Piute Log...They Wuz Gone 1992

 One of the great things that came with being Piute ranger was my association with the colorful characters at Leavitt Meadows Pack Station, owned and operated by Bart Cranney. We had an arrangement with Bart whereby I could board my stock there when I was out of the backcountry in exchange for an occasional load of hay—a very loose, off-the-books arrangement that was no doubt technically “illegal.” This made my life a lot easier—otherwise, I would’ve had to truck my horses back and forth from town on a regular basis. It also made the pack station my base of operations for seventeen summers. It was there, starting in 1987, that Bart, Doc Grishaw, and various employees more or less taught me the essentials of how to work with livestock and not get killed. If Doc was there and wasn’t busy, the two of us would chat while I was loading up. When we both had time to spare, he’d sometimes have me and whoever I was with up to the house for tea. Bart, on the other hand, was usually occupied but on occasion we’d talk at length—something I never got enough of. Bart—who was tall and lanky and looked exactly like what a pack station operator should look like—had a quiet charisma and was wise in the ways of running a small business dependent on being mule savvy. And about life in general. Over the years I got to know many of his employees and considered some of them friends. We’d run into one another out on the trail and shoot the breeze. There were always plenty of things to gossip and gripe about. I very much enjoyed being part of these people’s lives and gradually became aware that I myself was a reliable source of juicy gossip in their cloistered world. ◦◦◦◦◦ Bart had one child—a daughter—who, as they say, had been riding since she could walk. Taylor Cranney (all the pack station people had great names) was maybe fourteen when we first became acquainted. Just a kid, she was already taking dudes out on guided day rides. Taylor eventually went off to college and I’d see less of her. But each summer she’d work for her dad, at least during peak season. As she got older we became good friends and ended up with a solid connection. It was always a real treat to see her—top shelf in every regard, she was a fine specimen of humanity. “Tay” was not a frail woman—maybe 5’9”, a physical powerhouse…calm, smart, girl-next-door pretty…exuded integrity and self assurance: the complete package. ◦◦◦◦◦ Taylor was also a classic example of how one never knows what life is going to do with them. I can’t recall what her major was at UC San Diego but I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with her eventual career choice. She met “Tony,” a Greek boy (whose actual name was Adonis) in one of her classes. Tony’s family owned a hotel in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. They got married and he took his American bride back home. Tony eventually took over running the hotel with a brother. At first, Taylor taught English (becoming fluent in Greek in the process) but then she and Tony bought a comic book store—that’s right…a comic book store—and Taylor ran it. So: country girl from Coleville, California, a no-stoplight town near the Nevada border, marries a guy named Adonis, moves to Greece, and ends up living in a big city selling comic books. As near as I could tell, she had a happy marriage and enjoyed a good life in her adopted country. Had kids. I believe she eventually bought a horse.

