Boreal B[l]og

It was raining when we started work at about 8:15; ten minutes earlier, it had changed to snow here at Fall Creek, where six of us were restoring a trail. I felt cold on the sides of both sides of my chest. Cold and wet give the same sensation because we don’t have wet sensing receptors, but we do have temperature receptors. The brain does some work to make us feel a wet sensation, although as a retired neurologist I am hard pressed to understand, let alone explain how that all works. In any case, the trickle movement of the cold suggested I was feeling real water, and I had been too cold to sweat.

Some of us were widening the trail, some throwing branches, bark, and other organic or inorganic material off, some making the trail more visible, others cutting out encroaching brush that would annoy hikers. Each of us was doing all of these at one time or another, and when I stopped digging and started removing salal, ceanothus, Oregon grape, and especially blackberry vines, I seemed to be using less energy than I did with my Travis tool cutting into the soft soil. Less energy use=more cold. My fingers were both cold and wet, and for some silly reason I was conserving my gloves for when I really needed them. Apparently, like right now didn’t seem to register.

Sig, crew leader, walked by me during our steady parade of trail leapfrogging, each of us briefly adopting a piece of unworked trail before reaching worked trail and then moving on. I told Sig I had about an hour left in me given the cold. My fingers had been cold the entire time, despite their constant use. Now my chest was cold, too. It’s difficult for me to be the first—or any—person to admit I will soon become unsuitable to do work, but given my age and medical condition, I felt right in speaking up, and I do so more often. I had an additional reason: I strongly believe that participants out here must speak up if they see themselves developing the inkling of a problem. That happened a month prior, and the way I handled that particular situation— an individual, new to the crew, could physically continue to use a power brusher, but she felt she would suffer more than she desired afterwards if she did, and I knew her running the brusher was not essential to the remainder of the day’s work— was perfect. I told her to listen to her body. We got the work done just fine, and she later returned many times to crew outings and performed superbly.

Sig said that he would plan for that quitting time to be within an hour and that we were well along on the trail, on whatever schedule he had. “But,” he continued, “please remember to tell me if I forget.” Good, well said. A crew leader does not wear a halo; they can forget.

I did more digging and warmed up; the rain/snow mix stopped, and an hour later I felt significantly better than I did earlier. We broke for lunch, and afterwards I did more digging and felt better enough that I spent significant time widening the trail in places where it was helpful but not essential. An hour after I wanted to stop, we were back at the vehicles, and I was the last one out of the woods.

*********

Earlier that week, a friend told me she went on a hike with a few others. When more distance was proposed at one point, she was happy to hear one calling it quits. He had enough. “I knew you would have been proud of him for speaking up. I was trying to judge for myself if I wanted to call it. I was definitely getting mixed messages, but I was happy to be heading back when we did. We did just under 5 miles and there are other things I wanted to get back for.”

She continued. “Does it surprise you that people don’t let on that they’re tired and ready to quit? Jane was saying yesterday that there’s a kind of peer pressure to keep going and to not be the person to put the kibosh on the whole group and to look less than others or weak. I think it takes courage and clarity with oneself to be able to speak up in a group situation like that and take care of oneself…..(perhaps) in the midst of other folks plowing on to their detriment.…” 

On a day hike in the Wulik mountains of Alaska, I first refused to continue across what I felt was a dangerous spot. Against my better judgment, which I voiced directly to the leader from my precarious perch, I continued, an act I still regret, although I crossed without incident. But several in the group ostracized me for the rest of the trip. 

I think it takes more gumption to admit one is not strong than it does to deliberately do things to show others you are. The next time at Fall Creek, the weather was completely opposite, 80 degrees and dry. I needed a break in the early afternoon because I was too hot. I took it and was checked by two others who saw me sitting on a nearby log. I was going to be fine, and I appreciated their concern, but I needed to stop THEN and had no qualms about doing it.

Shame it took me so long. All of us sooner or later get laid low by something. What is our legacy? Did it really matter whether we were first up the mountain or back to the vehicles, who carried the most weight, dug out more trail, all sorts of examples. Is this a competition?

