Sunday, August 23, 2015

Piute Log...A Fullish Day 1999

18 Jun (Fri)     A full day. Every season I have maybe four or five of these: days where the sun-lit hours are jam-packed, stuff happens continuously, and it’s not over ‘til well after dark. By definition, I’m usually worthless the day after. ◦◦◦◦◦ Sun hits the truck right at 6:00 these days but the glow of its approach is intense for a long time before then and it wakes me at 5:00 if I leave my curtain up. Went over immediately to check on the cat who was thrilled to see me and clearly appalled when I just as quickly left again. I know cats: he was indignant to be incarcerated all night and kept from his nocturnal sport but like any feline, after realizing he was on lockdown, slept the night off. But after seeing me, the day beginning and his hunger prominent, he started working on escape. [He was going to the Vet’s to be “fixed” and had fasted all night.] ◦◦◦◦◦ Had breakfast. It was almost time to punch the clock. Colin arrived from Wheeler. We were chatting when I saw Checker sprint across the yard. What?! How? I ran and grabbed him. How long has he been out? (If more than five minutes, he’d have caught and devoured a vole but felt skinny still.) Took him, in full squirm, back to the trailer. Sure enough, he’d wriggled behind the logs and boards and clawed a cat-sized hole through the screen. I fixed them back in place. My fugitive kitty was on the loose again in minutes, having the technique dialed. Angry now, and busy at work, I threw him in the trailer’s tiny bathroom, locking him in for the duration. ◦◦◦◦◦ Time to go to the vet: I go for the cat and he’s sitting outside, languidly eating grass! Whaaat?! I grab him, look inside: bathroom door ajar, a spreading pool of fetid cat pee on the floor inside. Well, this is what I get for living with cats. Checker was extracting his revenge in advance. Finally got him into a cage at Doug Blaine’s office out by Bridgeport Reservoir. (Brett will pick him up this afternoon and put him in the other trailer—where the food and water is.) ◦◦◦◦◦ On my own today. The job: walk into Piute cabin. No idea what’s going on up there. Took all the food I had, not recalling what (if any) had been left behind last fall. Half dozen eggs, big steak, Italian sausage, rice. Also, lots of clothes, the radio…pack probably 30 pounds. ◦◦◦◦◦ Fine warm day. Rolled out of the trailhead parking lot just at noon. Really prime spring day; much enjoyed the returned flowers and greeted them all by name. ◦◦◦◦◦ Worked all the way in. Removed many stones, cleaned WBs—with my pack on. That all-charged-up state, ignoring the fact that I shouldn’t be hacking at this ditch just now—I should be walking. Saw many things. Met a group at Roosevelt Lake; guy with ‘em who’d “been coming up here since ’69.” He lamented how there were people everywhere compared to those earlier years. Way more crowded. I asked, “Have you been to the waterfall?” He looked quizzical so I said, “If you don’t remember, you haven’t seen it—the most spectacular feature on this river.” Told him about all the old trails that lace up this country…how, back in the day, when a trail got bad it was abandoned and a new one just got “ridden in”…that there were old trails everywhere nobody used any more. Fella seemed amazed and didn’t even realize he’d just been given a hot tip from the ranger; been coming up all these years but had no idea I was even up here, had never met me, and thus showed that he also didn’t read signs. (If he had, he’d have known he’d just been given a hot tip.) [My “ranger note,” posted by the trail, mentioned that those “demonstrating a certain level of enthusiasm” might receive such a tip.] But thanked me for the info, said he’d be sure to check it out on his next visit. ◦◦◦◦◦ River really full. The roughs spectacular! That slot is plenty impressive in low water—a quarter mile straightaway between rock walls with the trail on a ledge—but…fill that crevice with churning white froth&roar and it just plain mesmerizes. Concentrated power, constrained forces, chaos, turbulence. Death, if you go in there. Think about it: all that unleashed energy sweeping past, at speed. Is it any wonder that it should affect a person so viscerally when they approach? Who knows, in a psychological/energetic sense, what’s really going on? But if you step to the edge of a vertical cliff that drops straight into a ripping white flood, you will feel different—instantly. You will feel good…will know you are alive and