Piute Log...Waterbreaks and Dips 1996

 Towards the end of each season I’d begin “winterizing” my trails—that is, digging out established drainage channels to keep snowmelt from eating away at the trail tread come spring. I’d spend days at a time tending waterbreaks, mostly in late spring and then again in the fall. For the uninitiated: “waterbreaks” are low-lying barriers made of half-buried rocks, strategically placed to divert water off the trail. Keeping them working as intended is something of an art: to clear one properly takes time, forethought, and knowledge gained through experience. (Doing a slapdash job is time wasted; one twenty-minute thunderstorm will fill inadequately cleared diversions with sand and debris. They overflow. And then you have an erosion problem.) ◦◦◦◦◦ It was clear from the start that there was no way I’d ever be able to build all the waterbreaks my forty-plus miles of trail needed—it would take a full-time trail crew. Once or twice a season I’d buckle down and construct a few new ones; maybe bust out two in a day’s time if the right kind of rock was near at hand. But that was it. After a while I figured out that, in lieu of building proper waterbreaks, I could just excavate a simple channel, piling the material below to form a little dam-wall. These “drainage dips” work quite well if dug out frequently. Problem is, if you have heavy spring snowmelt or lots of  summer thunderstorms, running water quickly fills unreinforced diversions with sand and they then overflow. And when multiple drainage diversions fail, the runoff—particularly on steep downhills—often ends up coursing down long stretches of trail, trapped in the groove. Runoff accelerates wherever the trail’s gradient increases and, if multiple drainage channels fail, a single heavy downpour can carve out a deep, narrow defile in just minutes. ◦◦◦◦◦ Sadly, countless miles of seldom-if-ever maintained trails in the Sierra have become stone-filled ditches that can never be restored. For this reason I was fanatical when it came to tending my trails’ drainage needs and, during the last few weeks of the season, would typically spend days at a time doing heavy shovel work. Done by the book, digging out a waterbreak or dip requires shifting a shocking amount of material. Loose rock is removed and whatever’s left gets tossed back onto the trail just downslope. An often-neglected but vital step is digging out the “runway”—the area just off-trail where sediment drops out as the runoff slows. Ideally, there needs to be lots of room for deposition and, better yet, a little increase in gradient so that sand and organic debris gets washed farther downhill. If not, all that material starts to backfill into the trail, eventually rendering the drain ineffective. ◦◦◦◦◦ I’ve spent a significant portion of my life shoveling out drainage diversions. Having had lower back issues starting when I was a teenager (due to a couple of slightly malformed lumbar vertebrae), all that twisting-while-lifting was always hard on the ol’ body. Accordingly, a great many of my log entries include mention of aching backs. These are occasionally followed by an ambiguous stock phrase: “Life of a ranger.”—this, a generic, wry commentary on less-than-pleasant aspects of living and working in the backcountry. 

 

5 Oct (Sat)     Not too sore today after yesterday’s shovel-fest. Hung out by the stove all morn, working on this log and reading. But…time grows short and there’s still many many waterbreaks yet to clear. Walked down to the Cascade Creek trail and started up Harriet Hill with shovel in hand. Haven’t worked this stretch all season and the waterbreaks and dips were full of sand and loose rock and pulverized mule poop. Many of the dips were full to the point of being non-functional. Dug out dozens of ‘em, which amounted to hundreds of shovel-fuls of sand and, of course, the frequent slamming of shovel-tip into buried stones…resulting reverberations rattling my bones, boi-oi-oing! Down on my knees in a cloud of dust; scooping, scraping, tossing rocks, flinging dirt ‘til arms started going numb. Copious sweat mixed with airborne dirt leaving arms and face covered with a thin layer of salty mud…more self-abuse. Life of a ranger…. ◦◦◦◦◦ Worked as far as Cascade Falls. Back screaming for mercy by this time so I called it quits and stashed my shovel. Clambered down into the gorge to wash off some of the filth and drink deep from the cool waters. Visited the falls up close and personal—such a magical place! Then, like yesterday, climbed up the other side of the mini-gorge and contoured back toward the cabin. Took a slightly different route this time; again, battled that horrible jungle of white fir saplings down low and, again, came out right at Cranney’s Meadow. ◦◦◦◦◦ Home at 6:00, thoroughly beat after three days of shoveling in a row—pretty much the most abusive activity for my poor beleaguered spine. I dropped my pack, plopped down in the folding chair by my bed, and had just started taking off my boots when—groan!—I heard someone outside. On the porch. A knock on the door. “Hello?” A youngish man squeezed through the door with giant pack still on his back. I knew this person but it took a second to place him. Kurt. I was momentarily stunned and speechless—the guy was talking away but I barely heard over my brain-spin. This fella Kurt (whose last name I’ve forgotten) was an interpreter and front desk person in Bridgeport for a couple-three summers before getting fed up with the FS and moving back to Indiana. That was a couple of years ago. There was never an opportunity to get to know one another when he was around but I recall him being very sharp, very professional…always seemed really on top of things when I happened to be in the office and heard him on the phone or chatting up visitors. Unfortunately, the very! last! thing I needed just then was an unexpected visitor and having to forcefully switch into host-slash-entertainer mode. Kurt immediately sensed my reserve—his discomfort was manifest. He just stood there, uncertain what to do. But when he said Roy Wood (his fellow-Hoosier friend and mentor who’s been in charge of our front desk for the last several years) (who I also barely know) was right behind him and another friend as well, I quickly lightened up and said, “Come on in. Take a load off.” Thank gawd! This changed everything. It’s so much easier on me to have more than one guest; they can entertain themselves and I don’t have to make conversation. I’ve always hated that thing where people feel compelled to talk talk talk, with never a pause. It just wears me out. What can I say? I’m basically antisocial. ◦◦◦◦◦ A minute later Roy showed up with a young woman of about twenty or twenty-one. Kristen, neighbor and childhood friend of Kurt’s (apparently not his girlfriend) is an urban, Midwestern gal who’s plainly never seen nuthin’ like this before. A real-live log cabin in the woods! A scruffy ranger! She was flat-out floored by the whole scene. Kristen had just entered a different time zone, and I don’t mean Pacific Standard: another century. She walked through the door, gazing all around with a look of childlike wonder on her face, her mouth literally hanging open. After a few seconds she gushed—this was so cute: “You have to…you have to be like…like a real mountain man to live here!” It had me remembering my own initial reaction to this place, which wasn’t all that different come to think of it. (Substitute immature, suburban, Southern California boy….) ◦◦◦◦◦ I adjourned to my hammock [thirty feet up a lodgepole pine in front of the cabin] with a beer while the three settled in and got my little bit of alone time—all that I really needed as it turned out. It smoothed out my sourpuss attitude and got me to the state of mind where I could actually enjoy an evening spent socializing with virtual strangers. Even whipped up a quick’n’easy dinner for all: a mess of stir-fried veggies and garlicky pasta. We feasted with the stove crankin’ away, very cozy. ◦◦◦◦◦ All of us feeling pretty beat so it was bed by 9:30. My visitors slept inside—Kurt and Roy in the loft, Kristen on the other bunk. (Tomorrow they proceed to Rainbow Canyon.) Oh, but it was a joyous relief to turn off the lantern and crawl into my bag and breathe the long sigh of a well-done day.