When I wrote about human factors involvement in the woods, the first page was devoted to an occurrence where I said “Enough!” to stop further work in the Mt. Washington wilderness at 4 pm, 2.3 miles from the trailhead. What were we thinking? Why were we still deciding whether or not to continue logging out at that hour, an hour’s hike from the vehicles? Why were people willing to continue when it was not only unnecessary at the time but they didn’t want to? (Group think, the Bus to Abilene?) This memory anchors my talk on Human Factors in the Woods at the Skills College this year. Much is geared to leaders and a code of conduct for the volunteer organization at large. I’m delighted to be a part of that.

It was raining when we started work at about 8:15; ten minutes earlier, it had changed to snow here at Fall Creek, where six of us were restoring a trail.

I felt cold on the sides of both sides of my chest. Cold and wet give the same sensation because we don’t have wet sensing receptors, but we do have temperature receptors. The brain does some work to make us feel a wet sensation, although as a retired neurologist I am hard pressed to understand, let alone explain how that all works. In any case, the trickle movement of the cold suggested I was feeling real water, and I had been too cold to sweat.

Some of us were widening the trail, some throwing stuff off it, some making the trail more visible, others cutting out encroaching brush that would annoy hikers. Each of us was doing all of these at one time or another, and when I stopped digging and started removing salal, ceanothus, Oregon grape, and especially blackberry vines, I seemed to be using less energy than I did with my Travis tool cutting into the soft soil. Less energy use=more cold. My fingers were both cold and wet, and for some silly reason I was conserving my gloves for when I really needed them. Like right now.

Sig, crew leader, walked by me as we had a steady parade of forest leapfrogging, each of us briefly adopting a piece of unworked trail before reaching worked trail and then moving on. I told Sig I had about an hour left in me given the cold. My fingers had been cold the entire time, despite my constant use of them. Now my chest was cold, too. It’s difficult for me to be the first—or any—person to admit I will soon become unsuitable to do work, but given my age and medical condition, I felt right in speaking up, and I am doing so more often. I had an additional reason: I strongly believe that participants out here must speak up if they see themselves developing the inkling of a problem. That happened a month prior, and the way I handled that particular situation—where the individual, new to the crew, could physically continue to use a power brusher, she would suffer afterwards if she did— was perfect. I told her to listen to her body. 

Sig said that he would plan for that quitting time to be within an hour and that we were well along on the trail, on whatever schedule he had. “But,” he continued, “please remember to tell me if I forget.” Good, well said. A crew leader does not wear a halo; they can forget.

I did more digging and warmed up; the rain/snow mix stopped, and in an hour I felt significantly better than I did earlier. We broke for lunch, and afterwards I did more digging and felt better enough that I spent significant time widening the trail in places where it was helpful but not essential. An hour after I wanted to stop, we were back at the vehicles, and I was the last one out of the woods. This has been the third time in three successive visits to Fall Creek where I have acted on my own to get what I wanted; twice breaking for lunch on my schedule, rather than going even five minutes into the afternoon.

Earlier that week, a friend told me she went on a hike with a few others. She was happy to hear one of the others calling it quits on more added distance when he had enough. “I knew you would have been proud of him for speaking up. I was trying to judge for myself if I wanted to call it. I was definitely getting mixed messages, but I was happy to be heading back when we did. We did just under 5 miles and there are other things I wanted to get back for.”

She continued. “Does it surprise you that people don’t let on that they’re tired and ready to quit? Jane was saying yesterday that there’s a kind of peer pressure to keep going and to not be the person to put the kibosh on the whole group and to look less than others or weak. I think it takes courage and clarity with oneself to be able to speak up in a group situation like that and take care of oneself…..it does take strength to take care of oneself in the midst of other folks plowing on to their detriment.…” 

I return to “and to look less than others or weak.” I plied the trails with those words once and finally left the words thankfully behind. It wasn’t easy, and there were times I didn’t speak up when I should have, but I have become far better since.

