Boreal B[l]og

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.

Roy looked over at me and asked, “Are you going back up to the Boundary Waters this year?”

I went mute. I had organized this hike, driven the three of us here, and led the hike from Winberry Creek up to the Divide, climbing about 1200 feet. Jean and I had worked every inch of the trail a few years ago. I got everybody up to the top, we hiked back down, I gave a little bit of unexpected Christmas to Jean, and was ready to drive the two back to their vehicle well outside the forest. To say I was a hike leader or guide for these two was a bit of a stretch, but I had been in control of the route, the time on trail, the gifts, everything. I had been a minute away from having everyone in the car and leaving with no issues.

Until now.

Jean had heard the question, too, and I was still fumbling with an answer which came out as “well, I sure would like to get back up there, but I will have to see.” That wasn’t exactly a clear answer from someone in control, but the two of them were merciful and let the answer stand.

What was I going to do? For the first few days, I didn’t think about the question at all. I was at the end of my radiation therapy for prostate cancer, it was the holiday season (although that day at Winberry was the end of my gift giving), and I had other things on my mind.

About a week later, the three of us took another hike to see Upper Trestle Falls after a heavy rain, 3-5 inches in the mountains. The hike was fabulous. I had thought of the idea to go, organized it on short notice, did the driving, got the three of us up to the falls, where I threw my arms in the air and shouted happily above the roar. We then hiked back down, went for coffee afterwards, my idea, Jean’s recommendation of a place. I had offered to pay for the coffee as a “sweetener” to get everybody to come. Roy mercifully didn’t ask the question again, but I now started thinking in earnest of the answer. I initially went about it the wrong way. It wasn’t an awful wrong way but it was still wrong. I didn’t want to leave Jan, my wife, at home alone while I went up for a minimum of 4 nights, maybe 6, and if only 3, it didn’t seem worthwhile. even going. Jean and I were going to meet for a walk a few days later and I wanted to have an answer.

I finally came to my senses and checked out my concerns with Jan that day. While she understood my concerns, she thought she would do fine. I wasn’t as certain, and we had a heart to heart talk about my leaving her behind and her being left behind. I didn’t want to leave her home alone several days. That is where everything stayed.

The better question then surfaced. Given enough enough time, I usually can find my way to either the right answer or the right question.  

“Do I really want to go to the Boundary Waters this year?”

No, I do not. See, Mike, that’s not so difficult now, is it? 

Two years ago, I said if I didn’t go that year, I wouldn’t go again. I was smarter back then. In the meantime, I had prostate cancer, would complete radiation, still have hormonal mischief affecting my power, hadn’t camped in five years and hadn’t canoed in seven. I bounced this question off Mina, my friend in Germany, with whom I have corresponded for nearly 15 years. She doesn’t camp but gives me spot on advice about everything. She offered the wise comment: “About the Boundary Waters: it seems you asked yourself the right question and found peace with your choice, without trying to push yourself to be like the old version of you.” What I was indeed longing for was the version of me in the old days with a vision of my seventieth trip the same of all the others. I would fly from Portland or Seattle to The Cities (they are Minneapolis-St. Paul to most people, but in Minnesota and for a few other people like me, are “The Cities”), do an airport hike to get a rental car, drive part way up, stay overnight, then arrive in Ely the next morning. I would need to get food, pack everything, get other things I needed, like stove fuel from the outfitter, who now wouldn’t know me, get the canoe, put it on the car, drive to the jumping off place, take the canoe off the car myself and then start paddling. I did not know how my arms, clearly from what I have seen here doing trail work locally, having neither normal power nor endurance, would react to quartering winds and long paddles. I have not set up camp in a long time. It’s work, and more work now with an older, weaker, out of practice body than it was years ago. I think I had a romantic idea of what it is going to be like, and the reality would likely be very different. That old version of me is gone, forever. There is a newer version, not as strong but with some nice attributes that I need to develop.

Years ago, I postponed a trip to the Appalachian Trail because of neck problems. I said a good woodsman would not go hike there with a bad neck. I waited until my neck was better and went then, section hiking three hundred miles  (500 km) with no problem and great memories.

I have been and still am a good woodsman. I’m returning to trail work soon. I am ready for that. I have wonderful memories of the canoe country. I explored it like few do; I was a volunteer for one full season. I left my mark up there with the four scholarships I have created. The country left its mark on me.