 

      →  3½ miles     → 3 visitors     → 40 WBs & dips cleaned     → a ton o’ stone tossed

 

 

Copied on page one of this volume of Piute Log:

 

“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.”

   —Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac

 

 

                 ©2026 Tim Forsell                                                                    5 Nov 2026      

Piute Log...Some Ancient History 1996

 The following entry probably won’t interest many readers…perhaps a certain someone who lives near Bridgeport, who happens to be a fan of this blog. (Dat be you, Blair!) Here I record some obscure bits of Mono County history otherwise lost to time. My logbooks are in fact liberally peppered with esoteric information imparted to me by ranchers, retired Forest Service employees, old mule packers, and life-long residents of Bridgeport Valley. They contain lots of notes about historical sheepherders’ tree carvings…locations of archeological sites and the Sonora emigrant trail…descriptions of old, abandoned trails…anecdotes about colorful local characters. I made a real effort to record this kind of material. I felt like it was important. ◦◦◦◦◦ The place names mentioned herein refer to several of what are known locally as the Sister Lakes—a cluster of alpine lakes with old fashioned girls’ names that dot a small glaciated basin just below Dorothy Lake Pass, a few miles from Piute Meadows.

 

27 Sep (Fri)     When I got back yesterday evening there was a couple camped for the night right across the river from the cabin. I waved but didn’t speak to them as they were in the process of fixing their supper. Around nine this morning, one of the pair came over for a visit. (For whatever reason, the man’s wife didn’t join us.) I was in the middle of packing to leave Piute for a few days but we ended up talking for over an hour. Wish there’d been more time—he had loads of interesting historical information to share. ◦◦◦◦◦ Bill Smith, 47, works for CDF [California Department of Forestry] out of  Placerville. Raised near Walker…local boy. At twenty-one he signed on with the Forest Service in Bridgeport. This was 1970—the same year, he said, that Billy Bryant [another local boy, long in charge of our Fire division] and Don Robbins got hired. (When I showed up in Bridgeport in ‘83, Don—silver haired, jolly demeanor—was one of several long-time employees, good ol’ boys all, who took care of the camp-grounds and did general maintenance work. I remember these laid-back old guys with big beer-bellies who’d show up for work in the morning at the warehouse, then proceed to drink coffee and eat donuts and smoke cigarettes, yakking it up for an hour or so before finally getting in their beat-up green pickups and heading out.) Bill Smith worked in the Rec division and one of his very first jobs was getting sent up to Piute Meadows to fix a huge hole in the roof where a bear clawed its way in and ransacked the place. (I’ve often wondered when that happened: big patch-job just the other side of the crest from my own roof-repair effort.) Didn’t say whether he walked or rode but he no doubt wasn’t alone. And somebody had to have packed in the lumber and shingles. ◦◦◦◦◦ Bill hasn’t been around these parts in years and was delighted to see the cabin being lived-in and well-tended. He had stories to tell about family connections with this area. Jotted a few things down on my ride out…hopefully, I’m getting most of this right. ◦◦◦◦◦ In the early ‘30s, when the Bridgeport Ranger District was still part of Mono National Forest, the DR [District Ranger] was a man named Henry Acheson. At that time, some of the lakes and passes hadn’t yet been named so some sort of survey was undertaken to inventory still-nameless features. Bill’s great-uncle, Bill Earwaker, Sr. (pronounced “air’-aker”) was on this survey. (Having to go out in the field implies that they didn’t yet have accurate maps of the region.) At some point in his career, Bill Earwaker senior had been a “fire guard” at Wheeler [Guard Station]. He lead a crew that built the porch additions some time in the early ‘30s. (Which means that Wheeler is even older than I thought.) In the ‘40s he ran a place Bill called the “Antelope Valley Station,” during the time when Conscientious Objectors—some of them, men who finished construction of Piute cabin after the CCC was disbanded—were based there. (This Antelope Valley Station, a name I’ve never heard, must be the old CCC [Civilian Conservation Corp] camp, which is located somewhere out behind Walker. It was abandoned when we entered WWII and got turned into a CO camp instead.) Earwaker died in 1985. His wife, Harriet—Bill Smith’s great-aunt—was the Harriet of Harriet Lake. Cora Lake was named after Henry Acheson’s wife. Bill isn’t certain but thinks Stella Lake was named for the wife of one Henry McAlester. (Unfortunately, I’ve already forgotten who this fella was…most likely another FS guy.) I didn’t think to ask Bill if he knew who Ruth Lake and Bonnie Lake were named after. ◦◦◦◦◦ Other items: Bill Earwaker Jr., Bill Smith’s cousin—so many Bills!—also worked for the Forest Service out of Bridgeport. For many years. He still lives in Walker. Bill told me he’s the one who really knows about all this stuff. Bill also mentioned a guy named Larry Joe Munson who was Piute Ranger from 1968 through 1970. (Apparently rangers did get stationed here full time back in the day. I’ve always wondered about that.) Larry Joe still lives in the area. Don’t know when there’d be time but I really should try to look these fellas up. One last tidbit: there are remnants of an old “ranger station” at the very back of Chris Flat Campground and remains of another at Sweetwater Summit, way out on Highway 338 across the Nevada line. Probably nothing more than foundations, I’d imagine. These were probably both “guard stations,” similar to Wheeler—basically, bunkhouses where a few “fire guards” were posted during fire season. ◦◦◦◦◦ Well, that was one nifty meeting. Almost missed it! I love love love getting filled in on bits and pieces of “ancient” history. But Bill didn’t want to hold me up any longer and took off without even really checking the place out. Which surprised me. I would’ve been more than happy to give him a quick tour. ◦◦◦◦◦  