I think it takes more gumption to admit one is not strong than it does to deliberately do things to show others you are. The next time at Fall Creek, the weather was completely opposite, 80 degrees and dry. I needed a break in the early afternoon because I was too hot. I took it and was checked by two others who saw me sitting on a nearby log. I was going to be fine, but I needed to stop THEN and had no qualms about doing it.

Shame it took me so long. All of us sooner or later get laid low by something. What is our legacy? Did it really matter whether we were first up the mountain or back to the vehicles, or who carried the most weight?

When I wrote about human factors involvement in the woods, the first page was devoted to an occurrence where I said “Enough!” to stop further work in the Mt. Washington wilderness at 4 pm, 2.3 miles from the trailhead. What were we thinking? Why were we still deciding whether or not to continue logging out at that hour?  Why does it appear so many of our activities have become competitive? I got sucked into this a decade ago, finally took myself out of it. Working trail, I often witness an unsaid competition about who can carry more, hike faster, cut better, dig out more trail, all sorts of examples. Could we please stop and just work together? 

“My daughter used to pet these kinds of trees,” said Camilla as we hiked away from the Slick Creek Cave interpretative site in near Fall Creek, where we were working the second part of the 12 mile trail. I didn’t take a picture, but did turn around and looked at a 3 or 4 year-old lime green conifer which indeed, did look like it could stand to be petted. I was wet, starting to get cold, and we needed to work more on the tread on the other side of the creek, so I kept moving to catch up to her.

I should have stopped. A pettable tree is something I hadn’t heard before and I quickly thought that the tree should be….well, petted. The tree was a larch, which I have seen plenty of in Minnesota swamps, but not here, at least as far as I knew. I now caution myself that just because it is a first of something I have seen, it’s likely I’ve probably seen many and just wasn’t aware. Its color was remarkable, really can’t be missed, although I almost did, but the next time I see one, I will be ready. 

To pet it, because why shouldn’t I? As a trail worker, I often remove small trees, because petting them and leaving them alone would get me reassigned to do something different on the trail, or told not to return.

Petting a tree I think is therapeutic, and when I started thinking of larches, my mind took me to Hatchet Creek, connecting Thomas Lake to Ina Lake, with smaller Hatchet Lake in between. I traversed this area on a gray mid-October day in the Boundary Waters 33 years ago, my last full day on my “V” or my 22nd and final trip, of my summer as a wilderness canoe ranger. I alphabetized each trip. The V trip was almost 5 months after my A trip, where pollen was on the water in a country awash in late May, as springtime can be in the North Country. 

This final trip began with a long paddle the first day with the second day in the tent because of pouring rain. The third day, threatening rain the whole day, I had 18 miles to travel to get back on schedule, now with early sunsets, knowing that stronger storms could hit. I did get back on schedule after a long paddle through many lakes, a couple of rivers, including a too close but fortunately uneventful moose encounter. The day ended in Little Saganaga Lake late, where I found a campsite on a tiny island. That night, I first heard geese, saw brightness on the roof of the tent, knowing it was likely clear, and saw geese flying south directly towards a Hunter’s full Moon. On this trip, I saw 0 people, 3 moose, one of which I would later see a few hours later that day, 2 blizzards, and camped in sheltered hollows away from the landing point to avoid the cold wind. Larch were turning yellow that October day, as I got to see them along the Hatchet Creek, taking my brief look at the “handle” of Hatchet Lake but not able to see the blade. I needed to keep moving, for it looked like it would rain or snow again that night and I had several miles ahead of me before exiting the wilderness right near the outfitters the next day, where I had started 6 days earlier. 

I portaged into Ina Lake, then paddled several small lakes before reaching larger Snowbank, where I paddled out in moderately rough water to an island, planning to camp there that night. I remember thinking then the biggest reason I wore a PFD was so people could find my body if I capsized. But at the end of that summer, I could make a canoe do anything I wanted, including stay afloat with me in it, and I would arrive at the site early enough to  set up, have dinner before the 4:50 pm sunset, and read in the tent, warm and snug, as it started to rain, sheltered from the wind, just the way I like a night in the North Woods.