I am at peace with this decision, and I feel very very blessed to have done what I have.

At trail work the following week in Fall Creek, recovering a trail after the Bedrock Fire, my first Crew outing in three months, Roy and I were alone by a section of trail we had both worked on. When we took a break, I got to tell Roy the answer. He had forgotten asking the question, but he completely understood my decision.

Two midnights after a fabulous hike, I’m awake having spent the evening writing about it, still unable to find a specific event that made the hike so fabulous. I quickly moved myself mentally along the mile and a half hike and still couldn’t find anything. What was it? After getting out of bed yet again, I returned several minutes later and closed my eyes. I’m not sure what my conscious state was when I suddenly saw black block letters on a dark green background.

The words spelled “Pounding the Air.” Of course!!! A phrase I have neither written nor spoken perfectly captured what I was looking for! I can still see those black letters. I probably will always remember them. I’ve never had that experience before.

Five midnights earlier, that would be three nights prior to this special hike, time I needed to be sleeping, I was again awake. With radiation therapy, my sleep was broken up into separate short chunks, followed too often with long periods of wakefulness. My mind worked nonstop during these latter times, and I learned to get up, walk into the living room, not to read, but to unload everything I was thinking verbally, giving each snippet brief light in darkness, talking to it, quieting it, putting it into snippet bed so I could then return to my bed and hopefully sleep. The heavy rain that night likely stimulated one of these snippets and back in bed, still awake, much later I thought, “Upper Trestle Falls at the east end of the Brice Creek Trail.”

I struggle to understand what happens in my mind to produce these connections, but the result is remarkable, and I like it. Here, my mind continued with: See the falls, soon. A year ago, I had stalled too long and missed the last big flow by a couple of weeks, but this was an ideal time to go, soon. The only day I had free in this tight interval was Sunday, three days later, and I had to move fast if I wanted company, which I did. So a couple hours later at 6:02, I fired off an email to Jean in Cottage Grove, subject line “Exit 174 visit.” I was unusually terse, only 101 words, which is terse for me, saying I would be at Exit 174 at 8:15 Sunday, heading east to Champion Creek Trailhead. I offered to take her, her Roy and anybody else who wanted to come, and I was also willing to pay for everything at Slabtown Coffee afterwards. I have learned from the many cats I have had that it never hurts to ask for what I really want. I left out the length of the hike. The two knew the distance.

Within an hour, Jean had accepted the whole package except for a time change of 9 am, which was even better, for it gave me a chance to drive to Cottage Grove High School and look at the quarter acre garden many of us Obsidians (hiking club) helped create a year before. I saw that before driving to Jean’s, arriving a little early. Before 9, I was driving east in the rain, Jean and Roy with me.

The rain let up before we reached the trailhead. The trail climbed steeply for a good half mile with many fallen branches of various sizes present. We all knew the route, and I used my walking stick to flick branches off the trail, occasionally picking up a few. The many I didn’t get were taken care of by the pair behind me. We had hiked this several weeks earlier after my 9th treatment; now it was after my 42nd. I felt better this time, encouraging, because I appeared to have avoided radiation fatigue. I was still breathing louder than I wanted to, but the idea of seeing the falls after a 3-5 inch rain moved me along. One 4 inch diameter log jutted out over the trail. I pulled it out barehanded, because I was too lazy to put my gloves on, dragged it across the trail, then two-handed it off the trail. I was acting like I had testosterone, when in fact that steroid was a distant memory to my body’s receptors. I was excited about what was coming.

I heard the falls a good five minutes before reaching them, got what I guess is called stoked, and when I had my first good look, threw my arms upwards and was pounding  the air, I was so happy. I conceived this hike (with the help of a snippet), made the plans, drove everybody there, all of us then hiking in to reach this wonderful cataract to see it in strong flow. We made it!!!  In my case, my body was telling me it was recovering and might be more useful in the coming months. Why wouldn’t I pound the air?

I can remember only two other experiences where was pounding the air. Five weeks earlier on Spencer Butte, I was so exhausted I rested my head on my walking stick six times in a quarter mile and sat down once as well. I thought I was better than that and hiked it four days later, and I was better. When I knew for sure, well up the top steps, I pounded the air. Ever since that time on the Butte, when I reach that same spot, my right fist is pounding the air to say to myself and to the surroundings “I am back, I am still here, I am going to finish this.”