27 Aug (Thu)     ◦◦◦◦◦ Rode down to Lower Piute to Cranney’s basecamp for dinner. (Cindy, this year’s cook, gave me an invite when I saw her at the pack station the other day.) Turns out Taylor was visiting, yay! When I rode into camp, some little girls were in the process of telling Tay that the horses  were “starting to go down the river.” We’d barely gotten past hello but I asked, “Want some help bringing ‘em in?” Tay said “Sure!” and jumped on a horse, not bothering with a saddle or bridle, and I got back up on Red. ◦◦◦◦◦ Couldn’t find the truants: they wuz gone. We searched all around the big partially timbered meadow/pasture—a place where they shouldn’t have been able to disappear. We wandered all around in there, checking the willow thickets, then I went back up the meadow on my own (Red all wigged out) and finally headed back to the main trail and through the lower drift fence thinking they must’ve gotten out somehow. Sure enough, 200 yards or so down the trail their tracks appeared from out of the rocks and jumped back on the freeway: they were heading back to the pack station, where all their friends were. No time to go get Taylor, knowing these guys were heading home and not wasting any time, so I just jumped on it. Fifteen minutes later, at the Fremont crossing, some campers saw me coming. A man, pointing, said, “They went thataway.” Another guy added, “You’re gonna have to go faster than that, Ranger, if you wanna catch ‘em—they’re only five minutes ahead of you but really moving.” ◦◦◦◦◦ So we flew down the trail, Red totally pumped up now, mad-dashing over terrain he’d never taken at a full-gallop before, rocks be damned. Finally caught up with three bad boys right in the narrowest, cliffy-est section of the roughs and just fell in behind them so’s to not get everybody more excited. Still, this was only pushing them homewards so, as soon as we got out of the narrows, made my move. All four head were now in a knot charging down the trail pell mell in a cloud of dust. I was kicking Red (no spurs) trying to get him to pass, getting sprayed with sand and gravel, whipping tree branches down with my arm like a skier crashing gates. It was very very exciting. But couldn’t get around them. Finally, saw my big chance up ahead: the little reroute Doc and I put in last year that now switchbacks up the hill leading to Bamboo Flats. The three escapees took the switchbacks and I forced Red to run full speed up the rocky gulley where the trail used to go. We just managed to cut them off and had us a brief stalemate there at the top of the hill. I yelled and cussed and they started back up the trail looking chastened (not really) but then one of those rascals cut around me and the chase was on again. Should’ve given it up then and there. But I was fully committed, in that frame of mind where you just abandon yourself and put all trust in the horse. (In retrospect, I may have been  motivated by saving the day and impressing Miss Taylor. Yup…that’s probably what was really going on.) Tried to head ‘em off once more by cutting those short switchbacks on the other side of Bamboo Flats. Red dove off this steep hill without any urging and I just hung on, shielding my face with one arm, and somehow made it between juniper branches without getting clocked. But the three knaves ran right around us and flew off down the trail. Time to call it quits. There was no point in continuing so just gave up and turned around. By this time, of course, Red wanted to keep following the others. (Later, discovered that the insides of my knees were rubbed raw and my inner calves were now smooth-as-silk, the hair around the bald patches knotted up in little leg-hair dreadlock clumps.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Less than a mile back up the trail, here came Taylor, still bareback, going full speed. She’d eventually found where the horses had escaped through a place where the old buck-and-pole drift fence was down. Seeing me heading back up the trail, she knew the jig was up and yelled, “F##K!” And that was it—she turned around and started racing back toward camp. I fell in behind her and just tried to keep up, terribly impressed watching this girl gallop full tilt up the rocky trail with nothing but raw talent and a handful of mane. Made it back to basecamp just before dark, in time for supper. Finally got to sample some of Cindy Silva’s famously good chow. We told our story around the camp fire—Taylor pretty embarrassed, of course, by losing the horses. But, hey! We’re dealing with four-leggers here: “**it happens.” It just does. ◦◦◦◦◦ Finally rode home without benefit of moon, by starlight only. Which was plenty. One gorgeous scene in the forest by the river where stars were twinkling on a glassy pool, clear like another starry sky in the river…riding by with the stars blinking on and off through tree branches both in the sky and in the water. Home at eleven. Another A+, four star adventure. Probably not worth risking all our lives, but, hey, we survived. So I guess it was.

 

 

             ©2023 Tim Forsell                                                                      26 Oct 2023                    

Piute Log...My Deer Friends--Part 4

 Final installment. Once again: at Piute, mule deer were part of my day-to-day existence. I firmly believe that living alongside card-carrying wild animals who accept one’s presence rather than displaying overt fear falls under the rubric of Right Livelihood. On the other hand, I haven’t really underscored here that our “relationship” was somewhat artificial. In a sense, having a hunk of compressed salt on a stump thirty feet from the cabin door was comparable to putting out seed for the tweety birds. Over time, I gradually figured out that an entire network of six-inch-wide trails, like spokes of a wheel, led directly to that salt block. There was a sizeable contingent of “regular customers” but many of the salt-seekers—obviously much more skittish than the locals—came from farther afield and only on occasion. Bucks usually came alone or with a couple of their bros. ◦◦◦◦◦ One more comment: a doe mule deer reaches sexual maturity before they’re two. So, during my eighteen seasons at Piute Meadows, I may well have gotten to know nine or ten separate generations—nine or ten generations of fawns who first came to the cabin with their mothers…fawns whose mothers, they could sense, weren’t overly concerned about that strange two-legged creature standing there. So they were generally very calm and curious, sniffing the air. I cherished seeing the innocent, inquisitive looks on the delicate faces of each summer’s new crop of bambis. 

2 Jul 1993     ◦◦◦◦◦ Fabulous full-moonrise not long after sundown; perhaps one of the most stirring dusk scenes I’ve witnessed here. Missed the actual rising (too bad) but there was all this other stuff to take in: scudding low clouds and high thin cirrus in the west, all of them all orangey-pink, casting the true alpenglow on mountaintops. Everything shimmered with unearthly light, dozens of overflow-pools in the meadow reflecting silvery-pink, many moons in a line mirrored on oxbow ponds and river. Deer at the salt block when I first came out to witness the spectacle. Guess I startled them good because they all spooked, sprinting out of the yard and across the meadow pell-mell, thrashing and splashing through the marshy places. They leapt en masse into the river and swam across—a great watery ruckus it was. In the otherwise silence it sounded like a shark feeding-frenzy. I was mesmerized. Such drama & lights & silence-shatterings! 

