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 BEAR STORIES AND LOOKOUT TALES

 PART II

I am the author of these short shories and they are freely distributable as
"etext". I hope you enjoy them.

   Robert B. Graham
   6125-A Summer St.
   Honolulu, Hawaii 96821
   [phone]
   Prodigy - WTKW87A

Internet - bgraham@ uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.edu


===================================================================

Eggs, Eggs, and More Eggs


As I mentioned, the food supply that was packed in included a half
case of eggs. Now, how do you use half of a case of eggs before
they spoil?  As an example, if you could eat two eggs for breakfast
every day, you would use only sixty eggs in a month. Then, if you
also make pancakes for breakfast every day, you would use another
thirty. Biscuits every day -- another thirty. So, at most, you
could use up a hundred and twenty eggs a month, or ten dozen. But,
a half case held fifteen dozen and only stayed good about a month.
After a month the eggs had a bad taste and didn't smell so good.

What do you do with over five dozen rotten eggs? Well, there were
a lot of ground squirrels around the lookout. One of my favorite
pastimes was to go out on the catwalk and search for an
unsuspecting ground squirrel that was within arm's length of the
rail. The idea was to hold out an egg directly over him. Then, at
the right time just let it go -- SPLAT!!

If my aim was good, it ended up with a real messy ground squirrel
that let out a squeal and took off like a shot for his hole. If I
missed, he would cartwheel into the air and then sit down and lick
himself off.  What fun.


Old Potatoes


A bushel of potatoes is a lot to eat. After about a month or so,
the potatoes started to grow sprouts and just generally go bad.

Now, down the hill a short way, we kept a block of salt for a salt
lick. In the evening the deer would come up the mountain to the
lick.  It was not uncommon to have half a dozen deer at the lick in
the evening.

Rather than just dump the old potatoes, I'd wait until evening when
the deer came to the salt lick. Then take some of the potatoes, go
out on the catwalk and see if I could hit a deer with one. Usually
I missed.  But if the potato hit close, particularly if it lit
right under the deer, that animal would leap straight up in the
air. It always amazed me how high they could jump -- a real,
standing high-jump.

Then the deer would look around to see what it was, sniff at it and
finally eat it. Old potatoes weren't totally wasted.


Mail


The phone lines from all of the lookouts went into Sylvanite --
each line had one or more lookouts or guard stations on it. Now,
all that had to be done was to have Dave, at Sylvanite, switch all
of the different circuits onto the main line and all of us could
talk.

In the evening, if the fire danger was low, we would all get
together this way, just to shoot the breeze. Seemed there was
always something interesting going on, or we would just gossip.

We were all of high school age so the most interesting thing to all
of us was, what else -- girls! How do you communicate with girls if
you can't see them, talk to them or even mail letters to them (let
alone get letters from them). This posed some real challenges --
with some interesting solutions.

When mail came into Sylvanite for us, Dave would call up and tell
us that we had a letter. We then had two choices. One was to wait
and see if someone might be coming up to the lookout in a
reasonable amount of time. If not, we would just have to wait until
September when we came off of the mountain. The other choice was,
to swear Dave to secrecy, get him to open the letter and read it
over the phone. With this latter course, we also ran the risk of
someone eavesdropping on the line. Even with that risk, this was
the choice we almost always made.

The way we sent letters was to first write them out on paper. Then
we'd call up Dave, read them to him and have him copy and sign them
for us. I was able to keep up a lively correspondence with four
girls that summer.

One evening we all got to talking about our favorite subject. We
decided for all of us to jointly coauthor a "letter to end all
letters". We worked on it for a whole week -- agreeing to this
phrase or that description, changing this word or that --
polishing, polishing all the time. Finally, our "jewel" was
complete. We called Dave and each of us gave him a list of girl's
names and addresses to send our creation to.

Dave tried to talk us out of this -- he tried to impress upon us
that it just wasn't the right thing to do. But we were all adamant.
Reluctantly he agreed to do it. He did it all right, he did it in
a way that really fixed all of us. He put four sets of carbon in
his typewriter, and sent all of our girls carbon copies. Boy, the
letters we got back!