The only other time I pounded air was when I skied a tough, steep mogul field perfectly, hitting every mogul, and only the mogul, all the way down, stopping only when my knees or lungs gave out. 
The 20-25 yard falls was perhaps 3 yards across at the top and closer to 10 at the bottom. We took pictures then hiked back out, clearing a few more branches we had missed on the way in. As soon as we got into the car, the rain started but we were dry, other than sweat, and a bit cold, which heat could fix, returning to Cottage Grove for tea, cocoa, and cookies, all on me, with great pleasure.
After I dropped Jean and Roy off back at Jean’s house, I felt like pounding the air again. I pulled this off!!

Umpqua NF December 2025

Recently, out at the Arboretum, I was part of a group spreading mulch. I was shoveling it into wheelbarrows until I got tired of turning to my left. I then switched to moving wheelbarrows, dumping their loads on an area of trail needing mulch. Then I returned to shovel some more, and not surprising for me, knelt on the ground on both knees to shovel the last of the mulch into a wheelbarrow. I could have stood to do it, but there wasn’t much mulch left; it was at ground level. I like the ground. I put as much of myself into contact with the ground as I can.

I spent three consecutive trail work days, the first in town, digging out hemlock, the other two out in Fall Creek, recovering trails by digging out the grass and organics on top. The last, nine days after the second, two of us were digging out the grass on yet another trail. All of the other workers on both days in both places stood up to do the digging. I was on my knees, in the first sliding a shovel along the ground to get under the taproot; in the second using a Travis tool to dig. With a shorter distance to the ground, I produced less force, but I didn’t need much and was far more comfortable where I was. The third time I used a Rinehart tool, and while it was wet and I didn’t have ideal knee protection from the wetness. I still was on the ground. It’s uncanny.

Lunch time on the trail, and I am likely to sit or even lie on the ground. Occasionally, I will sit on a log or a rock, the latter still technically the ground. Rarely, I may eat standing up, but I would say at least 90% of the lunches I will be on the ground, eating.

I have a special relationship with the ground, be it the forest or a floor. I sit on it, kneel on it, lie on it. When I practiced medicine and had to examine a patient’s legs, I knelt on the floor to do so. I had two chairs in the exam room, and if the patient and family member sat in them, I sat on the step stool used to get on the exam table. I was closer to the ground and had eye-to-eye near horizontal contact. If I left the stool to look closer at a patient, I knelt on the carpet itself. When I did spinal taps I knelt on the floor, almost invariably. I didn’t try to talk down to my patients, figuratively or literally.

Camping is great for ground time. I sleep on the ground, eat sitting on the ground, or lean up against a tree. I often watch the water or distant hills, sitting on the ground, of course. Sure, I could stand, but I usually don’t. Even in a canoe, I am more likely to kneel than to sit.

It carries over to sawing as well. If the log is the right size and location, I can stand and rock back and forth on my legs to saw. It’s efficient and not difficult. I like doing that. Otherwise, however, I am looking for a way to be in contact with the ground with either one knee or both, occasionally pulling the saw towards me between my legs. People say it is strange, but they aren’t grounded. I am. It’s not a coincidence. This it is likely due to my personality type, which from the book Human Dynamics, is a “Physical,” an uncommon (5%) personality type that fits me. I am well grounded, in touch with the land around me, literally and figuratively, “a slow processor who requires time to gather large amounts of data to understand a situation.” That is so me.

Slow processor. At the end of the third day, the Crew leader mentioned a future trip I would run, my thirty-fifth as a crew leader. He said we wouldn’t need a large crew, looking at me. 

I didn’t agree, but I didn’t have an exact number of the people I would need, but it was 7-9. 

“Can’t hear me?”said the crew leader.

“I can hear you fine,” I replied. “I’m trying to figure out how many we need.” I am a slow processor. I had another interaction that day where I wish I had expressed my unhappy feelings better, but I just didn’t know how…until about 18 hours later.

“Physical…people typically have a prodigious capacity to remember data. They can recollect events from even the distant past in which they were fully engaged in extraordinary sensory detail… and they often convey information through detailed stories.” Check.

