Post 5

I always loved the month of May.  When I was a kid, May marked the time of year where things started to change. 

Growing up in the foothills of Washington, there were two seasons during the year: Grey and Summer.  For 8 months out of the year, starting in the middle of September, the skies darken, the weather cools, and the whole state seems to brace itself for another wet season.  Don’t get me wrong, Autumn is my favorite time of year.  But there is a reason it is also called Fall: it is short-lived.  The changing of the leaves paints the ground in a myriad brilliance of color, which is quite gorgeous.  The leaves seem to know something we do not: that it is time for something darker and perhaps it is best to wait it out.  Everyone who learns that I am from Seattle always asks me the same question:  “So, uh, it rains a lot up there, huh?”  My answer is always as dour and pallid as the question itself: “Yep.”  What non-Washingtonians don’t know about Seattle is that it does not rain there like the movies portray.  It is true that most days have rain, but it is not a constant drenching downpour like the emotional climax of a Nicholas Sparks movie.  Instead, the blue of the sky seems hide beneath a smothering wan blanket, like a child afraid of the dark of the closet.  Just as the flashlight brandished by the child beneath the blanket is muted, so is the sunlight above the encompassing grey. 

But in May, the sun seems to throw off the dark mantle and shine through the falling water, showering the ground in a dazzling rainbow of light and mist.  The plants green and reach towards the sky, drinking both the cordial rays and showers heavily.  Flowers bloom and signal to the people that it is time for rebirth into the outdoors.  It didn’t really matter what temperature it was; guys would wear shorts and girls would wear dresses when the sun came out.  Usually, I would watch all of this through the looking glass that was the classroom windows.  I would see the change in the season and long to be a part of it.  There seemed to be a low buzzing energy the started with Spring, like a steadily increasing bass line beneath harmony and chorus.  Everyone would smile a little more, laugh a little easier, and rowdiness was rampant. 

I can still see all of these things here in Truckee.  The transition may not be as visibly apparent, since there is no rain to shoo away, but the sun awakens the population all the same.  The effect is amplified with people that spend their lives outdoors.  Those that are in tune with nature know this season well, and excitement builds with each rising degree mark on the thermometer.  The best lubricant to get people out of their winter hibernation has always been alcohol.  I went out for a few beers in Truckee last Friday and the population was celebrating the sun in full swing.  All of the bars were packed with people.  When I say people, I mean mostly men.  All of my senses picked up energy of some kind.  The street and bars smelled of a familiar mixture of stale beer, ammonia, the dense mass of a crowd, and cigarettes.  All of the people were talking over the speakers, reverberating the songs of inebriation and love lost.  Some of the girls empowered by liquid confidence decided that the time was ripe for karaoke.  Unfortunately, their voices were soured with slurring and missed intonation.

I usually mark Memorial Day weekend as the unofficial start of the Summer.  The weather is usually pleasant and there is a plethora of activities and events in any one locale.  Ironically enough, the area around Lake Tahoe traditionally gets one last snowfall every Memorial Day weekend.  I was lucky enough to dodge the cold weather and instead headed west to Sonoma County for a little vacation.  Sonoma is a magical place filled to the brim with natural beauty and concerted human artisanal traditions.  Where Tahoe is an outdoorsman’s paradise, Sonoma is a place of gastronomic wonder.  But, my vacation was otherwise unrelated to my work and so I will just say that it definitely got me ready for a summer packed with sun, dirt, and fun.  The true trail work starts in earnest now, with volunteer crews arriving on trails.          

“Sun is shining, the weather is sweet. 

Makes you want to move your dancing feet. 

To the rescue, here I am!”

-Bob Marley, Sun is Shining

Post 4

So I know that my last entry was more like a stream of consciousness essay about my beliefs, so I thought I would spend more time on the work that I am doing and some stories from the past week.  I have been working for the Truckee Ranger District for almost a month and I think that I have gotten the hang of the day-to-day tasks and lifestyle.  The office itself is fairly laidback for a government building.  Everyone is very pleasant and willing to help out with whatever task is at hand.  Most of employees are not at their desks everyday and presumably that means that they are out in the field, which is pretty cool since field work is always more fun than office work.  Today I am working at the front desk and answering any questions that the public may have about trails or recreation.  More importantly, that means that I am in uniform.  There is something about putting on a uniform with a badge that makes you feel special, or at least set apart.  It is an outward manifestation of a position of importance to the public.  Mostly, it just makes you feel like a badass.  You stand a little straighter, walk a little taller and smile more toward those around you, because you are no longer just representing yourself; you are representing everything the Forest Service stands for. And that is a good feeling. 

            Unfortunately, the office is fairly dead and I have yet to answer one question pertaining to my department.  So instead I will tell you about some work I did a couple days ago on a trail. 

            Mountain biking is fast becoming a major outdoor sport in America and our department is making moves to manage more trails for bikers.  One of the most popular trails that we manage is the Overland Commemorative Emigrant Trail.  It consists of 15 miles of cross-country biking bliss that roves through stands of Jeffery Pine, alpine meadows, and granite basins.  Last Tuesday we got a call in that there were two sizable trees that had fallen across the trail.  Some bikers relish these challenges and make little ramps out of rocks to jump the logs.  Although it is comical to watch bikers try to fly like superman after their bike hits the log, they tend to meet the ground at breakneck speed, so to speak.  We at the Forest Service try to avoid casualties and injuries on public lands: they tend to create even more paperwork than we have to deal with already. 