The "Fall Rains" Come


One morning I woke up and it was cold. The mountain was blanketed
in a heavy layer of clouds and it was snowing. After building a
roaring fire in the stove, I finally thawed out a bit. After
breakfast, I climbed down from the tower and went over and checked
my rain gauge -- twenty-two hundredths of an inch. What had seemed
like heavy storms before had only left three or four hundredths of
an inch of rain. I checked into Sylvanite and gave them my rain
report. They told me to see how the storm developed.

By noon the snow had changed to a steady rain. I checked the gauge
again -- another thirty hundredths. That made over a half an inch
of rain so far that day. Checking in again, to give Dave my report,
Albert Brightenstein, the Alternate Ranger, answered my ring, "the
weather forecast from Libby is for two more days of heavy rain. Do
you want to come down for a week or so?" Was he kidding? I had been
on Roderick Mountain for two months now and he asked if I wanted to
come down! "Sure", I told him.

"It's a long hike down Burnt Creek. You'd better pack up and get
started, if you want to get here before dark." I knew Albert pretty
well, so I asked, "Can you meet me with the pick-up at the bottom
of the Pleasant Mountain trail on Seventeenmile Creek in an hour
and a half?" Now, the Pleasant Mountain trail was the trail
straight down the south side of the mountain, no switchbacks, just
loose dirt and rock. But only four miles to the road along
Seventeenmile Creek. He said sure, he would be there.

The "Fall rains" that came each year, about the end of August or
early September, had arrived and broken the back of the fire
season. My job was over.

I packed up all my worldly possessions into a back pack. Then I
rolled up my sleeping bag, stored it in the attic out of the reach
of packrats and stored away all of the other gear. Going outside on
the catwalk, I lowered and fastened the heavy shutters over the
windows to protect them from storms. After putting my fire out, I
climbed up on the roof, stuffed a rag down the stove pipe to keep
the wind from blowing soot back into the lookout and then wired a
tin can over the end to keep rain and snow out. I took one last
drink of water and emptied all of the waterbags. This seemed such
a waste. It had taken so much effort packing the water up from the
spring to fill them. Finally I padlocked the door and climbed down
the stairs. At the bottom, I turned and raised the stairs with the
rope, fastening it so bears couldn't get up.  It had taken me less
that an hour to close up. I looked back at what had been my home
for two months. I would miss it.

I shouldered my pack. Then taking a deep breath, and with one long
step, I started down the Pleasant Mountain trail at a fast lope.
With each big step, I would slide down the loose dirt in the trail
-- "Flew" down trail is more like it, faster than I had ever gone
down any trail before. I wanted off the mountain. A Forest Service
truck was coming up the Seventeenmile Creek road, but I was at the
trail head before it got there -- four miles in a half an hour.

It was exciting to see someone. I babbled on, non-stop, until we
got back to Sylvanite. Once there, I had to talk to everyone.

Taking a hot shower in the bunkhouse, was a real luxury -- compared
to my weekly baths in a wash tub, heated on the wood stove.

There was a truck going into Troy that afternoon, so I hitched a
ride on it. What a sight to see the big town of Troy.

After the last two months, I felt like a grown man. First thing I
did was to go into the barbershop, sit down in the chair, and say
to the barber -- "Shave and a haircut, please".


1946, the Second Year


The next year, 1946, I went up to Sylvanite in early May. This time
I was an experienced hand so I asked for Mt. Baldy Lookout. Baldy
was supposed to be the best in the district. At least that was its
reputation. I spent May and June working around the district --
going to town every weekend.


A Weekend


Jim, one of the other lookouts, and I went to Troy for the weekend.
We got there about noon Saturday and had a bowl of chili in the
restaurant. There's not much going on in Troy so we decided to
hitchhike to Bonners Ferry, Idaho. We went out on US 2 to catch a
ride, but we stood there waiting and waiting and there just didn't
seem to be any traffic at all. Finally we gave up and walked back
into town.