”[T]hey gather and assimilate large amounts of data, and think in terms of the interconnections that make up whole systems of functioning. Because of their affinity for the systemic, they may be fascinated by the patterns they observe in the flow of events across time.” Yessir.

The Human Dynamics model had a huge impression on me. It allowed me to understand my slow processing and to treat it as a virtue, a blessing, something to be cherished and developed. It got me through graduate school, when numerous times difficult mathematical concepts became clear after a night’s sleep, and seemingly impossible matrix or integral problems could be solved in a matter of minutes the following morning. Major writing requires my setting something aside for a period of time regardless of how well I think I have explained it. A recent “major ah hah moment” led to an immediate summary of some trail issues I had. A day later, I changed the wording. Two days later, I switched to human factors, which had been the original idea, shortening the letter about 1000 words. It still wasn’t finished but much better. Two more days, and I sent it, getting an immediate positive reply. I learned recently that this human factors paper will be a template for a Code of Conduct for crew leaders, then going to the annual conference of trail leaders and so will become a very big deal.

I never thought my walking stick could support my head, but it did one day, six times. I have used a saguaro cactus rib for 26 years as a walking stick, 1 1/8” rubber stop at the end, so when the rubber has to be changed out and removed, the part above the protection is much thinner than the rest of the stick. The stick and I have traveled over a thousand miles in fourteen states.

Near the summit of the Butte, I reached the top of the first two groups of steps, 13 now in the first, due to subsidence, where there were once 12, 14 in the second, where the trail made a right hand bend and my respiratory rate of nearly 50 per minute became insufficient. I was beat and stopped, putting my forehead down on the stick and wished I could lasso my breath because I didn’t see any other way to catch it. My legs were complaining, too, in a way that I really didn’t understand. I’ve had tired legs, but I had weird buttock discomfort, too, which I haven’t had.

After a short time, I budged then nudged forward a little, trudged a bit more wondering if I could fudge the idea of getting to the top without holding a grudge against the trail. I hiked up the next group of steps, stopped, waited, and then budged. I then hiked, rested, nudged, hiked, rested, and budged until I had used my walking stick as a forehead holder six separate times. My seventh and final stop was still well below the top just before the big tree. I saw a convenient rock and sat down. My prior  time up a few days before, I had to stop once. Two times before that I didn’t have to stop. This looked like a bad trend.

I hadn’t felt great all day prior to the hike. The radiation therapy was affecting my bowel, since the pelvis is deep—I mean in women a baby fits in it—but even in men it is deep enough, and my 27 cc size prostate—an ounce, give or take—was at the bottom. Worse, I had a node that appeared to be involved, so that area as well needed the photon beam, which encountered plenty of bowel in between the skin and the node. At the time I had 18 treatments. When I began the hike I didn’t feel right—well, I’ll be honest— I felt crappy. But even crappy now felt different from crappy as I had known it. Finally, I made the top, seven rest stops to finish less than a quarter mile distance climbing 190 vertical feet that I once did in under 5 minutes. 

At least I no longer felt crappy. I just couldn’t breathe. I began to feel fine after the first five minutes’ hiking. I can’t find the right words for what I felt. Radiation and hormonal mismatching mischief have made my body-speak another language, and I don’t learn languages easily. I thought I was doing fine until the steps.

I descended without difficulty but worried that this profound weakness was a sign of radiation-induced fatigue, which might even worsen for the next two months before slowly remitting. But I wasn’t convinced. I could walk 4-5 miles a day on flat ground with no significant effort. I had been chemically castrated for four months and doing trail work during that time. I wasn’t great, but nobody asked me what was wrong, either.

Five days later, I went back up Spencer on a cold, foggy day. I got up the first 26 steps, and the walking stick remained a walking stick, not a head support. When I reached the fiftieth step, I punched the air with my fist. I wasn’t normal—and I may never be normal again; I am at peace with that possibility—but I was able to get to the top using the walking stick only for which it was designed. Mind you, I still have 4 solid weeks of radiation ahead, and side effects may increase after radiation stops. But the operative word here is “may,” not “definitely” or “will.” And a great deal of radiation is behind me;  actually, it’s in me.