 

 

                      ©2026 Tim Forsell                                                           3 Oct 2026                

Piute Log...Quality Encounters 1996

 As time passes, the Bridgeport years (1983–2003) increasingly seem like some sort of dream-fantasy. In so many ways it was all just…too good. One illuminating example: supervision—or lack thereof. Today’s backcountry ranger would find it hard to believe how little direct guidance we received. Or how little paperwork we had to deal with. All of us kept a work log in these chintzy, government-issue spiral-bound steno notebooks. (My first supervisor, Lorenzo, seldom bothered to read mine but I kept at it and by the time I’d moved to from Robinson Creek to Piute my log/diary had morphed from a record of trail conditions and work accomplishments into this overall account of ranger-life.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Looking back, I’m astonished by the dearth of paperwork—how little data we rangers were required to gather; how seldom we were asked to submit written reports. We did have to keep track of a few work-related matters, however, hence the bulleted items that follow most of these entries. Among other things, we recorded the number of two-legged mammals we’d run into—the “visitors”—and in how many independent groups. (Meeting an individual or group of individuals was an “encounter,” in ranger-ese.) We’d tote up these numbers and submit them in a brief end-of-season report. ◦◦◦◦◦ A note on group size: to help minimize Wilderness camping impacts, the limit for backpackers was set at fifteen. Bigger groups had to split up—obtain separate permits, depart from different trailheads, and travel separately. They could meet up during the day but were expected to camp a mile apart—instructions that were routinely ignored. With oversized groups (typically Sierra Clubbers, Boy Scouts, school or church outings) a standard ploy was to get two permits and blow off the rules. This entry recounts one such encounter. In July and August, I’d have at least one of these every week and this is how they’d go: Big groups tend to spread out on the trail, usually with a trip leader at either end. I’d start running into individual pods and greet them in turn. Even if I’d already spoken to one of their leaders I’d ask each sub-group who was carrying the permit, then innocently inquire, “So, how many of there are you? Oh, twenty-two?” Then, when I came up on the leader(s), I’d ask and as often as not they’d flat-out lie. Over the years, I had many long, heartfelt discussions with these folks after they’d finally fessed up. And I’d always let them off, once it became clear that they knew how to reduce their impacts and had assured me they planned to comply. Why let them off? Well, the oversize group issue was a tricky one. The people running these shows were often aware that equestrian groups could also travel in bands of up to fifteen…along with up to twenty-five animals (ten head for packing freight) and however many packers. Any way you looked at it, this wasn’t fair and they knew it. So did I. ◦◦◦◦◦ More back-story on this entry: I’d left Piute the previous day—a Friday—to greet early Labor Day weekend arrivals just starting up the trail. After spending the night in Bridgeport I was headed back in to, as Yeti, our legendary, dearly departed ranger put it, “greet the fans.” There was a big fire going at the time and the air had been smoky for days. 