The freight trains stopped at Troy. The restaurant was right across
from the tracks. While the engineer and conductor were eating and
nobody was looking, we snuck over and climbed into an empty ore car
on the north bound train. We kept our heads down -- didn't know
what to expect.

We heard men talking, then the crunch of boots on gravel as someone
walked past. The engine gave a couple of toots. Next, we heard a
rhythmic banging coming from the front of the train that sounded
like it was coming at us very fast -- BANG, the jolt knocked us off
of our feet, and tumbled us to the floor of the ore car. What it
was was the slack in the couplings between each car being taken up
as the engine started to pull. We were off!

Finally, got enough nerve to poke our heads above the edge of the
car and look around. It was windy, we were moving at a good speed,
a lot faster than the cars and trucks on the dirt road between Troy
and Bonners Ferry.

The smoke from the engine would drift back from time to time and we
would choke. At one point we went through a short tunnel and
thought we would choke to death on the fumes.

The train stopped in the freight yard at Bonners Ferry and we
hopped off.

It was getting late and we were done fooling around town, so we
decided to go back to Troy the same way. We went back to the
freight yard.  There we talked to some men that were hanging around
and asked about any trains leaving for Montana -- they told us a
freight train was headed back down the line. We climbed in an empty
box car this time, not wanting to ride back at night in an open ore
car.

It was after midnight when the freight finally pulled into Troy. We
were cold and shivering. It was too late to go out to the Troy
Ranger Station to spend the night and we didn't have money for a
room.

I had gotten to know the Town Marshall pretty well the last year.
He was sitting in the restaurant drinking coffee. So we sat down
next to him and started a conversation. Finally I asked him if we
could spend the night in his jail.

He walk down with us, unlocked the door and opened a cell. We spent
the night in the Troy Jail.


BRC Camp


We had some new neighbors up on Burnt Creek. A Blister Rust Control
camp had been built on the creek up there.

Blister Rust is a disease that affects the White Pine. The host
plant, that is part of the disease cycle, is the gooseberry. The
disease was controlled by removing all of the gooseberry bushes in
the infected area. It took a large crew to do this for they would
work a whole drainage. The immediate area to be worked was first
divided into strips about fifty feet wide. This was done by having
a small crew, called (appropriately enough) the "string ball crew",
run strings up and down the slope to be worked about fifty feet
apart. Then a much larger crew, each about four or five feet apart,
armed with small picks, worked each strip, digging out all of the
gooseberry bushes, or "ribeys" as they were called.

This was hot, dirty, and I thought, boring work. That's why I
worked for the District, and not for the Blister Rust.

There was something special about this camp, they were all Mexican
Nationals contracted to do this work. I found out that several of
my friends were strawbosses at the camp. So, one Saturday I hiked
up Burnt Creek to visit the camp.

I got there just before lunch time and met my friends, who showed
me around the camp. Then we all went over to the mess hall to eat.
The cooks were from Mexico and the food definitely Mexican. It was
good.

Afterward, we were sitting at the table talking. On the table, by
the salt and pepper was a bowl of dried red chili peppers, each
about three inches long. I asked about them. One of the guys said
they were for the workers and he said "They eat them just like
crackers. I'll bet you two bits that you can't eat just one". I
took the bet. I ate it all right -- then made a dash for the water
pump and tried to quench the fire. That was the hardest two bits I
every earned.


Pete Creek Cabin


The Forest Service had a cabin, about twelve miles up Pete Creek,
that served as a Guard Station during fire season. It was about
thirty miles from Sylvanite, making it too far to drive back and
forth each day. So, during the early part of the summer a work crew
stayed there and used the cabin as home base.

It was not a large cabin -- just room enough for a crew of four. A
typical log cabin -- windows on two sides, one door and a porch --
four bunks and a wood stove completed the furnishings. There were
heavy wooden shutters to cover the windows when the cabin was not
in use.