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

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

With of course less sleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It sure was a lot easier hiking on the trail connecting Bechtel Shelter with Abernethy Road in the Gold Lake Sno-Park than it was last spring. Then, I snowshoed on snow 6-7 feet deep interspersed with tree wells, where the depth dropped precipitously and conically more than half to the trunk. If I fell wrong, it would have been almost impossible to extricate myself. I didn’t see any tree markers for the trail and ended up bushwhacking out of there directly on the shortest line to get to the road.  This late summer day, however, there was a well-defined trail, shorter than I remembered, maybe 200 yards angling from the road to the shelter. But there were still a paucity of trail markers.

Three of us were placing blue white reflective plastic diamond markers on trees in order to mark the trail for winter use. The idea was to be able to see the next diamond in either direction from anywhere on the trail. Additionally, we had a pole saw to cut away branches that might hit faces if there were 6 feet of snow on the ground. In a bag, I carried a hammer, aluminum nails and a stack of diamonds. The diamonds could be angled to show a change in the trail’s direction. Diamonds on trees degrade over time; others disappear. Trees fall. The person who would be in charge of the trail was learning from me how to mark it, and he did just fine. He would return this winter to move the diamonds upwards by standing on the snow by a marked tree, assuming there was not a significant tree well. If the diamond was well above the snow level, I told him to leave it alone. Many who maintain winter trails use a ladder in the summer to move diamonds, but I’m old, ladders are dangerous, especially in the woods, and with several feet of snow on the ground, I’ve been able to move the diamonds up the trees on trails I’ve worked. 

I started to nail one diamond in when I again looked up little more carefully  and there was already one there. One can tell my marked trails by periodic double diamonds, where either snow depth or carelessness on my part led to extra placement.

I have been to Bechtel Shelter many times, often going from there nearly a mile further to Midnight Lake in the Diamond Peak Wilderness. On a good day I’ve gone a mile and a half beyond to Arrowhead Lake. Everything looks different in winter. The bottom of the descent from the shelter in the other direction forks left to Marianne Way, a three-quarter of a mile loop returning uphill to the trail near the shelter. The right fork leads to Pengra Pass and then the parking lot. The right fork is easy to traverse in winter, but alder growth at the junction made it almost impassable in summer. Last year, two of us opened a still visible trail through the alders. Six months later, in snow, I could easily navigate through several scattered branches poking up, as if nothing were below. Now, we widened the trail to about 5 feet, crossing a small perennial stream, perfect for alders, along with direct sunlight, at least now. We cut several sub-inch diameter trunks that supported growth ten to twelve feet high. Clearing them took about an hour, for alders are brushy.

We backtracked, continuing on Marianne Way, where we needed to deal with a smaller patch of alders and then climbed, placing some diamonds, but generally the trail was in good shape. We looked for logs that would be a problem for winter users, removing a 5 inch diameter one 5 feet over the trail, a problem in winter, whereas one 2 feet over the trail would be snow covered.

Later on, we encountered a small log arcing over the trail. We spent more time than necessary cutting it, as I saw a chance to practice making efficient, safe cuts on smaller logs. The cutter started from the top, and after sawing perhaps a third of the way through, I had her start cutting from the bottom in two places parallel to each other. This would reduce the compression below so that the cut log would not suddenly open up on top and slab off, meaning much of the cut log would hang off the bottom when we were done. She finished the cut, and the log quietly dropped without slabbing. Learning a cutting technique on a small log makes it easier to do a larger one.

Near the end of Marianne Way, one of the others found a plastic bag full of nails. They had to have been mine from last winter. Nobody else had been out here checking the trail, and I had worked in that particular spot trying to place a diamond while standing in a tree well, not a good position. I couldn’t even remember whether I knew I was missing nails, but I could still use these.

Ten days later, across Highway 58, I used the nails on another of my trails, and failed to watch where I put the bag. I also managed to leave the same bag, with now only a few nails, on that trail. Maybe I should use a bright red pail to carry them. Next summer or fall, I hope to find it without fail and end this tale.

My morning walk through Alton Baker Park was abbreviated because of foot issues, so I took a shorter route through a quiet neighborhood. I could do laps if I felt better than usual, but I missed walking further in wide open spaces I could see just a quarter mile away. I passed by a shaded curb at a corner, heading west….

And stopped. I turned around. There was a yellow flower on a stalk, not a common mullein, because it had four petals; however, it was definitely, not a mustard.  I smelled it but didn’t notice anything, although my nose was a little stuffy. I wasn’t totally sure what it was, but if I had to make a call, I would have said it was an evening primrose (Oenothera biennis.)