31 Aug (Sat)     Didn’t stick around town long enough to be spotted and held up. Grabbed a sandwich in town, drove to the pack station, and was back on the trail by 9:30. Not bad! More folks out and about today but not all that many for a Labor-Day-weekend Saturday. Only nineteen cars in the trailhead lot this morn; less than half of what I’d expect to see. ◦◦◦◦◦  Rode up on a couple engrossed in reading my ranger note. I’d passed them on the road an hour before, right before I got to Cranney’s—saw them walking from the trailhead parking lot back to the campground [where the footbridge across the West Walker is located]. Knowing that we’d likely meet on the trail, I automatically gave them a quick once-over. Just from their gear, clothing, and overall vibe it was obvious that the pair were seasoned backcountry travelers. Now they were standing in front of the sign board reading my letter to the visitors. Neither of them heard me ride up so I pulled Red back and waited for them to finish. I just love running into people at my ranger-greeting seeing as how it starts out, “Chances are fair to good we’ll meet on the trail.” So these encounters have enhanced impact right off the bat—ranger showing up in the flesh as if on cue. “Oh! You must be Tim!”… “At your service,” sez I, with tip of the hat. I’ve actually said and done that; quite a few times; a little cheezy, maybe, but effective. And so, instant rapport established and doors opened wide for quality interaction. ◦◦◦◦◦ These two were indeed experienced hands—serious peakbaggers…members of the California Mountain Club (a sort of Sierra Club spin-off but with emphasis on peak climbing). No surprise, they know John Innskeep—the funny old coot I’ve met twice now leading CMC trips to Tower Peak. In fact, the first time I met John in 1993 he was with an oversized group. I nailed him for the ruse of getting two permits and lectured him sternly in front of his eighteen wards. (Old ranger trick: shame the person(s) in charge in front of the whole group, then gently let ‘em off the hook. Really gets the message across.) Turns out John had written trip-reports following both these outings which were subsequently published in the CMC newsletter. The couple I met today were carrying a copy of the earlier report. They handed it to me along with their permit and I gave it a quick scan—a generic “my trip” account like the ones in the Desert Survivors newsletter (ho-hum…) but I was tickled to read this: “…talked with ranger Tim Forsel [sic]. He’s a conscientious ranger and interesting person. If you go up there, try to talk to him.” He recounted my coming down on him for having an oversized group—future outings beware! Excellent. This is just the sort of information dissemination we need for getting the word out to the Wilderness-using public. Free advertising, as it were. ◦◦◦◦◦ Group of eight Boy Scouts at the main Roosevelt Lake camp. Actually, just three scouts accompanied by five adults—chiefs outnumbering Indians by almost two to one. Their leader was this fella, Rod Hall. They’d gotten in late the night before and I was pleased to see they were in the process of looking for a more suitable site on the far shore to move to. Gave them a hot tip of neat place to day-hike to: the waterfall. Told them to keep a sharp eye out for a faint trail—which once upon a time was the trail—cutting across the little meadow with the reedy pond just past Lane Lake. During spring runoff it’s definitely the most spectacular natural feature up here. Still pretty impressive in August. And hardly anyone even knows about it. Not indicated on any map. It might have been years before I finally stumbled on the thing if Doc Grishaw hadn’t told me of its whereabouts. ◦◦◦◦◦ A hundred yards farther on I grabbed my stashed shovel and was grubbing rocks and tossing loose stones when another group showed up, led by a silver-haired gentleman from Santa Barbara—one Arve Sjovold; a “systems analyst” by profession (whatever that might be). We had a brisk dialogue in front of his two sons and friends and friends-of-friends; ten total. Arve is one of those people who are really opposed to livestock in Wilderness and earnestly desire their removal from the Sierra—or, at the least, have areas set aside for hiker use only. He was obviously very intelligent, with forceful personality that no doubt goes with one of his profession: the man wants answers…and concrete solutions to problems. (I could see him being a difficult father or husband or person to work with seeing as how he’d be prone to analyzing other people’s systems.) As it happened, we had a rousing debate and I had ready responses to all his pre-fab arguments and questions and it was obvious that he enjoyed sparring with a ready&willing adversary. I could also tell from the faces of the spectators, none of whom participated, that they were getting a kick out of seeing Arve go head to head with someone who wasn’t intimidated by the force of his personality. Personally, it was gratifying to see that I have the capacity to debate thorny issues with one whose profession is looking at hard problems—using not just logic and rhetoric but practical common sense, based on the understanding that humans don’t operate in a perfect world. Arve’s long-term goal is to at least initiate some sort of process to address stock user/backpacker conflicts. He was clearly delighted to see that I’ve considered his points of view already and am sympathetic to the cause, even though my horse was parked right over there and I’m wearing a Stetson hat, chaps, and spurs. Told him of my idea that ranger districts should at the very least prepare handouts showing drainages and lakes and trails that aren’t visited by stock trains and old trails that can be taken to avoid sand-traps and dust (like the entire West walker trail….). We exchanged addresses and plan to correspond in the future. [Sadly, this never happened.] ◦◦◦◦◦ Rode up to Fremont. None of the hardened sites on the south end occupied! Not a one! A stunning change from years past when I’d start running into people with fishing poles as soon as I got to the lake and there’d be multiple tents in most of the hardened sites. Far fewer folk than normal this time around but, beyond that, something is going up here. Or, rather, not going on. Is backpacking falling out of fashion? ◦◦◦◦◦ Visited the Amenti party (who I call “the Wild Bunch”) at Bart’s basecamp and had a fine chat with the man himself. I hardly ever see Bart in the backcountry when he’s not on horseback leading a string of mules. Not sure if it’s because no one else was available or just that Bart really enjoys hanging out with the Amentis but, once again, he’s taken on the role of camp cook. It’s a lot of work, I know, but he’s basically on vacation. This is one of those rare occasions that I get to see Bart when he’s unharried, unstressed, and cheerful. And get some of his undivided attention. A real treat. Bart Cranny really is one of my favorite people. ◦◦◦◦◦ We had a great talk. Bart passed on several interesting items: he’s found that a pack station has been operating out of Leavitt Meadows since the late ‘70s—not, as I’d previously understood, since the 1940s. That was a surprise. He used to have a list of the names of the old outfits and the people who ran them but lost it, darn. He got all this info from one Pearl Hendricks, an old lady from Yerington, who was somehow intimately connected with the old time packer trade. (He didn’t explain how.) Also, Bart told me that, a long time ago, he’d seen an old map—a map that had different names for some of the lakes. Upper Long Lake was formerly called Borda Lake (as in Borda Meadow, after long-time sheep-permittee) and Lower Long was known as Shamrock Lake. Far superior names, if you ask me. Also, the largest of the Chain-of-Lakes was marked as “Butts Lake.” I’ve known that for some time now but wasn’t sure of the spelling. (Up to now I’ve referred to it as “Butz Lake” in this log.) Still don’t know who Mr. Butts was but these are three new pieces inserted into the puzzle. Love it! ◦◦◦◦◦ Rode home via aforementioned Long Lakes. Saw only two visitors beyond Fremont, dayhiking from their camp there. After leaving Fremont I was shocked at how deserted all that country was—even the PCT bridge camp, unoccupied! Gotta be the smoke. It hasn’t been too bad around these parts but this is, what? Day eighteen? ◦◦◦◦◦ But, turns out I had neighbors at Piute: a group of five sprawled on the riverbank just opposite the cabin, far side of the river. They’d collapsed in exhaustion…could go no further, et cet. They were two nights out from Sonora Pass (this, the second night), heading over Kirkwood, out at Twin Lakes. They knew they were in a quote-unquote illegal spot but “couldn’t walk another step.” I let ‘em slide, of course, since they’d already set up and weren’t going to have a fire. Told them I wasn’t quite as concerned with their camping right by the river since this was a grazed pasture. And expressed hope that my horses wouldn’t drag down their tents in the night. Still, a bit disagreeable having humans so close. I’m used to my solitude and crave the quiet; totally spoiled. Instead, had to listen to their camp-chatter and laughter while working on this log on the porch—could hear everything they said from fifty yards away. But they were all in bed while I still had enough light to write by. 

