Post 6

I have come to find that there are a plethora of paradoxes in my line of work.  If not paradoxes, they are at least self-contradictions or oxymoronical.  It seems that every struggle for progress in natural resources is pushing against inherent self-supporting forces or values.  One of the areas that my department manages is the Granite Chief Wilderness area and the management of Wilderness is a prime example of contradiction in my work.

            Last week, my boss sent the trails intern and myself to the Region 5 Pacific Southwest Wilderness Ranger Academy.  The Wilderness Ranger academy is essentially the conference at the beginning of the season for Forest Service employees who work in the wilderness areas of California.  If you don’t work for the Forest Service and do not spend too much time on Forest Service land you probably do not know what I am talking about when I say Wilderness.  Don’t take it personally, I didn’t know what it really meant until I started working here either. 

            The Wilderness Act was passed by Congress in 1964 and many American outdoorsmen (and women) consider it to be one of the most poetic and environmentally savvy pieces of legislation to come down from Capitol Hill.  If there ever was a Hippie congress, this may have been it.  The funny thing is, the environment didn’t used be a partisan issue…but I digress.  The purpose of the Wilderness Act was to create designated areas “to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States…leaving no lands designated for the preservation and protection in their natural condition…” (Wilderness Act, 1964).  Pretty powerful and controversial language, right?  Congress actually passed this with only one dissenting vote!  But here is where it gets really good:

Section C: A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.  An area of primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation…[and] to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable…[and] has outstanding opportunities for solitude…

-Wilderness Act of 1964

            Doesn’t it sound like the Land Before Time or something out of a Jules Verne novel?  How many places of “primeval character” have you been to in the United States?  When the Wilderness Act passed, 9.1 million acres were set-aside in 13 states.  Today over 109 million acres are now part of the Wilderness system in America.  Every year, thousands of acres are added to the system.  There seems to be a little competition or at least feigned snobbery between the National Park Service and the Forest Service.  So, in keeping loyalty to the home team, it pains me to say that the National Park Service manages the most acreage of Wilderness.  It is, however, a slight panacea to say that the Forest Service manages the most Wilderness areas. 

            The idea of wilderness is an integral facet of the idea of America.  The history of America was formed on the backbone of people daring to go into the unknown and uninhabited (or so they thought).  There is something about the word wilderness that sends shivers down my spine.  Go ahead and try it: think of an area, wild, full of rushing streams, twittering songbirds, dramatic boulders and bluffs.  Groves of trees reaching for the sun with canopies casting deep shadows to the soft underbrush.  Have you ever been somewhere that has no quick rescue if things turn pear-shaped?  There is an excitement of knowing that you are on your own, an apprehensive willingness to test your own skills and resolve.  There is a comfort as well; the ability to trust yourself in any situation is one of the best gifts that the wilderness can give you. 

            The Wilderness Academy was held in the town of Lee Vining, which is located on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and 10 miles from the east entrance to Yosemite National Park.  The town also sits adjacent to Mono Lake, which is a massive alkali salt-water body that is known to host the majority of seagull rookeries in California.  I heard a statistic that claimed that 90% of all seagulls in California were born at Mono Lake.  While seagulls are not my favorite winged beasts, it is an interesting fact, at least.  The area leading to our campground was in a valley surrounded by the ridged mountains leading into Yosemite.  If you haven’t been to the area let me give you a sense of the mountains with one word: intimidating.  The granite fists seem to thrust straight up towards the sky, the stony knuckles snow-capped and the veins pumping with rock talus.  Storm clouds and rain darkened the peaks and ridges.  It was a striking backdrop to our streamside campsite, to be sure.

            Our campsite was located directly adjacent to Lee Vining creek, a stream no more than 15 feet across, with schools of Rainbow Trout swimming through the crystal clear snow melt.  I really wish I had brought my fly fishing rod, because all I would have had to do is drop the line by hand to catch a fish.  The stream, rushing and swirling through the rocks sounds like a rock concert if you are trying to sleep next to it.  But somehow, the drumbeat of water on rock fades into thoughts about the day and in conjunction with a warm sleeping bag, sleep befalls you faster than the strike of a trout on a mayfly. 

            I think Aspens (Populus tremuloides) are my new favorite trees.  I spotted a group of them in my camp.  With the pale bark of a birch or alder, the Aspen is unassuming: not reaching any height of dominance.  Often, Aspens grow in clusters or groves due to their amazing ability to clone itself simply by root propagation.  There is a colony of Aspens in Utah that is estimated to weigh over 80,000 kilograms and be over 80,000 years old.  Aspens also provide an area with habitat diversity since many small mammals and birds are absent where Aspens are not present.  The thing that I love the most about Aspens is the leaf.  Individually, the leaves are heart-shaped and generally no larger than 1 1/2 “ across.  The petioles of the leaves are flexible and flattened, which allows them to turn nearly 270° without consequence.  The branches hang hundreds of leaves that the wind flashes back and forth.  The leaves show both sides, as if they were spouses displaying a new dress.  The thousands of fluttering, excited leaves create the illusion of the tree dancing spiritedly to no particular tune except the soft breeze.  I can only imagine what symphony to which I am deaf that the trees are receptive to.  The Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) are the wallflowers of this concert, mildly observing the frolicking Aspen groves like the way men are oft to look on with appreciative longing at groups of pretty girls on a dance floor.