Gus was our crew boss. One Monday we drove a truck up to Pete Creek
cabin. We maintained roads, trails and phone lines out of the cabin
for a week. At the end of the week we locked up the cabin and came
back to Sylvanite to spend the weekend. We were tired of our own
cooking.

We went back up the following Monday and found that the cabin had
been torn into. The shutter on one window had been literally torn
off and something had gone right through the locked door. Inside,
our food had been ransacked -- it was scattered all over the floor.
Looking at it closer, we found jars of jam where the lid had been
unscrewed and then the jar licked completely clean -- cans of milk
had been bitten and then drunk -- loaves of sliced bread had been
split open and each slice taken out of both halves without tearing
the paper. Whatever it was had taken our side of bacon and then
just walked through the locked door.

We searched around the cabin and finally found where it had crossed
the creek. There were prints in the soft earth that were one heck
of a lot bigger than my feet -- at least half again as long and
twice as wide.  Up the hill we found where the grass was packed
down. It looked like it had bedded down at that spot and waited
there for us to leave.

Now Gus lived in the Yaak -- had a small farm up on the North Fork.
He call Sylvanite and told them what had happen. Then he drove up
to his place for a rifle to have in case our visitor came back. We
continued to work that week, and had no more encounters. That
weekend we went back down to Sylvanite. When we came back, same
thing had happened.

It was decided that we should come back down, but leave Gus there
to stake the place out. After three days and no visitor, Gus came
down early in the morning to get more supplies and bring us back.
We were back to the cabin before noon and found that our "friend"
had visited in the short time that we were all gone.

This went on all summer long -- no one ever saw the animal, and it
only "hit" the cabin when no one was there. All along everyone
thought it was a large grizzly because of the enormous size of it's
footprints -- looking back, now I just don't know.


Mt. Baldy


Baldy was the first lookout to go up each year. It was a fairly
easy four mile hike by trail, from the Yaak River Road up to the
lookout.  This short trail meant a better chance to have visitors
than Roderick, which was much more remote. More mail, see people,
fresh food, that was the good side of Baldy.

But Baldy was one of the oldest lookouts in the forest, let alone
the district. It was a log cabin -- an old log cabin. They had
built a five-foot by five-foot cupola on top of the cabin to mount
the Osborn firefinder in. Then a hole had been cut through floor of
the cupola, through the cabin roof and then on through the ceiling.
A ladder was then nailed up through this series of holes so that
you could climb straight up into the cupola -- nice, you didn't
have to go outside.  There also was an outside stairway up the side
of the cabin, across the roof, to the catwalk around the cupola, in
case you wanted to go up that way.

Another thing about a log cabin is -- you just can't make it tight
enough to keep mice and packrats out. Mice, they were the cute
brown and white field mice. All I had to do was keep my food stored
so they couldn't get into it -- they didn't really bother me. But
the packrats were something else -- they would get into anything,
clothes, letters, sleeping bag, and chew it up. I kept up a
constant war with them. I had a .22 rifle with me and shot a lot of
them, but it didn't seem to make a dent in the population that
lived above my ceiling. At night, they sounded like they were
having a square dance up there.

Baldy overlooked Spread Creek on the north. To the east, you could
see where the Yaak Post Office was and see car lights on the road
at night.  South, you were looking right down to Sylvanite about
nine miles away.  It was pretty well centrally located.


Wind Speed


There was a weather station on Baldy. It had the usual rain gauge,
as on all lookouts. In addition, the daily minimum and maximum
temperatures had to be recorded as well as the amount of moisture
in wood. This was done by weighing a calibrated set of wooden
sticks.

Baldy also had an anemometer to measure the wind. The spinning cups
of the anemometer were mounted on a pole about twenty feet high,
set about fifty feet from the lookout. Inside of the spinning part
was a set of electrical contacts. The contacts would close
momentarily when the cups had turned around a certain number of
times. A pair of wires were connected to the contacts and run from
the pole to the lookout. There, a flashlight was connected between
the wires. When the flashlight was turned on, it would blink on and
off whenever the contacts in the anemometer closed and then opened.
As I recall, the number of blinks per minute indicated the number
of miles per hour of the wind.