    →  35 visitors, 6 encounters        →  14½  miles       →  2 pits       →  3 WBs cleaned 

  →  many rocks, grubbed and tossed       →  2 lbs. trash       →  several quality contacts

 

 

                       ©2026 Tim Forsell                                                      25 Sep 2026                  

Piute Log...Close Strike, Tree Visit 1994

 My old friend and climbing partner from early Yosemite days, Diane, came up for a long sojourn while she was on break from nursing school in Pocatello, Idaho. She accompanied me on my rounds and helped with trailwork; cooked meals. We also took a superb four-day backpack into northern Yosemite on my days off. And started having an affair. (Naturally, I made no mention of any of this in my log.) ◦◦◦◦◦ I’d fallen in love with this wild outdoorswoman when we first met in Tuolumne Meadows, back in 1984. The two of us really hit it off but, not surprisingly, she already had a boyfriend. Later, Diane ended up getting together with a good friend of mine (another Yosemite climbing partner and all-around fine human) and moved to his place in Driggs, ID, just outside Grand Teton National Park. They eventually got hitched and had a child—not in that order—but the marriage wasn’t working out and Diane’s and my fling finished it off. No surprise, our backcountry hanky-panky also killed my friendship with her husband, Lars—a really exceptional person who didn’t deserve such treatment. Needless to say, these tawdry details are outside the scope of my work log but…there it is. Diane ended up leaving Lars and moving to Lone Pine where we shacked up for a couple of years in a real-live shack at the foot of the Sierra. (Before that, I’d more or less been living out of my truck during the off-season.) Then she just up and left…moved on. Unfortunately, the Diane saga didn’t end there but I won’t go into any of that. What can you say? This one was a gypsy at heart. She broke mine once, twice, three times. It took me years to recover from all the melodrama. ◦◦◦◦◦ That said, Diane and I had several fine years together. We officially became a couple about a year after this, her first trip to Piute and she came up to visit many times over the next couple of summers. She was strong, brave, and willing; a keen partner and we shared many an adventure.

18 Jul (Mon)    Wet and  humid; another hot, muggy day in the making. The two of us walked up the hill behind the outhouse to the South Fork of Dinky Creek via that narrow gap I call “the Gates of Delirium” (where the monkshood grows thick) and on to the North Fork, which we followed over the hill—an 1800’ vertical gain—and down to Harriet Lake. Another storm brewing. We continued on up to Cora and pulled a bunch of trash out of the main camp’s firepit. ◦◦◦◦◦ To Helen. It started to rain—hard. So hard that we had to don raincoats. Strolled through lush sub-alpine gardens interspersed with glaciated bedrock and out onto the peninsula where we found a big, ugly firepit by a cluster of whitebarks, just ten feet from the shore. Set about tearing it down, throwing all the rocks in the lake. (Prefer not to do this but nowhere to hide ‘em otherwise.) It began to dump, then hail, and lightning was going off right overhead so we decided it was best to ditch the shovel and sit this one out. It kept hailing so we hunkered down beneath a clump of scraggly pines in our coats and shorts and got pretty wet just hunkering. Turned into a virtual deluge so there was nothing for it but to hold tight. Diane was soon chilled (there’s not an ounce of fat on this girl) but we stayed put. ◦◦◦◦◦ We were looking right at the thing when it hit: ground-strike, not seventy yards away. Both of us saw this electric ribbon tear the sky in two with simultaneous resounding roar. There was a poof of smoke. Our bodies involuntarily clenched up tight in full-body terror. I’ve had a few ground-strikes closer to me than that one but didn’t actually see any of them hit. So this was different. Seventy yards sounds like plenty of leeway but I’ll say this: when that bolt struck it felt a whole lot closer. For the next ten minutes or so we were pretty jumpy, waiting resignedly for the fatal flash of blinding light that, post close-strike, your mind assures you is imminent. Diane was getting chilled—was actually shivering—and when the hail finally slacked off and lightning was back up in the clouds where it belongs we went over to check out “the spot.” We’d literally been right where it hit only twenty minutes before the strike! Hoo. It hit in that clump of whitebarks but, surprisingly, didn’t blast any of the trees. Instead, it hit ground. We found scattered hunks soil and duff plus a hundred-plus pound rock that got tossed five feet from its resting place of many millennia. The thing was frosted white on one whole side with a pale, 10,000 V glaze; quite a thing to see. And ponder soberly. ◦◦◦◦◦ Finished the job. Then, in lighter rain, we marched over to Ruth Lake double-time just to warm up and tore out another big pit. The sun finally came out. We took off out coats to let them dry before heading for Dorothy Lake Pass and, walking back down, stopped at Harriet and visited a group camped there. They’d been packed in so we dropped off my bag of trash to be hauled out when the packer returned for them. ◦◦◦◦◦ Marched home. Rain still threatening but none fell on us. At the Cascade Creek crossing, jumped on the old trail then dove over the ridgetop, taking “ranger’s cutoff” [a cross-country route that led directly back to the cabin]. We were both pretty beat. Cold feet (boots thoroughly sodden from the dripping brush). It was an immense pleasure to be back in the cabin and into dry clothes. Ah, the comforts of home! Tea, et cetera.

 

19 Jul (Tue)     Woke up to a cloudy morning, warm and humid nonetheless. Time growing short for Diane in Piute Country and we’ve yet to go see the Grandfather juniper just across the way. So, early, we took the tour. First, walked up to Big Jeff, (the tree I string a hammock in) and visited the ledge where my rope ladder is anchored. Then on to the classic viewpoint of the meadow and on to the Grandfather. As usual, when taking visitors to this holy tree I lead them by hand the last bit with their eyes closed and position them before it. With eyes open, all supplicants are stopped cold by the massive eleven-foot-wide cinnamon-red trunk. There are larger junipers and older ones (though I conservatively estimate this tree to be well into the B.C. range). But this particular tree is so magnificent and so plainly a witness to fleeting centuries that all are powerfully moved by it. This Grandfather juniper has palpable charisma—a blind person would feel it. ◦◦◦◦◦ Later, a Scout troop from Sacramento stopped by and I spent two solid hours with them out on the porch. They (leaders in particular) were very receptive so I gave ‘em everything—ranger version of “da woiks.” Bear stories? You betcha! 

 

Quotes copied inside the cover of this volume of “Piute Log”:

 

What I never wish for, not even in my worst hours, is an average state of mind, halfway between good and bad, a lukewarm, tolerable mean. No, rather an exaggerated swing of the pendulum—rather worse torment, and to make up for it let my happy moments be a little more radiant!

                                                                        Hermann Hesse, from Wandering

 

The ideal way to direct events is not to create resistance or elicit counterreactions. The technique to achieve a perfect flow of events is the art of wu-wei—of not working against the grain of things. Instead of pushing to make things happen, in the Taoist way you wait for the right moment, when actions seem to fall into place almost of their own accord. When that moment occurs, you are swept effortlessly along with time.