I hadn’t seen a primrose in years, and I don’t know what limbic system-visual cortex-association cortex process made me so sure I knew what the flower was. I sensed it, and after I went home and looked it up, turned out I was right. I returned to smell the primrose, this time finding the slightest hint of a lemony odor. A few days later, 100 yards away, along a path leading to the park, I saw a second plant. I had walked there numerous times, including recently. I had to have gone by the primrose but didn’t notice it. I hadn’t even sensed it. But rather than beating up on myself for my lack of noticing—after all, I think of many things on a walk—I eventually noticed. That’s better than never. It took me decades to learn when my wife asked me about a problem, she wasn’t necessarily telling me I must fix it. Sometimes, she only wanted me to listen. Imagine that. I eventually figured it out. Yes, I’m slow, but there are some who never figure it out. I was late arriving at the show, but at least I got there. Some never do.

There are several other lessons. Curiosity about the surrounding world enhances life, and it’s like reading, nature, languages, music, art and so much else. The younger you are when exposed, the better the development. Sometimes a minor observation doesn’t become important until much later, perhaps a connection occurs at 2 a.m., which it often does for me. It helps to believe a routine outdoor walk may turn up an interesting surprise or observation, without expecting such to occur.I spent time on Isle Royale one night looking across Feldmann Lake in vain for a split second wolf sighting. A few hours later, I had a wolf in my campsite for 5 minutes. A seemingly unimportant occurrence may become the beginning of an unexpected chain of events, when remarkable subconscious associations form. Eight green leaves on a dead, burned log eventually led to my writing about how chlorophyll and heme have a chemically identical key structure with only the central metal different (magnesium vs. iron). One can’t force this; while some days are—let’s face it— routine, seemingly empty of notable occurrences, it is possible any day can provide a not-yet-appreciated key observation that combines with a future event to produce something special. Experiences are not wasted.

In my walks, I have seen maybe 30-40 species of birds; I’m not a great birder. Still, some of the birds were a red bellied sapsucker, Pileated woodpecker, a heron’s trying unsuccessfully to swallow a fish, a rough legged hawk, and a turkey vulture on the ground a few feet away finishing off a squirrel carcass. I spent fifteen minutes one day watching a crow up in a tree drop nuts on a quiet street to break them.

During the pandemic, I took five mile walks, and in spring and early summer, routinely counted fifty species of wildflowers. One day, I saw a Fawn Lily growing under a bench right by the Willamette River. I had seen them only up on Spencer Butte. I do better with flowers than birds, maybe because as an amateur astronomer I like things that don’t disappear just as I get them focused on my retina. 

À propos to disappearing birds: recently, I went to see the semiannual Vaux Swift migration. This is my fourth year and wish I had started sooner. For several evenings, across the street from Hayward Field, home of Track and Field championships, Agate Hall, an old building with a defunct chimney, is a migratory stop for swifts. Twice a year, fall and spring, people gather for a chimney vigil. There was no guarantee anything would happen, in which case it still would have been a pleasant evening with a crescent Moon very low in the sky, as autumn evening crescents are. But this night the birds came, swirled and called out for 15-30 minutes in a huge circle high in the sky. Then, like the bottom of a celestial funnel, entered the chimney, black drops rapidly flowing into a container. Some birds didn’t get it right or for some reason only a swift knows, and did a go around. Within several minutes, nearly all the swifts were in the chimney. Their disappearing into a true Airdnb (dinner and bed) was the why we were all there. There were probably one to two thousand, but I’ve been there when nearly nine thousand entered. The migration is easy to see, fascinating, and describes exactly what writer Sam Cook said: “You don’t go out looking for cool things to happen, but you go out knowing cool things could happen any time. You have to be there.”

Get out. See you out there.

Cool things can happen at any time. I saw another primrose this morning. 

The seeds were floating everywhere when we exited the vehicles at Little Bunchgrass trailhead; nearby fireweed plants, the reason, were loaded with thousands of cotton-like floaters. Our first time working at this end of Bunchgrass, we were going to continue to restore the trail which burned over badly in 2022. We had worked a mile at the other end last year, seven miles east. There, it was 100% burn with residual powdered soil, difficult to work, especially where parts of the trail could not be found. Today, two of our crew would hike in over a mile and remove downed logs; three would use two power brushers to clear the trail of encroaching plants the first mile; the other four would work on the tread in several places to improve drainage. I started one of the Stihl brushers, strapped it to my hip, and starting at the trail entrance, began to walk slowly on the trail, swinging the brusher back and forth.