 

5 Jul 1995     In the evening I saddled Red and rode across the river, leading Val—off to reclaim the crosscut and tools left stashed at the tree we cut out the other day. But first, scrambled up to the vantage point to take photos and grok the aerial view of Lake Piute. [The river was in full flood after a heavy winter and half of Upper Piute Meadows was under water.] May never see it like this again. I’d turned the horses loose in that bit of meadow just across the log bridge knowing they wouldn’t wander off (this being one of their favorite hangs). From my view-spot I watched them happily grazing away. Once back down, grabbed their halters and went after them. Found Red and Val placidly munching green grass alongside a small herd of deer including one buck…a pastoral scene indeed. Even more so since the deer paid me no heed as I caught up my two—just carried on grazing, no more than fifty feet away. They stood there watching as I led Red and Val away, didn’t bolt into the woods as expected. The encounter left me with that special glow, the feeling of being just another player in this grand drama, standing alongside my peers. As time passes, the locals seem to accept me more and more as just another fellow forest critter. Love it—even if this is nothing more than a private fantasy.

 

11 Jul 1996     ◦◦◦◦◦ Out on the porch writing, heard this very strange sound coming from across the river. Looked up and saw a doe racing across the meadow toward the sound. She did this spectacular arching leap from the river bank—a good 12 feet, I’d say—and landed KER-SPLASH! in deep water, swam the rest of the way, clambered out, disappeared into the forest. Whoa! What was that about! I’d have to guess that the sound was her fawn’s distress-cry. The frantic-mother thing sure came across—in spades. ◦◦◦◦◦

25 Jul 1996     ◦◦◦◦◦ Riding past the sedge-lined pond near the back fence, I saw a doe’s head poking above the greenery. She’d been bedded down in those tall, cool sedges through the hot hours. Made like I didn’t see her until we passed, then looked her right in the eye from thirty feet. Busted! She had her head down by this time, those ridiculous mule’s ears lowered to the horizontal. Spoke to her in my most dulcet-est tone; soothing nonsense, just tryin’ to be friendly. She didn’t bolt. ◦◦◦◦◦

13 Jun 1997     ◦◦◦◦◦ Back at the cabin in the eve, sitting on the porch on one of those folding metal chairs with folded horse blanket under my butt against the cold. All socked in but not raining at the time. Had seen a doe bedded down under the little grove of lodgepoles out in the meadow. I watched as she got up, stretched, and headed (west) for the forest. She had to cross a little ox-bow pond first, which was beautifully reflecting the lower slopes of Hawksbeak Peak, all cliff and snow, so the light in that crescent-shaped pool was a mirror image though the rock parts reflected more of a purple hue. The reflected snow, radiant white, cast an unnatural ethereal glow into this shadowy corner of meadow-world. The doe broke through this mirror and waded into all that light, so graceful with that halting deer-walk—tentative, cautious, with a pause before each step. Ripples spread out in circular waves, surrounding her with an expanding halo. Apart from the river’s rustle all was silent, a near-silence made more pronounced under the thick cloud cover. A scene from Eden before me, original and perfect, so placid and pastoral and gentle on the senses. Entranced, I was trying to let all this sink in. But the spell was broken when the doe came to a full stop halfway across the pool, squatted…and took a leak. (I could hear the tinkling stream clearly over the river sounds, it was so quiet.) This caused me to laugh out loud, ha-hah! Talk about anticlimax! So much for utterly romantic nature-vignette….

11 Jul 2000     ◦◦◦◦◦ Took my bath at last light. Carried pad and towel down to the gravel bar, first time this season. I looked up and, thirty feet away, there was that big five-point buck walking towards me. Hadn’t seen me yet, I think. We—the cat and I—stood there staring and he approached even nearer, curious. A marvelous encounter. Does are one thing but I can’t remember being so close to a wise old-timer, at least not with such openness.

14 Jul 2000     ◦◦◦◦◦ Last evening, up in the hammock, I watched a doe way out in the middle of the meadow, at least ¼ mile away. She was running towards the cabin (salt block…) and gracefully leapt the fence. Lovely sight, not quite sure why so stirring. ◦◦◦◦◦

19 Jul 2003     Up after the robins but woke to their second chorus. [Robins begin calling at first light—talking to each other as they wake up—then “sing” a bit later and on into the morning.] A foggy meadow. Stepped out the door to see what kind of day I was in for, saw fog over all, and then froze: two does and a pair of tiny spotted fawns had moments before left the salt block and were heading north right past the cabin, just beyond the porch. I watched this modest parade go past, ten paces away with the fog and dewy grass and half-hazy trees—a most exceptionally picturesque tableau. I was shocked by just how dissimilar-looking the non-sibling fawns were: different shades of brown, completely different spot-locations and -patterns…even in the shape of their heads and the way they moved. Their nonchalance told me that their mothers have probably known me since they were about the same size and had signaled to them that I was “okay.” None of the deer have ever trusted me, truly accepted me—ever. They always run away if I appear suddenly or come a little too close. But if I’m out in the yard when they arrive—standing still or moving away or showing no interest, not looking directly at them—they’ll tolerate my presence. (Especially if the cats are there, too.) The fact that the moms just didn’t dash off with their kiddies when I came out was quite a display of limited acceptance. As always, it made me feel…good.

 

           ©2023 Tim Forsell                                                                                        23  Oct 2023