Piute Log...Ten Years Ago Today 1993

1 Aug (Sun)     Today happens to be the tenth anniversary of the day I first came here. Wow. But spent it in bed, mostly. [Had injured my back the day before, carrying a heavy log I’d cut to be my new hitchrail.] Up at six, tweaked and temporarily disabled. Had planned a celebratory climb up Tower Peak today but instead took Advil, read books, napped and…accomplished nothing whatsoever. I was pretty glum all day, ate little, and will probably go to bed before it’s even quite dark. Sooooo, not much in the way of festivity but a fine opportunity to tell the story of my first day here at Piute, back in 1983. ◦◦◦◦◦ Ten years ago, today I was hanging out on Movie Flat in the Alabama Hills [outside Lone Pine] and had been “camping” there since early March, living out of my Toyota pickup with the little shell that I’d turned into a mini-camper and was essentially money-free. But I was rock climbing on all those picturesque boulder outcrops, taking daily strolls and scrambling up peaks every week or so (a number of them the local fourteeners). ◦◦◦◦◦ I’d turned twenty-five three weeks previously…quarter of a century old. Waking up each morning at sunrise I’d sit up and look out my camper window at the glowing face of Mt. Whitney lit up deep orange or red, full of anticipation for another day. In order to feed myself and pay for gas I was hustling jobs—cleaning windows, digging ditches (yes, well, digging electric-line trenches for an old man in town), fixing little-old-ladies’ fences and scrubbing grime off their kitchen walls with ammonia-soaked rags. There were days when the entirety of my monetary assets wouldn’t buy me a loaf of bread and on those days I went to town and found some work. ◦◦◦◦◦ In exchange for meals I was also washing dishes and helping out part-time in a little café where, within days, I met “Lucky” Lorenzo Stowell. Turned out that this guy—a strapping, tanned man who looked about forty (he was forty-eight) with bushy black hair and beard—worked for the Forest Service and had just returned to the states from Ecuador prior to starting his seasonal job up north. In the interim, he was staying with his friend Robert—the guy who owned the café. So, over a couple of weeks, I became friends with this certified lunatic who ended up being my boss for eight years and who also became my mentor, friend, and brother-in-arms. ◦◦◦◦◦ As a matter of fact, the day we met, it was around lunchtime. I happened to be washing dishes just a few yards away and was barely aware of this loud, animated talker at the counter speaking to a softer-spoken man whose voice I didn’t even notice—just some random stranger who had evidently just asked the loud one what he did for a living. (Lorenzo, I soon learned, would happily talk to anyone who’d stand still.) I wasn’t paying attention but whoever this guy was, he talked very loudly. And when I overheard him say “I work for the Forest Service…I’m the Wilderness Foreman up in Bridgeport,” I instantly toweled off my hands and sweaty brow, walked right over to him, stuck out my hand and (I remember this clearly) said these words: “Hi! I’m Tim. You need to hire me.” The bearded madman turned to face me, glanced down at my extended hand, leaned back on his stool, shook said hand while looking me over, and said, (I also remember the exact words) “Oh yeah? Well, what can you do? People who work for me have to be wilderness fanatics.” We talked just a bit more, and later, because—by chance—we ended up being neighbors for the next two weeks or so. He was staying at Robert’s leased property on the lower slopes of Lone Pine Peak, right at the very foot of the Sierra front just a couple of mountains over from Whitney. (Fabulous place, another story.) By this time I’d moved into the old barn there and Lorenzo was staying in a tiny trailer less than a hundred yards away. I’d visit him the evenings and we’d drink his cheap red jug-wine while he mesmerized me with incredible stories told in a fashion I’d never heard before. He was really animated, a genuine raconteur who spoke in different voices representing a bunch of made-up characters he peppered his tales with. He didn’t talk about himself or delve into what he thought about things—he mostly told stories and spun yarns. Lorenzo and I quickly became friends. But he told me right off there was no way he could hire me. (For one thing, I didn’t