the Eula Ridge side, where I started, the other from Crale Creek Road, where two years ago I found a shortcut to reach the high point on the SWT without a long hike from below. This day, I put a ribbon marker at the user trail leading to the main trail so workers could find it coming from the road. I had a good outing.

I was mildly concerned for the hiker, although not worried. She got well off track on a day where the weather was not forgiving, and which would cost her time and warmth. It bothered me that she missed the easily visible trail sign. Despite my familiarity with the trail, I had a dedicated GPS plus one on my phone, which did have reception. I want to know where I am, my altitude, my closest way out, and the time. Going into the woods should not be taken lightly. I knew the weather forecast and wore a sturdy rain jacket. My rain pants were old but serviceable. I had good boots and gaiters. My taking the time and gear shows respect I have for the country. 

There is a softer side, too. It is not enjoyable to be improperly equipped. I’ve been there and suffered. The SWT and other trails are lovely in spring. Water is everywhere. Violets, Trilliums, and Nuttall’s toothworts were blooming, Pacific Wrens were calling and even a vulture flew overhead. I had a great hike. I’m afraid she did not.

When I got back to the trailhead, I noted the right front tire on her vehicle was significantly low.

Sometimes bad days happen. See you on the trail and I hope not on a bad day.

I hate packing wet, and that night in Indian Gardens, well below the South Rim on Bright Angel Trail, I knew I would be doing just that the following morning. Fortunately, it would only be for the hike out. Unfortunately, the trip out was uphill 3000 feet over 4.5 miles, akin to climbing Hardesty in Oregon or Mt. Wrightston south of Tucson, although on more sandy soil, with mules and people, but no mountain bikes.

My wife and I always stayed in Indian Gardens the last night out on a Canyon backpack. This trip, a cold autumn storm moved in, and our last dinner was eaten under shelter of the eaves of one of the buildings, followed by our quickly retiring to the tent. There were no day hikers in this weather, and I doubted we’d see many on the way out.

I sleep well on a rainy night if I have nowhere to go the next day, but I awoke frequently hearing rain and thought how wet and cold we were going to be. Next morning, we got up and dressed, a real joy when it is dark and raining, trying to keep bare skin away from the tent, packed where we could under the nearby eaves, folded the tent, without my caring how it looked, only that it stay on the pack, headed out and up, wearing layers but not expecting to shed any. The pack the last day was supposed to be light without food and with little water, but it weighed a ton with the wet tent. When I reached the Coconino Sandstone layer, the light brown vertical one, third from the top, the rain switched to snow. I was warm but not excessively so, and kept plodding upward into the Toroweap. Fortunately, our vehicle was parked right at the top of the trail, something one could easily do forty years ago. I reached the top of the trail, Kaibab Limestone, got the keys out, dropped my pack into the trunk…

And was suddenly cold. BRRR. No longer generating heat, I had unevaporated sweat. I knew my wife would be a little while longer, so I immediately headed to a nearby lodge with a fire to stand by it. When I was again warm, I went back out and waited. When she appeared, I took the pack, told her to head to the lodge to get warm, and I would quickly be there.

Packing wet when you aren’t coming out means thinking all day about how you want to get the tent up and have it dry, right now, but you can’t. If it were in the rest of the pack, which for me it often was, then I tried to shield my clothes and sleeping bag from it, not always succeeding. On some multi-day backpacks in Alaska, it would rain for a couple of days straight, the pack was wet, tent wet, and I had one pair of dry socks I saved for night. That meant I put on cold, damp socks in the morning. They were wool; it was bad for only a few minutes. 

I finally got it right with the help of a guide when I was on the Noatak River. I put the pack in the tent overnight and in the morning packed everything without leaving the tent. Then I struck the tent, folded it, put it in a stuff sack, and attached it to the outside of my pack. It didn’t matter whether it rained or whether I was crossing water up to my waist. The tent wasn’t going to get any wetter, and it wasn’t going to get the clothes in the pack wet, either.

See you on the trail. Make sure the coming generations know your tricks.

The rocks seemed like they would never end. I was digging into the lighter brown mineral soil, small rocks kept appearing which we didn’t want on the trail.

The Crew was working in Cloverpatch, five on the third bridge, which now had stringers across Tire Creek, rushing after the  recent rain, seven on the trail to the fourth and last bridge site. The stringers weren’t ready to walk across, so I waded through foot deep water quickly to the other side. My gaiters worked well; I had no sensation of wetness. 

I took the group a quarter mile further to work on the trail that had been flagged to the last bridge, a half mile further. Flagging meant someone had bushwhacked and put small flags on metal rods in the ground, marking a proto-trail, eventually to become a mountain bike trail. To make the actual trail, we had to remove large brush to get access to the ground, then plants so that the tread would be a yard wide, cut out roots and branches with hand saws, loppers, or tread tools, then scrape away organic detritus to the mineral subsoil, pushing the former off the trail. Digging uncovered rocks, some we couldn’t remove, others could be after several minutes, but many smaller ones kept appearing. The week before, eight of us cleared a couple hundred yards. I doubted seven of us today would get nearly that far.

The trail went uphill and side hilled, sometimes constraining the width sub-optimally. We then dug into the hillside, encountering more rocks, more dirt, and more plants.

I had noted rotten logs in the trail under which I was able to work a tread tool to lift parts of them out.  In the logs, I noted long stems of plant life, parallel to the grain. It was one of those new, odd things that I saw before moving on. I was bent over, and sometimes, to be easier on my back, I knelt on the trail to have better ability to use the Rinehart tool to move the organic duff and pick out rocks by hand. 

But I kept seeing rotten logs and roots. Finally, taking a longer, closer look, I saw how the stems had split the log longitudinally with smaller roots intertwined, like capillaries, with the rotten, still wet, wood. Cellulose and lignin are the two most common organic compounds in wood. These are glucose polymers—chains of connected glucose molecules— containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The non-cellulose parts have proteins, built with amino acids, organic acids with an amine group at the alpha-carbon, the one that is not the acid (-COOH ) portion. Glycine, the simplest, is vinegar (CH3COOH) with a methyl hydrogen replaced by an amino (-NH2) group. Twenty different amino acids are found in our proteins, 9 essential or required in our diet. Cells in rotten wood contain potential nutrients: nucleic acids have nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Other minerals are magnesium, essential for chlorophyll, potassium, and calcium.

Capillary is both a noun and an adjective. Capillary action is the ability of water to rise in a narrow tube due to attraction between the water molecules and the sides of the tube. It is an important way to transport water upwards through the xylem along with transpiration pull from the leaves.

By kneeling on the ground and moving much of it, I learned about the two forms of capillary and how the minerals present were being used to form new organic compounds that will appear in many phyla in both plants and animals in the area.

See you on the trail. Unless you are working trail, please leave no trace.