It was interesting to measure the real wind speed. On Roderick I
could only guess at it. At times it had felt like the whole tower
was coming down.

The anemometer worked fine for slower winds -- say, up to about
forty miles an hour. Up to fifty, I could read it reasonably. But
over that, the light flashed so fast that it seemed to be on all of
the time. I couldn't see the blinks.

So, for winds over fifty, I had to guess. I guessed the wind was
sixty -- when my rain gauge blew over. This occurred a number of
times. I guessed it was seventy -- when the cabinet that my weather
station was in overturned. That happened twice. It had to be EIGHTY
when -- the shutters on the cabin were pulled so hard by the wind
that the two-by-two braces that held them in place shattered like
a gun shot -- and the shutters were wrenched off with a terrible
crash and went fluttering down the hill like leaves in a breeze.
This happened only once, and I was petrified.


Fire Barrel


A large snow bank, still unmelted, was on the north side of the
mountain. This was convenient. I used it as a natural refrigerator.
After making a screened box, which I buried in the side of the snow
bank, I was able to store the fresh things I had brought up with
me.  Also, opened things, like canned milk, could be stored there
and wouldn't spoil so fast.

There was a fifty-five gallon drum outside of the cabin. It had to
be kept filled with water, in case of fire in the cabin. I just
shoveled it full of snow -- this sure beat packing water on my back
from the spring to fill the darn thing.

It was about the first of August, when something around the lookout
started to smell bad. It got worse and worse -- a terrible stink.
I couldn't find what was causing it or figure out where it was
coming from.

One day, I decided to check the fire barrel to make sure there was
still water in it. When I took the lid off, the smell just about
knocked me over. Phew!! After looking inside, I remembered -- I had
brought two heads of cabbage up with me. I had put one on top of
the snow in the barrel and put the lid on -- thinking to myself,
that ought to keep it fresh and from spoiling!


Blizzard


Weather seemed to be a lot colder this year than last. We had a
number of snow storms. The worst one came in August.

When I woke up, it was overcast, with a sharp, cold wind blowing.
I went out to the wood pile, brought in a big supply and got a
roaring fire going in the stove. The temperature continued to drop
-- the fire just couldn't keep the cabin warm. It started to snow
and the wind picked up. Pretty soon, I couldn't see out of the
windows -- they were covered with snow. I kept stoking the fire
with wood. Finally, I just took off my boots, opened the oven door
and put my feet, with two pair of wool socks on, right inside the
oven. I stayed that way until late afternoon.

Finally the wind died down, the snow stopped and the sun peaked out
from under the dark clouds. I pulled my feet out of the oven, put
on my boots and opened the front door.

Looking toward the sun -- I was blinded. There was a snow drift,
four feet deep against the cabin and a foot and a half of snow
stuck to the north and the west sides of the cabin. On the south
and east, there wasn't any snow -- it had blown clear over the
mountain. Everything was frozen, including the wind gauge, and
everything had icicles sticking out horizontally. What a blizzard -
- and in August.


The "Condor"


One of my hobbies was making model airplanes. Each new one was a
different challenge. I decided I would have enough time up on Baldy
to build a real, big one.

At a store in Libby I found a model of a Condor glider. It had an
eight-foot wing span. The picture on the box showed a beautiful
free-flying glider, with gull shaped wings. I could just visualize
it sailing out over the forest, climbing higher and higher -- I was
hooked. That was just what I was looking for. So, I bought it.

Now, you don't just load something like that, a fragile box, full
of balsa wood, onto a pack mule. All that would get to the lookout
would be sawdust. Even packing it up in my backpack took some doing
-- the box that the kit came in was four feet long.

To build it, I had to dedicate my table in the cabin. The first
step was to spread out the plans, tack them to the table and cover
them with wax paper, to keep the glue from sticking. Next, I pinned
each strip of balsa in place with straight pins and glued each
joint with model airplane glue. As each section was finished, I
would hang it on nails that I drove into log wall. This went on for
almost a month.