                                                                                                  Diana hunt and Pam Hait

 

             ©2017Tim Forsell                                                           4 Jan 2017, 30 Jul 26  

Piute Log...Fossilized River 1994

 My brother was visiting. Most years, always in the fall, Steve (my sole sibling; older by three-and-a-half years) would walk in and stay for a few days. When he came to Piute Steve would accompany me on my daily rounds, on foot or on horseback, and was always keen to help out with trail work. ◦◦◦◦◦ About Steve: when my brother was a mere toddler he became infatuated with birds. By eight or nine, he was a budding junior birder and his interests were already expanding into other areas—trees, mammals, insects, sea creatures. Lucky me: I had myself a live-in natural history mentor and by age ten or eleven was following in Steve’s footsteps—literally—when I’d tag along on his early morning birding excursions. These took place mostly on family vacations and it was thanks in part to the many camping trips we took all through our childhood that the two of us ended up enthusiastic birders and wide-ranging naturalists. You just never know how things are going to play out: Steve’s early and almost freakish fixation with the feathered-kind led circuitously to his kid brother becoming a Wilderness ranger. ◦◦◦◦◦ I was often behind in my daily log entries (it was a constant struggle to keep up) and every so often would stage marathon sessions in an effort to catch up on a week or more’s worth of days. I tried to make these post-dated entries read as if they were composed more or less in the present. Sometimes, though, it was obvious that the narrative wasn’t being recorded in the here-and-now. In this one it was clear that I’d pulled my well-worn copy of Mary Hill’s “Geology of the Sierra Nevada” off the bookshelf and done a little research on Miocene volcanism.

 

14 Oct (Fri)     Cold again (20°F) with a high cloud layer. When I got up to go feed the equines the pygmy owl was hooting away. I whistled it up and the little guy immediately came to investigate, perching atop a lodgepole right at the edge of the yard. [Pygmy owls are notorious for responding to even crude imitations of their simple call.] ◦◦◦◦◦ Time for a good long walk. My plan was for us to head back up the Long Lakes trail and clean more waterbreaks but press on further. Had another objective: I wanted to show Steve a unique local geological feature. I’d only visited it once before. (It’s aways off the trail and kinda hard to get to.) We worked to the PCT metal bridge, stashed our shovels, then skirted Walker Meadows visiting old sheepherder camps along the way. Found an old tree carving that I’d somehow missed—a neat one, probably early 1900s, in clear sight of the trail. ◦◦◦◦◦ Right when we hit Kennedy Creek it began to snow. (More like sleety-slushy rain at first.) Leaving the trail, we clambered up the hillside to the north and along the way ran into a stunning grandfather juniper I’d never seen: only fifty feet tall but with a truly massive trunk, much of it without bark and deeply furrowed—an honest ten feet in diameter from one aspect. It was symmetrical and pleasing to the eye; undoubtedly well over a thousand years old. And I don’t toss that figure out lightly. We were both overcome with admiration for this patriarch—one of the most impressive trees I’ve seen in Piute Country. ◦◦◦◦◦ Headed straight upslope from there (not far from the route I’ve taken on horseback to get to Ski Lake). In my customary kinda sneaky fashion under such circumstances, I planned our route so that we’d step around a corner and arrive right on top of the feature in question. When we were getting close I said, “Let’s head over here—there’s a good viewpoint and we can rest a bit before the final climb.” Steve, moving slow because of the altitude, wasn’t all that thrilled about climbing higher in the falling snow. We stood there for a minute or two while I waited for him to notice the curious geology but he was mostly focused on the deteriorating weather, not on our immediate surroundings. ◦◦◦◦◦ I finally spilled the beans: “Umm, actually…this is it.” We were standing on an outcrop of the crumbly brown volcanic rock that blankets much of the Sonora Pass region. There’s a technical term for it: “lahar”—an Indonesian word for hot volcanic rock mixed with water, mud, and other material that flows; sometimes at tremendous speeds. According to my book it’s part of the Relief Peak Formation, which blankets thousands of square miles of the northern Sierra region. It consists of andesitic mudflows that occurred sporadically over the course of some millions of years during the Miocene Epoch. But look here: the andesite-breccia (breccia = broken rock) on the slope we were standing on is studded with rounded granite boulders and cobbles, all sizes. The biggest ones are six feet across. Several of these are perched atop slender columns of breccia—the boulders acting like umbrellas to preserve the material holding them up. And there are a couple of small bluffs here exposing in cross-section a sort of mega-conglomerate made up of these cobbles mixed up with both volcanic and metamorphic rocks. The really striking thing is that the granite boulders are all rounded and polished—something that can only have been achieved by extensive tumbling in the bed of a good sized river. Steve, of course, is interested in geology and I wanted him to try and interpret this scene like I’d done a few years back. (When I met that geologist, Jack Quade, at Dorothy Lake this year he confirmed my theory.) ◦◦◦◦◦ It took a little prompting but Steve eventually figured out the puzzle: we were standing on remnants of an ancient river bed that had been inundated by one of the mudflows during the long period of volcanism in the Sierra that covered this country with the brown, fine-grained volcanic rock that’s so prominent  hereabouts. The lava-based slurry, full of angular chunks of parent rock, had coursed downslope into a flowing river and picked up the giant cobbles in its bed. The addition of water no doubt provided further lubrication. This one minute remnant, perched on an obscure mountainside on the Sierra crest, overlying granitic bedrock, has survived repeated glaciations and is the chance vestige of a time long past. Those huge granite cobbles were tumbled during flood times by a long-gone river that flowed millions of years ago, well before the Sierra was uplifted! There are Pleistocene-era glacial erratics all over the West Walker country. Right behind the cabin is a large hunk of Cathedral Peak Granite, carried some miles, now lying on a small flat-topped bluff of far older marine sediments—truly ancient metamorphosed sedimentary rock tilted 90° off the horizontal (its bedded layers still evident). I’ve mused over this particular rock many times—how it’s sat there, slowly dissolving, for the last ten thousand years or so without moving an inch. But the boulders on the hillside where we were standing, that look like any other granite boulders at a casual glance: they’ve been resting in place for a long time, too. But dig: these rocks, long buried in mud and just now coming to light, have been there for something like a thousand times longer than the erratics. ◦◦◦◦◦ Here we have further proof of the limitations of the human brain. We simply lack the cognitive equipment to perceive things on this time scale; when we try, red lights start blinking and you have to back off lest over-heated neurons start going off like popcorn. Intellectually, I can imagine the polished river cobbles above Kennedy Canyon being much much older than glacial erratics. (They look pretty much the same, after all.) But I fail to comprehend. Fail miserably. ◦◦◦◦◦ And so, I find myself blown away, yet again, by nature’s productions. And see all too clearly that my own existence is exceedingly brief. Big picture-wise, humans are in the same boat as bugs and flowers—here today, gone tomorrow. The sun rises and sets over and over, endlessly, and as individuals our place in this world is essentially irrelevant. Me: I’ll be gone altogether too soon, my passing unnoticed. Glaciers will come again to rearrange this ever-changing landscape. Mountain ranges will rise and crumble. Ephemeral is the rule. And so it goes, Amen. ◦◦◦◦◦ Steve and I walked home slow, back on human-time. Took several little detours to visit places I’ve not looked into yet. Stopped off where we’d found a dead pygmy owl this morning so’s I could lop off its head using my Swiss Army knife. We’d found it lying right beside the PCT near the waterfall; pretty much decomposed and desiccated. (I’ll boil up the head to make a lovely little skull specimen.) In the vernacular of So Cal, I grossed-out my fastidious brother by pretending to lick the blade of my knife clean after the beheading, ha ha. (He was plenty disgusted following that little joke when I non-jokingly licked my fingers and swiped the blade with them before wiping both blade and fingers on my filthy pants.) ◦◦◦◦◦ From Walker Meadows we went cross-country, rejoining the trail near Long Lakes. At this point Steve knew where he was and wanted to walk back at his own pace so I left him and marched the last couple miles home alone. Later, we took a short stroll up-meadow with kitties for sunset views. ◦◦◦◦◦ After dinner, I read Steve a couple of stories from my old climbing magazines, including a hilarious one by this well-known Everest climber who invited his Sherpa guide to the States as a house guest and all the comical situations that ensued.