that you could instead be dead. Without thinking about any of these whys, you will find yourself delighted. ◦◦◦◦◦ A bit later, had a shock: well-tired by this time, I understood that my arrival at the cabin would be after sundown, with a tricky crossing right at the last. It’d been an extra-fine day. But I had one of those flashes—not quite a distinct thought—and suddenly came face-to-face with this notion: The cabin…my refuge…might not be there waiting. Everything might not be “okay”! Naturally, I ignored the intuitive quality of this unanticipated flash. As usual, I wrote it off but did consider concrete examples of how things might be not-right at my arrival. I formed an image of one of the big lodgepoles having fallen right across the cabin, slicing it in half…the call to Minden dispatch, having them relay to Bridgeport that the cabin was destroyed…. ◦◦◦◦◦ Past Fremont junction: only four more miles. Beat. Shouldna cleaned all those waterbars, son. After there, little sign of recent use. Old horse and human prints in mud and wet sand with pine needles blown into them. Lots of sticks and pine cones on the tread with undisturbed tiny rivulets running. Felt the solitude strong—nobody around. ◦◦◦◦◦ A number of largish downed trees—6 or 8. A few of them big; a few of them will be difficult for stock to get around. Seeing the trail in this state, early season, makes obvious how critical maintenance is: if you neglect mountain trails they quickly become impassable. They’re highly dynamic systems. ◦◦◦◦◦ Made it to Upper Piute at about 7:15. A real thrill to come over that last hill and see the peaks again, covered with snow like the very first time, and hear the river-roar. Which finally focused me: Gotta get myself across. Ulp! I’d been ignoring this but had felt the tension building. Suddenly: I’m there. Had my Tevas [sandals] strapped to the pack for this very stretch. But I got to the ford and found myself standing on the shore of a lake—all the way across the meadow!—with a couple of small islands. That stunning, craggy-mountain backdrop which was completely ignored. I was quite fatigued and had the crux yet to do. ◦◦◦◦◦ Wasted no time but felt gen-u-ine fear. Now, some days later, I can say that I’ve almost never felt “fear” as a ranger—not like this. Climbing, fear is factored in to a largely controlled situation. Wading this deep, frigid river at dusk had several unknown variables. It was a nasty shade of greenish-brown, bottom who-knows-where, and coldness radiated from it like heat comes off a rocky slope in the late afternoon. ◦◦◦◦◦ This is a perfect ford—broad, flat-bottomed…good run-out downstream—but, in flood, a river’s channels (filled with the previous summer’s sand and gravel) get scoured and deep holes can form. I got right down to business but did not like the look of my river; especially concerned since the bottom wasn’t visible. I stripped naked and added clothes and boots to my pack’s weight. Unbuckled chest- and hip-straps and strode on in. ◦◦◦◦◦ Not to be too dramatic here but one of the cool things about adrenaline: you just don’t feel pain! How wonderful, and how essential, to remove that distraction in times of need. I barely even registered the cold—all I cared about was (not) getting swept off my feet. (The river being, at present, a torrent of very recently melted snow, probably in the low 40s, that was moving probably 3-5 times faster than it does in late summer.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Current stiff but manageable. And down I went; calf-deep…thigh…crotch…belly. Thought—hoped—I was at the deepest but kept going down and then the pack was floating, holding me up, and I started to try and “run” but only my toes touched bottom. Suddenly perceived that I was starting to float down the river. Instant surge of fear and I lunged forward, toes digging into gravel, and then it was uphill with cascading sand underfoot. I was all rushed! Waded across the meadow, mostly thigh-deep, to the lodgepoles on their little island (so I got to walk on “dry” land for 30-40 feet). Final wade through the mucky, now-under-water pond [old ox-bow pond that has water in it most of the summer] to climb out right below the cabin. The meadow visibly “flowing” with a current all the way across. Quite an experience; I was thrilled to be on the cabin-side of the West Walker and finally noticed the beauty of snowy mountains reflected in meadow-ponds and brimming ox-bow lakes. Glad to be home! ◦◦◦◦◦ Couldn’t help but