When all sections were finished, it was then time to put the paper
skin on. First, I spread glue on the edges, and stretched the skin
smooth.  After drying, I would trim it and spray it with water to
make the paper shrink tight. Finally I assembled the wing sections
together -- eight feet long. Then I completed the body and tail.
After putting the wing and body together, I looked at it all
assembled -- what a beauty. It was snow white, no other color. I
hung it from the ceiling of the cabin for a couple of days, just to
admire it.

All of this time I kept telling the other lookouts, during our
evening phone time, about the progress.

One morning in mid-August, the wind was just a whisper. I took my
Condor outside -- hooked a loop of string to the hook below the
nose and gently let it start to climb. It went up like a kite,
until I guess it was a hundred feet in the air. Then I jerked to
release the string. The big Condor started to spiral up, and up,
and up -- constantly moving eastward. It flew and flew, until it
was just a white speck in the blue sky. Finally I couldn't see it
any longer. I have no idea where it came down, but it was a real
thrill to see my Condor fly almost perfectly -- out of sight.


Strike!


It was a dark, overcast day, with lightning hitting all around the
district. There seemed to be a general storm all over. I was in the
cupola watching the lightning strikes -- recording where they came
down, so I could check later for "smokes".

I was checking north, over Spread Creek, when there was a blinding
flash. I was stunned by the explosive crack of the thunder right on
top of me and seemed to push me down to the floor. Lightning had
hit the lookout! I must have stood there like a zombie for the
longest time.

Finally able to move -- I looked around for any damage, but
couldn't see any. The flash had been right in front of my eyes. I
looked closely at the lightning rod on the north end of the cabin -
- instead of the sharp point on the top, there was now a quarter-
inch round, shiny, copper ball.


Smoke Chaser


The phone rang. The code was for Baldy so I answered. It was Dave
at Sylvanite, "Roderick and Grizzly both see a smoke on Hellroaring
Creek.  Coordinates are north-west quarter of Section 35, Township
64, Range 34. Can you see anything?" "Just a moment and I'll
check", I told him. I raced up the stairs, spun the Osborn around
to the coordinates Dave had given me and took a quick look through
the sight. That way I would know the where they were seeing the
smoke. Plugging in the phone, I went out on the cat-walk to get a
better view. "Dave, I don't see anything. That is on the south side
of the creek and my view may be blocked," I said. "I'll check with
Roderick and Grizzly again and call you back. In the meantime,
better get your smoke chaser pack ready while I'm checking", Dave
advised.

I ran down the stairs and took the smoke chaser pack off of its peg
on the wall. It was a pack frame wrapped in a shelter-half (half of
an Army pup tent). In it was shovel, a Pulaski, a flash light head
lamp, a compass, a map of the Sylvanite District glued to a canvas
backing.  The pack also contained two days worth of Army "K"
Rations. Rolling up my sleeping bag and strapping it to the pack,
I then put in some extra clothes, a pair of socks and my jacket.
The map and compass I put in my shirt pocket, I would need them to
find the fire. After filling my canteen I called Sylvanite. Dave
answered, "They both say that the smoke is getting heavier. You
better get going". "OK, I'm on my way", I replied.

Studying the map, it appeared I could follow the Spread Creek trail
about a mile and a half and then cut south over to the Hellroaring
Creek drainage about two miles to the fire. It always looks simple
on the map, but I knew better. Finding a small fire could be very
difficult. As a help, I had written down the azimuth readings
Roderick and Grizzly had given so I could back sight on them if I
could see their lookouts.

So much for the plan, let's get going. When I estimated I had
covered about a mile and a half I left the Spread Creek trail and
started cross-country -- that's the hard part. Finally got to a
rock outcrop.  I couldn't see the fire but I could see Roderick.
Taking a backsight, I figured I had to go south another mile. From
a clearing further on I could see both Lookouts -- then the breeze
shifted and I smelled smoke!

Another quarter of a mile and I saw it. A dead snag had been hit by
lightning. It was still on fire and had dropped burning limbs,
spreading the fire down the hill about fifty feet into an area
between and around some big rocks.

Dropping my pack off to the side out of the way, I took the shovel
and quickly trenched the uphill side of the snag. Then taking
shovelfuls of dirt, I threw them at the burning limbs, knocking the
flame out.  That would slow it down, while I trenched the area
below.

This was hot, dirty work and required constant checking to make
sure the fire didn't jump my trench at any point. The sun set. I
put on the head lamp and continued trenching the fire. What had to
be done was clear all pine needles and forest duff, right down to
bare dirt a couple of feet wide -- chop out any roots across the
trench -- throw dirt at any flames inside the perimeter to knock it
down. Work as fast as possible.

It must have been after midnight before I felt that I might have it
under control enough to rest for a few minutes. I was starved. The
thought of food made my mouth water. I opened a box of "K" Rations.
What a let down -- stale crackers, powdered coffee and a small can
of scrambled eggs and ham that tasted like something else, I'm not
sure what. The only good thing was a fruit bar. And I had been told
you couldn't starve on the stuff.

Back to the fire. It became a mechanical routine, turn all the dirt
over inside the perimeter shovelful by shovelful, knock down any
flame -- just keep going and going. In the east it started to get
light again, and finally the sun came up. It had been a long night
but there was still a lot of ground to work.

By about noon all of the flames were out and there were no longer
any smoking areas inside the trenched perimeter. Now I had to make
sure it was completely out. On hands and knees, I went over the
whole area checking with my hands for any hot spots and turning
them over in the dirt.

It was dark when I finished. Rolling out my sleeping bag, I sat on
it and ate one of the "K" Rations. I just stretched out and was
instantly sound asleep. The next morning I checked the area again
with my hands.  It was all cold, no heat at all. The fire was dead.
Now I could leave.

Returning the way I came, I stopped at my spring for a long welcome
drink of cold water. And then, without any hesitation, I pulled off
all my clothes and proceeded to take a bath in ice water. Fighting
fire was hard, hot, dirty work. Was ever I glad that job was done!


Porcupine


One night I dreamed that someone was sawing the cabin down. It was
a weird dream -- they just kept sawing and finally it fell over the
side of the mountain! It woke me up, and I was in a sweat, but the
sawing continued, and I got really scared. I lay in my sleeping
bag, thinking of everything it could be -- the Pete Creek bear?
What kind of monster could be tearing the cabin down. Finally, I
got up enough nerve, and got out of bed, put my boots on, slowly
opened the door and peeked out.  The moon was up and gave quite a
bit of light -- but I couldn't see anything. After opening the door
all the way, I went out and followed the sound. Around on the side
of the cabin, one of the big shutters that was used to board up the
window for the winter, was leaning up against the cabin. There was
my ghost, a porcupine was gnawing on the shutter. It acted as a
great, big, sounding board that amplified the noise. Wow!

I went charging toward him to try to scare him away. He just
waddled behind the big shutter. I pitched a rock at him. He waddled
around the corner -- and right through the door I had left open,
right into my cabin.

It took me two hours to finally get him -- from behind the stove --
out of the wood box -- out from under my bunk, leaving quills every
place and finally -- out the door. I spent the next day collecting
quills so I wouldn't jam one in my foot.


Sheep Drive


Fresh food was a real treat. Canned meat in particular got pretty
old and there was just no way that I could eat one of those big
cans of "spam" before it went bad -- or worse, the flies got to it
-- yuk.

Every summer, sheepherders drove a band of sheep up through the
mountains in the Yaak. The sheep driveway went up by Northwest
Peak, followed the high ridges down to the upper end of Spread
Creek and came down Hellroaring Creek.

I could track where the band of sheep was by the cloud of dust they
kicked up. The first time I saw the dust, I thought it was smoke
from a fire -- but it just didn't look quite right. At least this
time I didn't report it as a fire, like my splices on Roderick --
I talked to Jim on Northwest Peak first and he told me what it was.

I kept an eye on the band, marking their new location daily on the
firefinder map. They traveled a few miles every day as the
sheepherder moved them to fresh grass. Finally I could hear sheep
bells on the slope below me, down Hellroaring Creek. That evening
I hiked down to see them.

The sheepherder was Basque -- came over directly from Spain on a
contract to herd sheep. He didn't speak much English and I sure
didn't speak Spanish, but we were able to talk some. He told me he
had been on the trail for a month and a half and hadn't seen anyone
in that time. He said he was out of tobacco. Up in the mountains,
if you smoked, you rolled your own -- Prince Albert pipe tobacco
and Wheat Straw papers. I finally made a deal with him. I had an
extra one pound can of Prince Albert up at the lookout which I
traded for a leg of lamb. The tobacco should last him the rest of
the summer and I got a real treat -- fresh meat.

Fire Season is Over

The "Fall Rains" came, the same way they came on Roderick. Cold,
wet, steady rain that brought an end to the fire season. It had
been a long summer. I was glad to get off of the mountain, see
people -- and eat someone else's cooking.

Summer was over, time to get back to school.


Post Script


After three years in the Army, I chose to study Electrical
Engineering rather than pursue a career in Forestry. Still, while
going to college, I would spend two more summers working for the
Forest Service on a lookout -- most people thought I was a Forestry
major, not an EE.

From my experience, working for the Forest Service, I have observed
that two things have worked together to destroy much of the US
National Forest as I knew it. One was the invention of the chain
saw -- that is just man's continued search for a more efficient
tool. The other was the change in policy of the US Forest Service
to favor "clear cutting" over "selective cutting" for the
harvesting of timber.

When I worked in the Yaak, the chain saw had not been invented --
at least I had never heard of one. Trees were cut by hand, two men
on a cross cut saw. This required a large crew and cutting was done
at a slow pace. One man could not "tear down" a stand of trees in
a day by himself.

With selective logging, a US Forest Service employee first
"cruised" the stand of trees selecting the trees to be harvested
before any timber was cut on Federal land. Only mature trees were
cut, young trees were left to grow. Each tree to be cut was scaled
for the number of eight-foot saw logs it would produce and recorded
in a tally book showing the type of tree, location and yield of
logs. It was marked by chopping a blaze low on the trunk and then
the blaze was imprinted by hammering it with the other end of a
special cruising axe. This marked the blaze with the letters "US".
As I recall, we wrote a number on the blaze with an indelible
pencil and recorded the number in our tally book.

But not all of the mature trees were taken. Some trees were left to
reseed the area.

As logging trucks came out of the forest, they swung through the
Ranger Station, and there, each log was measured, recorded and
stamped on the end.

After all of the logging in the stand was finished, the area was
checked and each stump inspected for the blaze and checked against
the tally book records. There is no question that such a procedure
used a lot of Forest Service manpower.

Selective cutting required the logger to work around the small
trees and those to be left standing. Clear cutting is much more
efficient for the loggers -- they cut everything. They are the ones
who benefit from clear cutting -- quicker, less manpower.

However, I have gone back to stands that I cruised. After ten years
it was difficult to tell that the area had ever been logged. The
immature trees had grown rapidly, benefiting from the additional
sunlight. The "brood" trees that we left standing had scattered
seedling all around them. The trees and brush that had been
intentionally left had prevented heavy erosion. Harvested this way,
the forest could be used for the "multiple use" that Congress had
intended.

I have also returned to "clear cut" areas ten years after the cut.
Here, erosion had ruined the trout streams, the rubbish that had
been left in great piles and huge windrows had still not degraded.
Yes, there was brush, but I have seen a burn recover faster. The
tree cover needed for large wild life had not come back. There were
no trout.  The area was no longer attractive, even for a camping
site. I was sickened. This is NOT multiple use.

From my observations I am convinced that the long range benefits of
"selective cutting" far exceed the short term gains of "clear
cutting".  If we are to hold the National Forests in trust for
future generations, we must stop the current policy and practice of
the US Forest Service of "clear cutting", and return to "selective
cutting".


 Bob Graham