           

The main reason that my boss sent us down to the Wilderness Academy was for one of the two-day certification sessions.  The session that we signed up for was to receive a certification to buck logs with a crosscut saw.  What this means to laypeople is that I will be able to cut up fallen logs with one of the vintage saws that you always see in old logging photos.  If you don’t know what I am talking about I highly suggest you click here and look at the photos at the bottom:  http://www.whatcommuseum.org/photo-archives/category/1-darius-kinsey
Crosscut saws are still used today because of the tenets of the Wilderness Act.  The Act prohibits the use of mechanized machinery within the boundaries, which means no chain saws.  The trails in the wilderness still need to be cleared of fallen logs, and so the trail crews (us) have to cut them out some way.  Unfortunately, crosscut saws are not widely produced anymore.  The steel is different and the molds for the vintage saws no longer exist.  This means that the vintage saws from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s are invaluable and irreplaceable.  I feel like a turn of the century logger when I work with these saws, and I really wish that I could grow a proper moustache or beard.  It is amazing how sharp and efficient these saws are.  With a two man bucking saw, it is possible to cut through a 40” diameter log in minutes.  Apparently, in New Zealand and Australia there are forestry competitions that feature sawyers capable of beating chainsaws with crosscuts.  I cut out my first log with a crosscut and felt like the sawyers of old. 

The area that we were working in was near Mammoth Mountain.  A wind event in December had clocked speeds of over 180 mph, and then the wind gauge broke from strain.  The event purportedly brought down 20,000 trees in the forest and the valley we were doing our training in was ground zero.  The area looked like a war zone:  snags and green trees alike crisscrossed the trails like pick up sticks and root balls turned up so much of the earth that finding a way through the area was maze-like.  We had about 7 different groups with tools and a saw each.  After 4 hours of work the lot of us had only managed to clear about 50 yards of trail, and it still needed hours more work to bring it back to Forest Service trail specifications.  For a point of reference, we usually can clear and maintain about 5 10 miles of trail in a day, so 50 yards is ridiculously slow going.

Back at the main academy we listened to a speaker that posed some interesting ideas about Wilderness in America and the modern world.  Take a moment to scroll back up and refresh yourself with the sections of the Wilderness Act.  OK, still sounds pretty poetic right?  Well, it most definitely is more John Muir than John Adams for a Congressionally passed bill.  However, as with all legislation that is based on ideals, the follow through of the Act has complications that are contrary to the philosophies upon which it is founded.  And more I think about it, the wilderness ideal isn’t really an ideology, more a theology.  People revere and are protective of nature as a solemn and wild entity.  Ay, there’s the rub: if nature is an entity, protecting it with laws requires defining it. 

The Wilderness Act prohibits some actions, such as using mechanized machinery or flying aircraft low over the boundaries.  It also encourages other actions, such as the Leave no Trace guidelines.  The bureaucracy of Wilderness requires a definition of what Wilderness is.  By defining something that, in essence, is supposed to be wild and indefinable, you limit its potentiality.  For example, the Wilderness Act contains the description of areas to be “untrammeled”.  Well, by definition, untrammeled means a no restrictions or impediments to freedom.  By including that language in the Act and by managing and controlling the uses of Wilderness Areas you are, in a certain perspective, violating the Act itself.  A cyclic system can be observed when a natural area is managed: a disagreement leads to a case being sent to court, which prompts a ruling that leads to a new laws or regulations.  These regulations are, of course, constantly in under scrutiny or public criticism, which leads to more conflict, and that starts the cycle again.  The more that wild areas are defined, the more these areas will lose their wild character.  Some even argue that the professionalization and management of the Wilderness can or has led to a homogenization of the diversity of the Wilderness areas. 

The counterargument to this view point is this: what do you think the National Parks and Wilderness areas would be like without the laws in place?  As much as you can criticize the agencies that manage public lands, America would be a very different nation without the people who have dedicated their lives to making sure every citizen has lands and wilderness to discover for themselves.   That mindset brings me back to the abbreviated mission statement of the Forest Service: “Caring for the land and serving people”. 

The way that I like to think of the Wilderness topic is the same way that Winston Churchill described democracy:

No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise.  Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

I have worked a few outreach events that allowed me to interact with the public and hear what they have to say about the Forest Service and sometimes to my consternation, the federal government as well.  There tends to be only polarized opinions: most of the public is very happy with the work that we (Forest Service) do and the results that we achieve.  But, there are always those other people that think that every branch of the federal government and swollen and filled with lazy people.  To those opinions, I usually keep my smile on, nod vigorously and sit back in my chair and listen.  While I would love to fulfill all of their dreams of what the government should be (usually filled with things unattainable on the level of free ice cream for everyone every Friday), you cant always please everyone all the time.  What we can, and have been doing for over 100 years, is provide unabashed outdoor experiences for those brave enough to challenge themselves.  And what do you receive as ample reward?  The personal discovery of things made by nature and the appreciation of the interconnected world that supports you.  So the next time you have a free weekend this summer, instead of succumbing to the draw of the television or computer (like the one you are on now), go discover your local wild places.  Sit by a stream, eat lunch in a meadow, hug a tree, hang your feet over a ridge.  You may discover something about yourself as well. Or not.  But it’s your call.

By very definition this wilderness is a need. The idea of wilderness as an area without man's influence is man's own concept. Its values are human values. Its preservation is a purpose that arises out of man's own sense of his fundamental needs.

-Howard Zahniser, The Need for Wilderness Areas