notice the scores of white paper plates scattered everywhere. My legs were completely numb when I heaved off my pack on the porch. A bear had evidently visited. Most obvious thing: shattered glass everywhere and foul smell. I knew what it was: that old glass whiskey bottle full of creosote I’d found years before cached in a rock crevice. I’d kept it for the bottle but also in case I wanted to treat some fenceposts—with what is now a banned substance. I’d put the corked bottle on a ledge above the entrance to the porch, right where you step up. The bear had climbed that center post and knocked the thing off…so the porch was covered with shattered antique glass and a smelly brown patch of toxic petroleum distillate. Oh, well. I was dripping and shivering by this time. Deal with it later…. ◦◦◦◦◦ Opened the cabin with the trusty key. The porch was chaos but the inside looked great, at first—mattresses stacked on the table and covered with tarp, just like I’d left it. But something started intruding…a weird light coming from the loft. (Skylight covers closed.) I walked back, noting junk on the floor, and peered up into the loft, seeing blue sky through a bear-sized hole ripped through the roof—just like the one I found here on my first day as Piute ranger in ’88, and right next to the repair job. Hole clawed through 1X12, shingle-clad pine boards. I climbed up the ladder to find loft  ransacked. By some incredible miracle or my good karma, the bear did not leave the loft and inflict random carnage upon my home. There was still food left in the cupboards that the bear, with a sense of smell literally thousands of times greater than our own, was fully aware of. It’s strange to report that, at the moment I grokked that this bear had been through the roof, I felt no anger, resentment or even dismay. It had no effect on me at all. I felt only calm acceptance. This may have been enhanced by perspective recently gained by not having been swept down the river and drowned. I hope it means that I’m finally growing up. ◦◦◦◦◦ When I walked (rather, muscled) through the front door in ’88 the entire interior had been pillaged. Things all over the floor, doors ripped off cabinets. Anything food-like or even vaguely resembling food-like substances had been eaten, bitten, or slobbered on. Moldy bear-crap on my bed. A royal mess. So this deal looked pretty wonderful to me just then. Thanks for letting me off this one time! I probably don’t deserve it! ◦◦◦◦◦ Curious thing about this break-in: there was a malicious element. Things were dragged back out via the hole and scattered throughout the area—namely, a package containing about 300 paper plates (left over from dog&pony shows). Four polyester sleeping bags were outside on the ground in various states of torn and frayed. A shredded tent out by the tool-shed. Margaret’s stash of tampons were scattered behind the cabin, all poofed up, along with her cabin-clothes. Strangest of all, a roll of clear plastic sheeting (Visqueen®) was out by the round corral, stretched along the base of that little fence and wrapped around several trees—about 25 yards of 8-foot-wide plastic. I know the wind did it but I envision the bear gleefully dragging the roll around the yard and wrapping it around trees like a teenager “TP-ing” a friend’s house. ◦◦◦◦◦ I took all this in wryly. And much, much more. Cabin in great shape, otherwise. Mouse poison still left behind so no rodents in residence (though plenty of the green poison turds scattered on surfaces). A nice, breezy, open feel to the place. I was really exhausted but managed to build a fire and BBQ a thick New York steak I’d bought from Albert-the-butcher that morn. I grilled it to perfection and demolished two-thirds of the thing in minutes. ◦◦◦◦◦ Did not sleep like a baby; too tired and sore for that. But slept hard and deep. Oh: failed to mention that I took the old river trail and visited “the waterfall” myself. Stupendous. I’ve only seen it in flood a couple times. A real whumper.

    5 visitors       12 miles        12 WBs cleaned        1 lb. trash bits        900 lbs. rock

Copied inside the cover of this volume of Piute Log:

“The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
                                                                        —Erich Fromm


  © 2015 Tim Forsell                                                                                                                         19 Aug 2015

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