                            → 12 miles              → 2 lbs trash             → humbling sights

                      ©2026 Tim Forsell                                             17 Nov 2018, 15 Aug 2026                    

Piute Log...To Pack Is To Bleed 2000

 4 Oct (Wed)    Packing out the trailcrew today. My clock’s alarm has been on the fritz so I roused about once an hour all through the night to make sure of not oversleeping. Each time I’d roll over to press the button that lights up the clock face, Shitbird—parked by my head—would stir, jump off the bed, and go eat a few crunchies or have a little drink of water. But every time I checked my clock there was a dense, furry, warm, alive-but-dormant catball curled up right next to my head. ◦◦◦◦◦ Then it was 4:30, which was close enough for government work. Lit lanterns and my already-laid fire with the same match, got the teapot on, and started another big day in the dark. Went out to feed the horses and mule, locked in the round corral. My flashlight beam glinted off four or five pairs of eyes. A frightened snort from one so I shone the light up on my face, “Hey! It’s only me!” Started to pour some pellets into one of the feeders but found that it already contained a load…in recycled form. One of the ne’er-do-wells, most likely Nickel, had done what amounts to crapping on your own dinner plate. I turned the heavy wooden feeder on its side, dumping out most of the leavings but by no means all. When I righted the thing and tipped some pellets in, by golly, they went after ‘em. With gusto. Musta been pretty hungry to eat breakfast mixed with fresh horse doo-doo. Actually, it probably didn’t bother them a bit. ◦◦◦◦◦ 28°F on the porch. Heard the pygmy owl, first time this season. (One seems to show up every fall around this time; prob’ly the same lonely bachelor.) Started saddling at oh-seven-hundred. I’d prepped this day pretty heavily—guaranteed to be a long one. Manda’s whole crew was depending on me and the sooner they get to town the happier they’ll be. So I was out brushing and saddling eight head in the frosty dawn; leather straps all stiff, still-wet pads half frozen. Wolfed down the last of, what?, four-day-old chili while suiting up and that was breakfast. Got underway before sun hit the cabin but it rose on Piute Meadows just as we were crossing the river. Nice touch. ◦◦◦◦◦ Faithful readers of this log—all two of them (you know who you are)—will recall the debacle back in June of last year when Nickel wankered my arm for the season. “He wasn’t broke to lead,” sez our horseshoer, “He was broke to tow.” Fortunately I haven’t had to use Nickel much since then but my right arm is still slightly numb so today I loose-herded him. [To “loose-herd” being Western-ese for “turned him loose to follow on his own.”] ◦◦◦◦◦ Equines being herd animals, I knew Nickel would stick close to his pals. And so he did, falling in right behind the string. We got through the gate and started up the first hill. I looked back: no Nickel. Waited. Waited some more…starting to get angry. The blankety-blank so-and-so finally ambled through the gate all la-la-la. And that was the story all the way to Harriet Lake. (That is, stop…’n’go’n’stop….’n’go…’n’stop) Had to halt numerous times. The string of six would bunch up behind me, gentle morning up-slope breeze bathing us all in a slow moving cloud of pulverized trail as we waited and waited for good ol’ Nickel. He’d finally amble up all casual-like, pausing aways back to nibble a bit of trailside grass. Me: raging inside; definitely some violent thoughts. Mind you, I’m trying to be professional—to show up not just on time but unfashionably early. And this horse, who I already have a vendetta with, sabotaged my plans. Yet again. ◦◦◦◦◦ Turned out we got to the crew’s camp just three minutes behind schedule. (When we rolled in, Michelle paid me a high compliment: “We were getting pretty worried, mister! You’re three minutes late!” ◦◦◦◦◦ Good to see the bunch and get a dose of that earthy trail crew vitality. Of course, everybody was rarin’ to hit the trail. Yesterday, Michelle and Jordan and Jessica climbed Tower Peak—nice going, team!!—and they told me people were slandering me in the summit register. Someone wrote next to my name (from last season) “the ranger is a dweeb.” Another, something about me being a “pork chop.” This had to be the work of my old friend, Deb, who works as a guide for Sierra Treks: joked with her once about how when we first met, years back, in Ventura, she was kinda plump and I said something about her being “a little pork chop.” She hasn’t let me forget. ◦◦◦◦◦ Got out with few problems, slow and steady. But did have one of those weird, synchronistic reality-glitches; the kind where trouble comes in clumps. Or bundles. Or baskets—whatever trouble is served up in. First: right after crossing the river when we left the cabin, found that I’d nicked one of the fingers on my right hand while necking the string. (Truth is, without fail I lose some blood every time I have to deal with livestock.) It was just a tiny nick but it struck a large-enough vessel that the bloody thing bled for over half an hour. And I mean, bled: stained the lead rope and got my fingers all sticky. For a while there, I continuously sucked the blood off and spat red. It was really quite annoying—the darn thing just wouldn’t quit leaking oil. But eventually it did. ◦◦◦◦◦ So: hours later, a mile from Lane Lake, I turned in the saddle to check on my string. Right then Woody, lead packhorse, set back for no apparent reason. Maybe I startled him when I turned. But his head whipped up and the lead rope zinged across the back of my right hand, which at that moment happened to be resting on my thigh. The rope was dallied around the saddlehorn—not supposed to do that, Tim, remember?—and slipped under some tension. (Hence the “zing.”) Ai-i-i-i!! Looked down to see an actual furrow plowed across the back of my hand—a two-and-a-half-inch-long shallow groove. Pale, glistening, not-yet-bleeding, raw man-flesh. No…wait…yep, oh yeah, here it comes! Oh, boy! Welling up out of the tiniest pores, then a nice, steady flow. Bleeding! Again! Oh, well. ◦◦◦◦◦ 