have a college degree.) ◦◦◦◦◦ But then: that spring there were  serious flash floods all over the Sierra—runoff from the previous winter’s massive snowpack—and one hot July day, I showed up at the café and Robert told me Lorenzo had called for me. Turns out he’d just had a bunch of FEMA money dropped in his lap for emergency trail repair—enough to hire a two-person contract “trail crew.” When I called back he told me to get an application, fill it out, tell all sorts of lies about my experience (I had none) and…he told me what to bid. “I’ve got $6000 to hire two guys for ten weeks. So you have to bid $3000—any more, you won’t get it. Three thousand. Exactly.” I remarked that, so far as I knew, it was illegal to tell potential government contractors what to bid. He laughed. Don’t recall any reply but this was  merely the first of many crimes Lorenzo committed while I worked for him. ◦◦◦◦◦ In short, I got hired along with “Big Jim” Kohman, who at the time was working for Lorenzo as a volunteer just to be doing something new and different. Jim, 6’5”, was very mild-mannered and agreeable, calm, and he had a taste for the ironic and absurd—the ideal workmate. I drove up from Lone Pine on the July 31^st and we all met up that evening at Wheeler Guard Station [Forest Service housing facility, formerly a fire station, near the Sonora Pass junction along Highway 395] as arranged. I walked in and there were those two, Lorenzo gabbing away. Shaking Jim’s hand, I grinned…knew instantly that we’d get along fine. (He was the Piute ranger in ’85, ’86, and most of 1987 while I was up Robinson Creek. We’re still friends; now he’s a carpenter and lives in Santa Cruz.) ◦◦◦◦◦ I remember nothing of the next morning. I’m sure there was frenzied last-minute packing. Our first assignment was to walk to a distant backcountry station Lorenzo called “Piute” where the ranger-in-residence—I’ll call him “Kelly”—would put us to work for the next ten days and show us how to do “trailwork.” We were to deliver a note from Lorenzo (I still have it) that starts out, “Dear Kelly, please work the piss outa these two guys.” ◦◦◦◦◦ We drove to Leavitt Meadows Campground and parked at the metal bridge. Get this: I was carrying my old Kelty Tioga frame pack, ten days worth of food and clothes, sleeping bag, personal gear, my own tent & stove & fuel; a couple of books. My pack, I recall, weighed more than Jim’s—it was an honest sixty pounds if not a little more. Definitely the heaviest load I’d ever carried. In addition, we’d each been issued a fire shovel, long-handled brush loppers, a doublebit axe, and a pulaski [firefighter’s tool, like a doublebit axe but with one side of the head an adze for grubbing]. I strapped the axe and loppers on the pack  and carried the pulaski and shovel in either hand. (This was now an immense load…probably close to seventy-five pounds.) ◦◦◦◦◦ The trip was an up & down, eleven mile hike on a hot day; generally following the river but much of it away from water. My hiking boots at the time were really crummy and they scrunched my toes so, not far into our ordeal, I switched to my Nike running shoes. We’d been instructed to “rock” the trail [remove loose stones from the trail tread] on the way in  but we gave up on this after a few miles. ◦◦◦◦◦ Every step was an effort. I’d never gone out for ten days before; never carried a pack anything near so heavy…plus all those tools! (Later that day, learned that this was a sort of hazing—once at the cabin, we found a bountiful cache of all the tools we’d carried in.) The hike went on and on and on. My eyes were glued to the trail after the first mile or so and I remember few details aside from the heat, the sagebrushy smells, the view of imposing Tower Peak in the distance (which I climbed just a few days later with Kelly). ◦◦◦◦◦ Big Jim was hurting, too, and for the same reasons. His size fifteen feet were crammed into the largest boots he’d been able to find—size fourteens. (He ended up badly blistered.) We marched, then plodded, then staggered…tiny steps, burning thighs, aching shoulders and hips rubbed raw under the straps. Farther along the slog, we began to take many breaks. With a pack station near the trailhead, this trail had constant livestock traffic and was consequently pounded to fine sand and dust. Long stretches were much like walking on a beach (a complaint I later fielded countless times from