More realistically, most bikers see the log and end up going off trail to avoid them.  This means that multiple trails start forming which leads to increased erosion, water on the trail, plant/sapling damage, and the bikers having to suddenly change course.              So it falls to the recreation department to manage the trails and remove the fallen logs.  So our team loaded up and headed out to the nearest access road to the section of the trail with the impeding logs.  My coworker, Bob, produced a fairly ingenious backpack with straps designed to hold a chainsaw.  The side straps held canisters of gasoline and oil to reduce friction on the saw teeth.  He then donned specialized chainsaw chaps, gloves and a hard hat. After helping him into the gear I felt as if I was a squire outfitting a knight for the battle ahead.  I myself carried an axe just in case things got dicey.  Thinking back to my childhood I remembered the afternoons spent chopping firewood for the family and simultaneously cursing my father’s station as the chore-mongerer.  But, in retrospect those long hours of using tools like splitting mauls and hatchets to effect usable materials out of cords of wood have become invaluable experience for most of my jobs here at the Forest Service.   

Bob, whom I affectionately call Bobcat to his chagrin, began to move up the trail garbed in the necessary armor and weaponry.  Joe and I followed after Bob, axe and radio in hand.  I learned how to use the radio this week, and tentatively hoped that I would get to use CB talk and make up my own callsign.  But no, only plain talk is used, and my aspirations of my super cool callsign (Hawkeye) were replaced with a three-digit number.  For some reason, they take things like emergency radio transmissions pretty seriously at the Forest Service.  As we moved up the trail, Bob pointed out certain aspects of trail management that I was previously unaware of.  The fact that I hadn’t noticed the evidence of work on trails is intentional, since the aim of trail maintenance is to have the trail look as naturally formed as possible.  Bob explained formations like berms (raised edges of trails created by heavy use) and cupping (water created erosion pathways on trails) that trails are designed to resist and weather.  As we mounted a hill, we came upon a forested valley that stretched out below us for a few hundred yards before rising again in the distance and peaking a mile or so away.  As we began down the valley on the trail Joe suddenly stopped us and pointed to the middle of the side of the valley we were on. 

               “Coyote.”  Joe whispered under his breath.

            My breath quickened as my eye connected with another pair that belonged to one of the most elusive and controversial animals in the United States.  In the western states, European settlers have regarded coyotes and wolves as livestock poachers and “varmints”.  I don’t know about you, but whenever anyone says varmint I think of Yosemite Sam and his overactive trigger finger.  Unfortunately, that cartoon imagery is not far from the historical reality of the West.  Only recently has the sentiment towards wolves and coyotes changed for some in the West.  In December, the first wolf was spotted in California since 1926.  Wolves were so persecuted and heavily hunted in America that a group of 66 Canadian wolves had to be introduced into Yellowstone in 1996 to try and restore the ecosystem. 

Coyotes have not had the same treatment.  Coyotes are not listed as an endangered species like the grey wolf is and still holds the reputation of a nuisance.  It is legal to hunt coyotes year round in California and some areas that have large numbers of ranchers hold annual coyote hunting competitions.  Bob said that one year he was passing through one of these towns and saw a stack of coyote corpses that was chest high.  Aside from the obvious bloodthirsty waste that comes with hunting predators, from an ecological perspective, hunting a keystone species is terrible for an area.  Coyotes prey upon a variety of animals and are necessary to keep population numbers of other species in check.  Think of an ecosystem like cyclical dynamic.  The plants feed the herbivores, the herbivores feed the predators, the predators feed the detritivores, and the detritivores break down the dead matter into usable parts for plants.  If you remove or reduce a section of the cycle, the balance is thrown into chaos and the ecosystem does not function.

The coyote near the trail warily eyed us from the distance, its brown and red fur rippling in the wind.  With one last look it bounded into the valley, instantly camouflaged by the brown soils behind it.  It was my first coyote sighting in the wild.  We continued along the trail and reached the area where the downed logs were located.  One had already been moved off the trail, but the other remained.  It was small enough for the three of us to push off the trail, which is preferable to using the chainsaw anyway since it reduces noise pollution and saves gas.  Our task completed, we started to head back down the trail towards the rig. 

On our way back Bob started telling me about the various people that can live at elevation.  He mentioned that recently a girl was found in the basement in a house nearby who had been kidnapped on the southern shore of Lake Tahoe and held for twenty years.  Oh, I forgot to mention that he had two children by her.  Wonderful story, I know.  He postulated that the elevation and remoteness makes for disturbed human beings.   He told me that once he was camping in the wilderness with his wife and went off to explore a bit on his own.  From a distance he saw that two men had saw his wife and began moving towards her from behind.  The men were still a ways off, and so Bob was able to rush back and stay with his wife as they passed. 
“You can never be too careful with people in the wilderness.”  Bob explained.  It truly is the lawless Wild West out here in some ways.  All of these stories had me in a particularly dark mindset on the trek back to the rig.  Lost in my thoughts about kidnapping and crazy mountain people, I followed Bob and Joe trudging along the trail, eyes on the track below me. 

Suddenly, from behind I heard a voice, not 10 feet away from me that seemed to carry all the promises of a swift demise on the trail:

“On your right!” the demonic call sounded to the rear. Thoughts of bearded-moonshine swigging-pickaxe-wielding phantoms flashed in front of me and I jumped a foot straight up towards the tree crowns.  After landing, being of swift agility and doused with fear-induced flight I quickly sidestepped the trail. 

A fearsome figure ran past me: naught but just over 5 feet tall and clad in running gear, with a huge grin upon her face.  Bob immediately burst into laughter and after I discovered that I was not going to become the next ingredient in mountain man soup, I laughed as well.  On her return run, the scarecrow runner and I exchanged a smile and a chuckle.  I later told Bob, “That is how you really pickup girls: let them scare the crap out of you and show them how sensitive you are.”

I always thought that those movies and shows with guys sitting around the campfire telling scary stories were ridiculous and prided myself on not being subject to such low frights.  Well, I guess I learned that scary stories can be pretty effective. 

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

                                                                                    -Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac.