NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW exactly who made the boneheaded decision to keep our crew working this late into fall—a month longer than usual. Worse yet, at just part-time. Did the order come from Toiyabe Forest headquarters? Did some faceless bureaucrat at the regional office in Ogden make the call? The reason, so we’re told, is to reduce the amount of time us bottom-of-the-pay-scale seasonal rangers can collect unemployment. To that end, since the middle of September we’ve been on this absurd six-days-on, eight-off schedule. As a rule, I’m more than happy to stay at Piute for my four days off; maybe go out for a quick overnight resupply. But now it’s mid-autumn. The days are short, the nights long, and eight days is a long time to just hang out at the cabin, especially kittyless. (I packed both cats out at the end of my brother’s annual visit and Steve took them with him back to our folks’ place in Ventura, where they’re honored guests.) So when days-off rolled around again I decided to head for the hotsprings in Saline Valley, the place where I’ve been spending a good part of my winters in recent years. It’s BLM land so camping is free, with unlimited hot water. I know people who go there at this time of year. The springs are pretty much in the middle of nowhere—a four or five hour drive from Bridgeport, depending on just how bad the bad road is.
I was out there for almost a week, strolling around in shorts and sandals, marinating myself in the healing waters thrice daily. Lots of time in the company of old friends. I took long solo exploratory walks up desert washes and along barren basalt-flow ridges. Classic Saline: fighter jets zooming by low overhead all the day long and several really quite impressive amateur fireworks displays on Halloween. Each day it got up into the eighties—typical fall temps in the northern Mojave. Rejuvenated, I left on November second and headed back to Bridgeport for my final tour.
Thirty hours after bidding Saline Valley hotsprings bye-bye, I pulled up in front of the cabin and tied my horses to the hitch-rail. Talk about contrasts: from low desert to high mountains in a day’s time; T-shirt weather at not much above sea level to all bundled up at eighty-five-hundred feet, with fresh snow on the ground and ice in my mustache.
Upon arrival I immediately had to deal with a couple of pressing problems (to be recounted shortly). We pulled in at a little after six o’clock. By the time things had settled down it was seven. And full-on dark. Dark at seven?! How could…? From June all through August, seven p.m is daytime! (I’m often fresh off work at that hour—sprawled on the gravel bar across from the cabin after my obligatory après-work river-bath.) But here it was, black as midnight; outside, a frigid 6°F. The ranger, huddled in front of crackling woodstove; both lanterns going. Truth is, aside from closing the place down I really had no business being at the cabin in November. What with the pack station boarded up and backpackers all gone home, there were zero tourists for me to educate and inform…trail-work not a viable option under present conditions. No feline friends for companionship and moral support. Nobody h’yar but this one chicken. In fact, on this night I was quite possibly the sole human animal in all of the Sierra Nevada highcountry—a surmise beguiling to one who feeds on western-style romance.
The ride in was breathtaking. In fact, the entire day had a certain edge to it; one of those intervals of time where you know to pay extra close attention to the details. And not just feel grateful but be grateful. For everything. In addition, there’d been quite a dramatic lead-up and all the lead-up stuff added even more juice. Without question, the day’s overall “feel” was colored by the bittersweet aura that hangs over any last-trip-of-the-season to Piute—further accentuated by this also being perhaps my last stint at the cabin, period, if next year’s budget situation turns out to be as dire as projected.
As for the aforementioned theatrical lead-up:
My final day in Saline dawned with telltale signs of a winter storm on the way. When I left at around noon the Inyo crest was partly clouded over. A stiff breeze had kicked in. When I reached Big Pine, mid-afternoon, Owens Valley was filled with haze—dust being lofted by what was now a minor gale. No more blue sky.
After stocking up on groceries in Bishop I headed north. The first fat raindrops came down partway up Sherwin Grade. When I reached Mammoth junction it was almost dark and rain turned to snow. Minutes later it began to dump; the kind of snow that comes down at the start of relatively warm storms—soggy clumps of interlocked flakes that slam into your windshield like big bugs but with soft splat!s The storm quickly intensified into a swirling blizzard my headlights were barely able to penetrate. With wipers on not-high-enough, I grew increasingly concerned, mainly on account of having four seriously bald tires. At Crestview, the glop was starting to stick so out of caution I slowed to forty and got in the slow lane. Reno-bound semi trucks blew by me on the left, launching roostertails of slush that fanned across my windshield. When they passed I kept my eyes pointed dead ahead the whole time, hands clutching the wheel at ten and two—this, the very definition of a white-knuckle drive.
All of a sudden, a small wind-drift appeared in my headlight beam; no time to switch lanes. I plowed through it and started to spin out—jolt of adrenaline!—but corrected in time. (Good thing a semi wasn’t passing me right then….) After that little brush with mortality I switched on my hazard lights, slowed to twenty, and kept it pegged there the rest of the way to Bridgeport. Had to endure an excruciatingly slow crawl up Conway grade through that treacherous, slick-as-snot grey slush, not at all sure I had enough traction to make the summit and what then? It went on and on. The semis, slowed by the steep incline, still whizzed by like I wasn’t even moving.
It was a huge relief to have Conway Summit in my rearview. But then there was this: my Toyota pickup had been handling strangely for some time and, whatever it was, it was getting worse. Something off with the steering—it felt stiff…sluggish. No idea what was wrong. That is, not until reaching my destination, the Forest Service warehouse outside of Bridgeport (where I park for the night and sleep in my camper when stuck in town). It’d stopped snowing. I got out, still wearing shorts and sandals. Whaaaaat?! My poor little truck’s entire undercarriage was caked with a six-inch-thick deposit of frozen road sludge—at a guess, maybe four or five hundred pounds-worth. The wheel wells were jam-packed, too, with polished grooves where the tires rubbed. Which explained the sluggish steering. Mystery solved. Got into some warm clothes pronto, heated up a can of soup in lieu of supper, and crashed fully clothed.
Morning dawned not-fair. Not fair at all. The storm looked to be mostly over but a cold-front had come in right behind it. Temperature in the mid-teens (as indicated by breath-clouds and half-frozen water bottle). Sierra crest, buried in misty cloud; strong wind out of the north. All of which meant that my plans for the upcoming tour, such as they were, had changed. As prearranged, my supervisor and I met in the ice-cold warehouse where we hunkered by the breakroom stove and tried to come up with a plan. No one else around. Greta, who is both friend and ally as well as an excellent boss, had hopeful words regarding our crew’s return next season even though the whole budget fiasco remains unsettled. She also informed me that another, bigger storm was due to arrive later in the week and we both thought it best that I head for Piute as planned and start shutting the place down. If that storm arrived while I was still in the backcountry…well, we’d deal with that if and when it happened. There was plenty of food.
I stopped by the office briefly, gassed up the stock truck, and finished getting my stuff together. Before heading off, I finally had a first meal of the day at a café in town. Despite off-and-on snow flurries and that miserable north wind, I had a vague hunch that the weather might improve. It was just shy of noon.
First stop: Wheeler Guard Station—that lonely looking, generally unoccupied Forest Service outpost just south of Sonora Junction that people drive past and wonder, What’s that place for? Long ago it was sort of a fire station; nowadays, it serves as temporary quarters for rangers and trail crew, with fenced pastures where FS livestock can be kept. On my way out last week, I’d dropped off the horses there. (By agreement, Leavitt Meadows Pack Station boards my horses when I’m away but they’d just closed up shop for the winter.) Red and Valiente were in the narrow strip of pasture just below the highway—not who-knows-where way out in back—so it was an easy catch. Got them brushed, curried, and saddled while they munched on grain, then loaded them in the stock truck and pressed on. A mile farther up the road at the 395/108 Junction, Caltrans had already put up a big sign announcing “Sonora Pass Closed—8 Miles Ahead.”
Something felt off as soon as I turned onto Highway 108. All summer, there’s a steady stream of vehicles going both ways but, today—nary a soul. The roadway was clear as far as the eye could see, completely deserted…a creepy, post-apocalypse kind of deserted. One lone set of tire tracks cut through the last few patches of unmelted snow on the pavement and these apparently turned off at the Marine Corps Training Center only a couple of miles in. Past Pickel Meadows, entering the canyon: more snow on the road, no tire tracks. Leavitt Meadows Campground, closed. Camp hosts’ trailer, gone. Trailhead parking lot, empty. And, sure enough, the iron gate just beyond the pack station had been swung shut and locked. It was one p.m. when I parked the stock truck in the pull-out opposite a freshly vacated pack station. Offloaded the horses and finished packing. Red and Val were calm but alert, with an air of expectancy about them. I knew that look and what it signified. They were saying, in all but words, C’mon! Let’s hit the road, Jack, and get this over with! Like me, they were ready to go home. To be back home.
Off into the wintry wilds we went.
The trip in was exceptional in many ways. I’ve traversed this eleven miles of dusty backcountry byway on horseback probably a hundred times now. At least a hundred. A few of them with patchy snow on the ground, yes, but never before had I laid down first tracks on a blanket of virgin winter snow. Never before had I gone in this late in the season, never when it was this cold, and never for maybe the last time.
Right after we set out the cloud cover started to break up. The Sun’s improbable return was first announced by dramatic god-rays shining down through gaps in the ceiling. Blue sky followed, then full sunshine most welcome. An austere winter day had transformed into post-Indian-summer fall at its finest before my very eyes. West-facing slopes and mountainsides, with their newly lit carpet of fresh snow, went from a uniform dull shade of bluish-grey to blindingly radiant snow-white. The resurrected Sun, seemingly too low in the sky for early afternoon and farther south than it should be, cast long shadows I’d never seen before. Day-old snow weighed down shrubs and hung in trees. Ice clung to the slow-moving river’s margins. Climbing out of Leavitt Meadows, we entered timbered country and that cruel north wind turned to cruel breeze. I was glad to be wearing my leather chaps and Forest Service-issue Filson wool coat.
Though utterly familiar, my surroundings at times felt alien—almost as if I were somewhere I’d never been before; a strange sensation. But my disorientation wasn’t simply due to things looking different under a blanket of immaculate snow. The novel lighting also contributed. Having just come from the desert probably played a part as well. Then factor in the potent combination of pure silence/pure solitude augmented by dangerously low temperatures, plus knowing that I was entirely on my own if there was trouble. Taken together, all these dynamics produced a mild euphoria. I felt a distinct connection with my equine cohorts as we were sharing this adventure, as a team. There was anticipation; an eagerness to see whatever lay around the next bend and the next—again, almost as if I were surveying this country for the first time. Trailside junipers and pine saplings wore the guise of Christmas trees. (See: Wind had already blown most of the snow off branches and twigs leaving rounded mounds reminiscent of Yule-tree ornaments at leafy branch tips. Scores of long needle-bundles shed by Jeffrey pines dangled from naked twigs, a fair proxy for tinsel.) To top off this Yuletide atmosphere, any stray shafts of light that managed to squeeze through the thick foliage overhead were filled with glitter—sparks of light made by solar photons bouncing off all those snowflakes drifting down from the wind-blown treetops.
From the back of a moving horse, all this chance decorativeness in the exotic slanting afternoon light of November made for an enthralling show. Time and again I felt the muscles of my half-numb face contracting in irrepressible grins…a lone witness to Creation going slack-jawed at the sight of minor miracles left and right. Everything that I saw along the way—each vignette, every vista—I’d already gazed upon a hundred times before and found beautiful. Each and every time. But regular beautiful; not this queer, ‘nother-worldly beautiful.
Two miles in, at Lane Lake. No otters this time around, alas. But, for consolation, nine coots. Alarmed by our sudden arrival all nine half-paddled-half-flew in cootish fashion away from the near shore, shattering the exquisite silence and my deep reverie. (Every October, who knows why, coots show up at this lake.)
Then came two small groves of white fir, separated by a quarter mile; the only pure stands of fir trees this trail passes through. Even in mid-summer, little light penetrates a white fir forest’s compact foliage so it felt cloistered and distinctly winterlike passing through. Suddenly it was January. Dropped the reins over Red’s saddlehorn so I could pocket both hands—no gloves, alas!—and, since Stetson hats don’t cover numb ears, I folded a spare handkerchief into a broad headband that did the job.
Modest spring-fed streams bisect both groves. Both were entirely frozen over. I retrieved the reins knowing that Red, who’s easily spooked, might refuse to cross. But after a lengthy head-down-ears-up examination (and with some urging on my part) Red crashed his way through—on tiptoes with eyes rolled back in rank fear. Valiente, an old hand who’s seen it all, barely noticed.
Later, something else caught my eye: off to the side of the trail, curious meandering “grooves” in the snow’s surface. I’d seen these things before, near the cabin, always following early winter storms in September or October; inch-wide, shallow grooves that wandered hither and thither. They were the work of voles—abundant but seldom-seen meadow-dwelling rodents, like fat mice with beady little eyes, tiny ears, and a short tail. Voles stay hidden by tunneling through thick grass rather than burrowing into the soil like moles and gophers. When snow comes they leave their grass-tunnels and travel abroad with impunity. These half-pipe channels, typically seen only after the first storm or two of the season, are the end result of voles tunneling through two- or three-inch-thick layers of settled snow. After a day or two in the sun these narrow channels’ roofs begin to sag, leaving networks of what appear to be little furrows. (I finally figured out what caused them after watching coyotes harvesting voles out in the meadow, right after early snowstorms—seemingly at their leisure. And connected the dots.)
The sun set over the high ridgetop before we got to Lower Piute Meadows (two miles yet to go) and it got even colder; in the low teens now, judging by a growing build-up of ice in my mustache. On steep uphills, clouds of moist breath billowed from the horses’ nostrils. My toes had been dead for a while; wriggling didn’t help so I finally got off and walked. The trail was trackless save for a single set of coyote prints that periodically veered off into the woods only to reappear later.
Got to Upper Piute Meadows with last light on the peaks and forded a slack river that was almost completely frozen over in places. The horses crunched through the thin ice and a couple of minutes later stood steaming at the hitch-rail. First I unloaded Valiente and lugged his pack-boxes over to the porch, then removed their saddles and blankets and carried them to the saddle rack. It was a tremendous relief to be home and start getting moved back in. After being gone a week, I knew it would be cold in the cabin when we arrived. But the thick log walls absorb heat during the day and hold it well so it came as a bit of a shock to find that the inside was even colder than I’d expected—somewhere between refrigerator and freezer. (The thermometer just outside read 10°F.) I lit one Coleman lantern and quick got a fire going in the wood stove but went right back out to feed hungry horses. Hauled a bucketful of alfalfa pellets over to the hitch- rail and unbuckled their halters, leaving them dangling from the rail. Red and Val followed me over to the round corral and walked right in. I dumped the pellets in one of the mangers and, smiling, stood there for a minute watching them eat.
Back at the cabin I hung the halters on their nails, swung the door open…and stopped dead in my tracks. The interior was filled with smoke. My initial reaction, mute, was the wordless equivalent of an all-caps, triple-exclamation point power-expletive. Right on its heels, addressed to my person with Zen-like calm: You. Forgot. To clean. The chimney cap. You were supposed to take care of that, remember?
Shortly before my departure the stove was acting up. Drafting poorly. Those last few days, right after lighting a fire this foul-smelling white smoke would begin to waft up through the joints around the stove-lids—sure sign of a clogged chimney cap. Once the fire got going it quit smoking and seemed okay. So I let it slide. Standing there in the doorway, I recalled having said to myself, more than once, I’ll deal with this…later. Well, it was now later and now it was too late. I needed warmth. And soon. Time to take care of business. I took a deep breath and went in, leaving the door wide open.
Smoke was spewing out from around all six stove-lids. Kill fire! Need water! The drinking-water bucket by the door had a thick layer of ice on top. After breaking it up with a hammer and pulling out the biggest chunks I doused the fire with a few scoopfuls of slushy water, sending up clouds of powdery gray ash that proceeded to settle on every horizontal surface. A couple more scoops of water killed the still-smoldering pile of kindling (or so I thought). I propped a couple of windows open.
Now for the hard part.
With the little plastic flashlight I keep bedside clasped in my teeth I fetched an old aluminum ladder from behind the cabin, brushed the snow off it (in my hurry, bare-handed) and then propped it up against the south side of the gabled roof. Got out of my wet, slick-soled packer boots in exchange for an old pair of lug-soled Sorrel snow boots I’d retrieved from the loft. The air was still pretty opaque. Next: I grabbed a hefty hunk of firewood from the pile behind the stove and headed back out. Clove-hitched the wood to one end of a fifty-foot rope and tied the other end around the trunk of a big lodgepole pine, after which I went halfway up the ladder and flung the weighted rope-end over the roof’s crest. This would serve as my safety line for the last bit. Back in the cabin, I poured more water on the still-smoldering fire, sending up fresh clouds of ash-laden steam. Grabbed a few tools and headed out the door.
Here’s the situation: The metal chimney, which emerges halfway up the steep roof’s north-facing side, isn’t accessible by ladder. At present the roof held four inches of heavy snow that, due to the cabin’s residual heat, melted a bit as it was accumulating and then froze. This partial melting created a layer of ice at the snowpack’s base, making for a fiendishly slick surface. But, luckily, several two-by-four studs nailed horizontally to the roof’s south face would enable me to reach the crest and access the chimney cap. These makeshift cleats, held on by sixteen-penny nails nailed right through several layers of cedar shingles, were vestiges of a big re-shingle job I did back in ’88 at the outset of my first season at Piute. A bear had broken into the cabin early that spring by climbing up a deep snowdrift and clawing a bear-sized hole right through the inch-thick roof planking. (In the process, it raked off a lot of tarpaper and a large number of shingles.) Getting myself from the ladder onto the cleat beneath the southerly skylight in my floppy snow boots was a bit dicey but once there I could stand up straight, keeping all my weight over my feet. The improvised safety line wasn’t much use on this side but did help with balance. From atop the skylight (a slippery scramble) I scraped snow off the crest before straddling it. Tied a loop in the line and slid one arm through up to my elbow; if I lost footing, this would provide a marginally adequate belay. And I did in fact slip, lowering off the north-side skylight but—lucky me!—slid only a foot or so before coming to rest, crotch astride stovepipe with a death-grip on the rope. With tension from the safety line I was able to get in position: one foot up against the base of the chimney and the other on the skylight’s bottom rim. Not dropping my wrench made it a cinch to remove the stovepipe cap which was indeed completely clogged with soot and creosote. The screwdriver was an ideal tool for scraping it out. And I did all this, remember, with a plastic flashlight in my mouth.
To play it safe, before lowering back down I tied the rope off to one of the chimney struts. Good thing! When my foot made contact with the two-by-four it popped off and slid to the ground. I knew the cleat was compromised; it felt loose underfoot when I first stood on it but hadn’t failed simply because my weight was pressing downwards—a different angle of force. Unbeknownst to me, organic debris had been building up behind it and years of freeze-thaw gradally levered the thing off its moorings. Shaken, I got my feet under me, stood up, and swung over to the next cleat. Standing on that top ladder rung, I experienced yet another wave of relief (fourth or maybe fifth in just over a day’s time). Not to make light of what happened—this self-inflicted escapade’s finale rivaled in seriousness rappelling off a climb at night during a storm. My technical climbing skills didn’t just come in handy. I couldn’t have pulled it off without them.
Clearing that stovepipe cap broke probably half a dozen rules in the Forest Service Safety Manual. Maybe more. Well, I made it down; half-froze but fully unscathed. Mission accomplished. The cabin had mostly cleared out by this time so I built a new fire, leaving the door and windows wide open. Heated water for tea on the propane stove. And then I took that mug of orange pekoe, plopped myself down in the rusty old metal chair with folded-up towel for a seat-pad, and pulled up close the woodstove. I huddled there for some time, thawing out my hands and reliving the highpoints of a spectacular day—basking in the glow that comes with having just cheated death.
Those few minutes hunkered-down by the antique woodstove sipping strong black tea were about as close to undiluted contentment as this cowboy gets.
©2025Tim Forsell 4 November 1994, 8 Sep 2025