disgruntled backpackers). ◦◦◦◦◦ Back then, all the trail signs came out of a Forest Service regional sign shop in Salt Lake City and they still had mileages. [Mileage on trail signs was gradually phased out in Wilderness Areas.] We came to one that completely demoralized us: it said that we’d come six miles from Leavitt Meadows and had six miles to go to Upper Piute Meadows. We’d only come half way?! No!! Groan! What we didn’t know was that this notorious sign was way off: it should’ve read seven miles back to the trailhead, four to Piute Meadows…and it was eleven miles in, not twelve. So we’d actually gone about two-thirds of the way. At the time, we were both seriously deflated. ◦◦◦◦◦ Eventually, we reached the flats along the meandering river in Lower Piute Meadows. Then that final, cruel climb, which just about finished us off. But then: glimpses of dramatic peaks through the trees…a barbwire stock fence and gate…lodgepole pine thicket leading down to a languidly slow-flowing West Walker River. (We’d left the drier mixed forest some miles back and had finally entered the alpine zone—it now felt like we were in the real high-country.) As we dropped down to the river crossing the view opened up into a truly stunning, National Park-caliber vista. This happened suddenly and most dramatically: dead ahead was the Sierra crest and Yosemite Park boundary, only a few miles away. Hawksbeak Peak dominated the skyline—craggy, with classically pointed summit (and still largely snow-covered after the monumental winter). We took our shoes off to wade across a partially submerged log bridge. Final tottering steps up to the cabin which proved to be the quaintest old-timey log cabin imaginable, perched on a knoll just above the most gorgeous mile-long meadow I’d ever seen, buried deep in this glacier-carved valley. The cabin had a giant, roofed porch of laid stone. (A good covered porch is maybe the most important feature of a house, sez I.) ◦◦◦◦◦ The ranger wasn’t home so we had awhile to take all this in. And I vividly recall these, my first impressions: dripping sweat, clothes drenched, I heaved my pack off and leaned it against the porch railing—my feet, hips, shoulders, thighs, back were fried. I put both hands on that thick log rail, leaned forward, surveying the scene. The delightful sensation of a gentle breeze cooling my sweat-soaked T-shirt, the sensation of sudden lightness, almost floating. And this gen-u-ine, real live log cabin (I’d never been in a log cabin)—somebody’s home!—in a place that felt like heaven…a haven, a sanctuary, in an ideal mountain setting. It was, flat out, the finest “scene” I’d ever run into and I felt awed at the idea that someone actually got to live and work at a place like this. To live there. I distinctly recall thinking, “This right here, this is it, Tim. This is the best place…ever. It doesn’t get any better.” And I said to myself (actually, this was more of a feeling, a certainty) Whatever it takes—however long it takes—you’re going to live here some day. Never had I wanted anything so badly, and never since. It was a powerful feeling, the way life-changing decisions usually are. ◦◦◦◦◦ The ranger, who I’m calling Kelly for reasons I’ll explain shortly, showed up before my sweat had dried. He was a red-haired Irish crazyperson; loud, brassy, dogmatic, naturally wired. Of course, I felt awed by him. He invited us inside after unlocking and swinging open a metal-grated outer door. I quickly took in the rustic bunks and table, shaft of light illuminating dust in the somewhat dark space, ladder leading to an open half-loft…funky antique wood stove…two bunks made of peeled logs and boards with stained, ancient-looking cotton-batting mattresses…tools hanging from nails on one wall, axes & shovels & sledgehammers in the corner…old aluminum coffee pot and cast-iron skillets. I was enchanted and, although I’ve undoubtedly romanticized this day in my mind, I’ve been telling people for years that when I saw this place that first time I felt like I’d finally come home. ◦◦◦◦◦ It took five summers to get the job, after two rangers had moved on. Kelly looked to be a lifer but two years later he committed a grave error. He’d just come out of the woods and drove to the Forest Service office in Bridgeport where he was overheard on the phone after calling a friend in Berkeley to put in an order for a bag of weed (According to the office gossip, these immortal words: “Send me an ounce! I need it, BAD!”) It was a Saturday and he thought he was alone but, with his always-loud voice, several people in other rooms heard him clearly. This naturally blew up into a big scandal and Kelly had to go. So big Jim took over in 1985, which suddenly opened up a spot for me to take the Robinson Creek position after my summer as a volunteer (1984, the year after our ten-week trails gig). Then, end of August 1987, Jim had had enough of the remoteness and solitude and was ready to move on himself. I was more than keen and spent a few weeks up at the cabin to end my third ranger season. ◦◦◦◦◦ Ten years on, I love this place as much as ever though no doubt I’ve grown somewhat jaded about things that were once pure magic—after all, “it’s just a job.” (No, not really….) But still, nightly, I sit on the  porch (if the bugs are bad or if it’s wet) or down in the meadow on my little folding chair for the big view, and feel thrilled to be here watching the last light crawl up the peaks at sunset or the moon coming over the ridge. This place is my home, my sanctuary; the setting for my moods and contemplations. I live with horses and cats, my “neighbors” are wild animals. Despite the insecurities and built-in temporary-seasonal nature of the job [wilderness ranger positions are classed as “temporary seasonal”], I could never hope to find one finer or better suited to my personality and quite specific needs. This is my true place, my ecological niche—to live a simple, solitary life of toil and sweat on the mountain. I am the steward (Lorenzo always emphasized this) of a discrete chunk of land, a “country,” in the sense we wilderness-types use: Piute Country. I have a relationship with this land and am part of its web of life. No one, literally no one—ever—knows this place better than me. I could never have made it here except for my parents and Robert Frickel and Lorenzo Stowell. I thank them all. Nor could I have pulled this off without good luck, near perfect timing, and patience. To be able to stay here—live this sort of life and keep coming back—I’ve had to give up a lot of things most people (that is, modern American-type folk) consider essential. Not only have the so-called sacrifices been worth it, they’ve shown me how little we truly need. “The man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.” (Thoreau) Security is an illusion. And I’ll probably pay for my decisions later in life when I’m broke-down and poor. But, meanwhile, I’ve been showered with grace and good fortune. They’ve been heaped upon me. I’ve seen things, done things, and had way more fun than ‘most ev’rybody. Thanks for everything! The good and the bad!

Copied inside the cover of this volume of Piute Log:

From the day I first set foot in interior Alaska, and more specifically on Richardson Hill, I knew I was home. Something in me identified with that landscape. I had come, let’s say, to the dream place. Not exactly, of course, for there never was an exact place, but here was something so close to it that I could accept it at once. I think such a recognition must be rare, and I was extremely fortunate to have it happen in the way that it did. Such a purity of feeling, of joy and of being in the right place, I have not often felt since. 

                                                     John Haines, from Living Off the Country

I ended up spending sixteen full seasons stationed at the Piute Meadows cabin over a twenty-one year stretch. After 1988, I missed only one—1998—when I was a full-time  packer for three Toiyabe Forest trail crews. My last, 2003, was the year a new supervisor took over, a man who proved to be the-boss-from-hell (everybody gets at least one…). The following spring, when I received my re-hire packet, it came with a new job description: there were to be no more rangers stationed in specific areas, no more use of livestock, no more basecamps even. It couldn’t have been more obvious that I was being asked to leave. It almost broke my heart and I never went back, never will. But, things usually work out for the best—this departure set me up for my almost-but-not-quite-as-good gig at Crooked Creek, in the White Mountains, where I met Dylan, married, and started a whole new phase.

      ©2018  Tim Forsell                                                                                               12 Apr 2018