At midnight or thereabouts, I awoke to silence, suggesting the rain had changed to snow, because I could additionally see the tent sag. Getting up and going outside was a necessary but cold chore, and I was greeted by a couple of inches of snowfall with light snow continuing. I would fall back asleep that night and take my final portage of the year in the morning, pack and canoe together. That summer, I could land the canoe and be walking with all gear in 45 seconds; I could put the canoe into the lake, load it, and get in 30 seconds after I stopped walking. I timed it once. Those were great days.

Anyway, nothing wrong with tree petting. It is calming and might bring back memories of other trips in the woods. Besides,m chloroplasts don’t mind at all.

The crew was back at Fall Creek again, further east at Bedrock Campground where we were going to tackle the trail eastbound, which climbed a few hundred feet vertically over 3/4 of a mile and then stayed on a ridge for awhile. The first step was to deal with logging it out, followed by brushing, which in this instance wasn’t necessary, then with tread work, which in places would be necessary. 

There were 46 logs in the first 1.6 miles, and the first one, 38 inches in diameter, was right at the start. We were divided into three crews: the big log and 0.8 miles to the top of the ridge was the crew I was with; the other two crews divided up the remaining 34 logs. It seemed reasonable, but when the crew is spread out in a linear fashion, it depends upon even distribution of the work, which with logs is never clear, since any given log may require a lot more work even with a power saw, although far more likely when 2 person crosscuts were used, which we were not using.

In any case, my group of 3 was two senior C-rated sawyers and me as an experienced swamper or helper. Our first log was a blown down tree attached to the root wad and extending about 150 feet up the hill, then over the top. We had no idea if the log would slide down if cut from below, because of different surfaces it was on with different friction. The first cut from below was effective, however, and the 12 feet of trunk still attached to the root wad stood back up, as we say, when the weight of the rest of the tree was removed. How much weight? I figured close to 300 pounds per linear foot at the bottom, gradually decreasing to the top. Maybe ten tons.

Once we had that removed, the removal of the rest of the blocking log was slow but steady and we finished the rest of our logs by lunch. Our radios were not working where we were, and we hoped the others made similar progress, but alas they had not. We had to stand around for about 2 hours, not doing much trail work, because the tread was in good shape on our section of trail. We finally left about 3, after 2 hours waiting, and 1 hour after the time we had been told we would be leaving.

It was interesting how I dealt with this. I am quite time sensitive, and I have led split up crews several times, often with everybody’s finishing pretty close to the same time. But there is a component of luck, too. It is difficult to look at logs on a scouting trip and to decide how long they are going to take, especially in light of destroyed tread, which while not requiring repair at the time, may need enough work so that passage to and from the rest of the trail to work it is both safe and feasible. 

Initially, when I got home, I was fairly down on the whole day, because our log was mostly handled by a senior sawyer who didn’t want to allow anybody to dig out part of the log or even have another C-certified experienced sawyer to do the rest of the cuts. This meant that two of the three of us were effectively cut off from doing work we could do. I wish some of the guys in the Crew could just let go and not try to be he-men.

I acted differently this day, however, not just blowing off steam, commenting that the whole day was screwed up, feeling like I didn’t help out at all. I have been known to say something like that, but this day I didn’t. I was not happy to be sure, but I started to take a hard look at what happened. I do wish we had been told if we were done, to continue on and do tread work on the next part where the other groups had logged out. That would have given us a chance to do something important and to allow those working to focus on the logs and not the tread. Additionally, we also would have known how close they were to finishing. Maybe next time we are in a situation like this we can do that. I was looking at solutions, not being angry.