I immediately passed a 5 foot tall fireweed with husks of open seed pods, a closed seed pod zone, and finally the last pink flowers at the top of the plant. I love fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium). Four petals, perennial, tall, it is the calendar of summer in burned over areas, common in the high country. The first blooms are difficult to notice in early to mid-summer with all the other flowers, but late summer fireweed is a major show. The blooms begin at the lower portion of the inflorescence, above the spiral leaves that define the stem, and gradually continue moving upward to the top over several weeks. They become darker pink before turning into long, narrow dark pink seed pods. As summer progresses, the seed pods open in in a four-sided arc away from a common center to release the seeds, but not all at once. The inflorescence then becomes white with a tinge of gray. Each plant may produce thousands to tens of thousands of seeds that float in the air maybe a half hour, scattered to the four winds. “When you see cotton, summer will soon be forgotten.” I picked some leaves to take home to try to make fireweed tea. I made it on the Nahanni River in ’85, but then I just put a leaf in hot water, and it tasted like…hot water.

After brushing a couple hundred yards in an 80% burn with a few live trees, I entered a meadow that may have burned but recovered in the three years since the fire. I shut off the brusher. Others worked on the tread, just below the ill-defined summit of Little Bunchgrass Mountain at 5300 feet. I continued walking a couple hundred yards more until I reached a mostly burned over woods where more brush awaited me.

Just three days prior, 10-12 miles to the southeast, similar elevation, at Gold Lake Sno-Park, I reached up to grab a branch, pull it towards me, and cut it off. I was working a trail in preparation for winter recreation. There had been no recent fires in this area and was no fireweed. As I pulled the cut branch towards me, I noted two small cones together at the end, each maybe an inch long. I hadn’t seen that before. The needles, small and horizontal, were consistent with western hemlock (Tsuga heterophyyla). There were hemlock trees of all sizes here, tall, mature ones in the woods off trail, and on a winter trail that gets limited summer use, many smaller hemlocks, some only a foot or two high. The ground was mostly bare with dirt and some grasses, a bit eroded. The small hemlocks were left alone. They would be covered by snow in a few weeks and remain such for seven or eight months, especially on this north facing trail. 

Back on Bunchgrass, I restarted the brusher and continued work until I ran out of gas. I then traded jobs with another, who ran the brusher while I swamped, meaning I raked behind him and also carried our packs and fuel forward so the person cutting carried no extra weight. Here, bear grass (Xerophyllum tenax) had long since bloomed, large, beautiful white flowers covering the landscape, each with a definite pungent odor. Brown, brittle stalks remained, easily removed, but the tough perennial grass itself would not be as easily removed, due to a thick rhizome. Only the last few inches of the thin, perennial portion was easy to cut. I felt sorry for the tread workers who had to remove in-trail bear grass. Their job was unusually difficult. Three of us brushing reached a rocky stretch after a mile, which was as far as we needed to go.

I carried the now quiet brusher back back to the vehicles, using the over the shoulder technique, although carrying it strapped on, like we use when we are working, is reasonable. I returned through the woods, full of fireweed in some spots where cutting it made look like it was snowing. Eventually, I reached the meadow, finishing a few minutes later. I had time before the others returned, so after changing footgear looked around, finding some yellow Scouler’s Woolyweed  (Hieracium scouleri). I lay down for a few minutes noting the dramatically deep blue sky a quarter circle arc from the Sun. The variability of the intensity of blue in a clear sky is worth observing, especially at altitude. Something else caught my eye as I looked over at a group of surviving conifers.

There were several large cones at the top, easy to see, even from a distance, light brown, almost fluffy in appearance. They were Noble fir (Abies procera), and I had never seen the cones before. This was perfect habitat: decent moisture, good elevation, plenty of sunlight. Fireweed and fir; seeds and cones; the first will die off above ground and return the next year from the rhizome; both seeds will drop to the ground and start from there after a period of cold with moisture, cold stratification, required for germination.