 

                       ©2022 Tim Forsell                                                 25 Mar 2022, 27 Jul 26

 

 

 

Piute Log...The Sound of Silence. 1994

 18 Oct (Tue)     Up at dawn. A frosty 21°F on the porch. Went out to see if Valiente and Red were in sight. Nope. Damn. [Come October, the horses search out tiny pockets of still-green grass hidden in Piute Meadows’ densely forested margins.] I strolled along the meadow’s edge hoping for a glimpse of horse flesh through the trees. Nary a four-legger in sight, sigh. And it was COLD!—probably in the mid-teens even though the meadow is only about twenty feet lower than the cabin, if that. Hands a-pocket, my breath in clouds, under-dressed and shivering. ◦◦◦◦◦ For grins, I did my booming, bass-register, mock-operatic-voice Valiente-call—Vahl-eee-EN-tay-y-y-y!!—on the slim chance that a horse or two might pop out of some hidden recess to see what the ruckus was about. (Been doing this for years, on occasion, and it seems I’ve got the pipes for it.) It reverberated back and forth between the canyon walls most agreeably. The perfect stillness and super-cold air may have been factors, not sure, but the slowly fading echoes highlighted a truly awe-inspiring dawn silence that I might not have otherwise noticed seeing as how I’m so inured to the quiet. Went back out again minutes later hoping to see a couple of specks way out back but mostly to make more of those killer echoes. Alas, just then an airliner was passing by high overhead. I tried to wait the thing out but its dull roar went on and on and on. For some reason I found this extremely annoying. Finally gave up and went back in. To be honest, I seldom even notice jet noise back here. There’s a whole lot of Bay Area- and Sacramento-bound commercial air traffic over this section of the Sierra (far worse than other areas) but I mostly tune it out. In this hour, though, before birds have started to sing or breezes to stir, it’s a different animal entire. An immaculate silence, particularly when framed by large open spaces like at the edge of a meadow or on a ridge top, is utterly magnificent—the aural equivalent of, say, viewing a craggy high peak in fine lighting. It’s a hard thing to describe, since silence is space…a form of emptiness. A whole lotta nuthin’. Not many people are familiar with the phenomenon of unadulterated silence. They really have no idea. (Same goes for the star-studded night sky—something that a lot of people don’t even know exists.) It’s a cryin’ shame, really. In man’s world, there are always sound waves of one kind or another moving molecules around, even in the dead of night. But up here in the montane wilderness, particularly at dawn: nuthin’…absolutely nuthin’! Can’t hear a doggone thing! It really is stunning. ◦◦◦◦◦ It came as a surprise to learn that some folks find this level of silence off-putting. Too stark. A quiet that’s too quiet. It actually makes some individuals uncomfortable. (I know this to be the case because several backpackers, urban types, have told me as much.) Me: I happen to enjoy simple things. I’m drawn to minimalist art, for instance…prefer music with plenty of space between notes. The austerity of uncontaminated silence turns it into an actual thing that definitely has a powerful impact on my many moods and the quality of my thoughts. I’ve told people that I consider silence to be akin to music. It certainly is an ideal medium for contemplation…makes for an empty canvas to paint your thoughts on. I just love it. ◦◦◦◦◦ 

Next day:

19 Oct (Wed)     ◦◦◦◦◦ Took a short evening stroll in the meadow. It was already close to freezing when I set out. The Sun was going down…last pink light on the west face of Ehrnbeck; Hawksbeak in shadow. (The sun is setting so far to the south these days that Hawksbeak is in Ehrnbeck’s shadow around sundown.) Meadow now entirely dead-brown. Not a hint of green. I saw robins and bluebirds—they’ve started to head south for the winter—and heard one of the redtail hawks’ final evening cry. I could almost feel the silence, the utter lack of life-sounds, and suddenly realized that the deer have all left town. Hadn’t even noticed, even though I’ve not seen a one for some time. This is a good example of the way people notice the appearance of things but not their disappearance. It’s been a long time, now that I stop to think, since I last saw a swallow or nighthawk or dragonfly or heard poor-wills calling at dusk. And, finally, on the walk back, with the sky itself turning pink in the west and peaks glowing in last dim light reflected from the upper atmosphere, I saw fog rising from pools of snow-melt that have recently filled the remnants of old oxbows in the meadow. No mist coming off the river but it was rising from all those little oxbow ponds that had time to warm up during the day. I felt a little autumn-sad in the quiet but at the same time full of hope and vigor-of-spirit.

 

     Copied inside the front cover of this volume of Piute Log:

“There is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.”

                                                              Marcus Aurelius

 

 

                   ©2026 Tim Forsell                                                                24 Jul 2026