I might send the faster hikers further and the others not so far, so that those who were at the end of our cutting “spear” would return more quickly. Like the time I was in the Umpqua NF and we didn’t have a second saw with us, or I was told not to bring my pack or a tread tool when I should have, I learned something. I may yet lead future trips, I need to be sure saws start before we leave, how to divvy up people for the job to do, which I think I am pretty good at doing, and when the work starts, check in more frequently with each group to see how far along everybody is. I think therefore I would have each group have a mandatory check in at 11 am. I have done this twice before and it has worked well. 

I don’t have power saw training. I won’t run such a saw myself. But I do know how much work they can do, and I can look at logs, people, multiple options and make good decisions. I hope I get the chance.

Cutting from the log.

The first time it happened, I completely missed the significance. Indeed, I thought Jean was being a bit assertive in handling her saw. She was not going to let me take it to cut out a limb on a downed tree on Winberry Divide trail. We were both underneath a blown down tree that we didn’t have the saws to deal with but could address the branches, so that others could more easily go through underneath, and it would save the sawyers some time in not having to limb it. I asked her for her saw, and she wouldn’t give it to me. Jean cut out the branch on the log above our heads, put the saw away, and everything was fine.

I have done many hikes with Jean and usually took my saw to deal with such issues. True, from time to time she would cut out something because I wanted her to, like on Marianne Way in Gold Lake Sno-Park last year and the year before, where I had her cut out a 4 inch log. It wasn’t like I had to cut everything, but I did more than my share, although I didn’t appreciate that fact.

We had nothing else to deal with that day on Winberry. Some time later, we were cutting out branches and small logs on the South Willamette trail, and there were no issues, because all of us needed our saws to work on the logs.

It was the next time on that trail almost exactly a month after Winberry that Jean showed up with a saw and a scabbard, a set up that I immediately realized I wanted, because my scabbard didn’t attach to me and didn’t fit the saw, either. We had a branch to cut, and as I took my pack off to get my Corona, I saw that Jean was already dealing with the branch. The lights went on. I’m slow to get things, but given enough time, I finally found my way,

Jean was ready. Indeed, she had long been ready, long before today. It was I who had not been. She could deal with these branches as well as I— better, perhaps— and in any case, my job was to stand by to help as a swamper so that her sawing would be easier. The rest of the day, I never touched my saw. If we had a branch to cut, I held it and Jean cut it. Wow, I didn’t have to cut. We were now equals with the saw, assuming she was not better than I.

Four days later, we scouted Shotgun Creek on BLM land. I thought I had forgotten all my gloves (I had a pair in my pack as I almost always do, and didn’t look), so my hands were bare. Every branch was Jean’s unless the cutting was such that two people needed to do it. I kept my gloves off as she cut out about 8 or 9 small logs. Sure, I held a log up to make it easier for her to cut, but that is what a swamper does. 

As we finished Shotgun Creek trail and began to climb up Drury, it soon became clear that the volume of smaller logs was too much for any of us to cut, and our job was to scout the trail primarily, which was going to be a far longer job than any of us wanted if we removed every small log. Mind you, we were all throwing large branches off the trail when they blocked us, but even those were becoming a problem. I told Jean not to bother cutting any more, and she agreed, which told me that not only I had done the right thing, but she understood the situation, too. She could cut well, and she had good judgment, too. I finally admitted to her and apologized on the downhill side of Drury trail that I had been too slow to recognize what had transpired first at Winberry, but I now knew enough to let her do the work. She will tell me if she needs help. She also has the judgment to know when to stop cutting out everything when we are scouting. She is ready for B-certification, even leading a crew, although the latter may not something she wants to do. She has showed me for a long time that she is capable of doing all the sawing I can and will continue to do so, probably better, when I soon age out of the work. She will teach the next person. If I stay around long enough and have another under my wing, maybe I can understand when to let go sooner. At some point there has to be a first time for everybody, and while they may not be as perfect as you might be, they will learn more from their attempt than they will if you hover over them commenting on or doing the work they are doing. I learned that in medicine, and I learned it again on the trail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I vaguely remembered that day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I never knew.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And played Santa as a bonus.

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