Piute Log...Faux Firefighter 1997

27 May (Tue)     Never have to pause to think of first words for the first entry of a new season’s log: Today is day #1 of my 15^th season on the Bridgeport Ranger District, 13^th as a wilderness ranger, 10^th summer at Piute Cabin. Reduced crew this year: Mike didn’t come back; Brian Cochran returned for a second stint in Bridgeport; Yeti…me…that’s it. Greta is here for perhaps her last summer. This year, she’s also in charge of the Carson-Iceberg and Mt. Rose Wildernesses until they hire a new manager on the Carson [another district of Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest] so our be-loved boss gets to take care of the whole bag. She’ll be gone more and I’ll likely be almost boss-free. Too bad for us—we need her more than ever on the local turf. ◦◦◦◦◦ Rick Dunlap (helitack foreman) came into the room while we were signing papers and said he was doing step-tests [physical fitness test seasonals must “pass” to qualify for firefighting duty]. Everyone knows I have zero desire to fight fire (quite an anomaly that way…no one can understand why I routinely turn down the opportunity for “easy” money in the form of boo-coo  overtime) and I haven’t taken the thing for probably ten years. Brian said he was ready and then Greta piped up, “Tim’ll take his, too.” I said nothing but arched my brows questioningly in her direction. We took it and passed. Minutes later, Stuart, our AFMO [Assistant Fire Management Officer] came in looking for bodies to help with a prescribed burn up in Buckeye Canyon tomorrow and just like that (snap fingers here) I was signed up for fire duty. Groan. Oh, well; it’s good to help out with the other shops from time to time as a show of, um, solidarity. Gotta show up tomorrow morning at the warehouse, oh-seven-hundred. Went over there and some kid on one of the engine crews issued me my web-gear [a sort of small backpack made largely of flat nylon webbing]. ◦◦◦◦◦ Brian and I finished the day out at the barn organizing the tack rooms [where saddles and pack equipment are stored] and visiting the ponies. Great to see old Valiente (who’s starting his 19^th season!). Surprised by the hearty little burst of emotion I felt in our greeting, scratching him behind his ears just the way he likes, seeing his mildly quizzical recognition…almost as if he was a bit glad to see me. Since I know horses just a little, I can’t feel any vanity because that quickening in his eye and perking of his ears when I approached was entirely a sudden remembrance: Oh! It’s that scruffy guy with the round glasses who sometimes gives out free snacks for nuthin’.

28 May (Wed)     A most enlightening day but a complete fiasco. ◦◦◦◦◦ The burn was up the Buckeye Road a couple miles, halfway to the campground. No idea why they chose this particular patch, 80 acres worth of “fuels reduction.” Of course, it’s a drop in the bucket. Cost: about $10,000. Districts are allotted funds for these deals. Half a dozen engines, 20 firefighters and their various supervisors. ◦◦◦◦◦ Got off to a slow start thanks to waiting 45 minutes for a young lady from the office to show up (she to contact curious visitors on the road) so we could begin the briefing. Things got bad for me right off, then got worse. It was time to head up the already-dug fire line and I strapped on my fire pack which I’d not even tried out yet. The thing was loaded with four quarts of water, fusees, headlamp, meal-in-a-box, file, gloves, extra batteries…a heavy lump of a pack. I’d managed to be issued this thing, this spider-web of a pack, that was sized to fit a dwarf. I let out all the straps as far as they’d go but the waist belt came right over my navel and was so tight I couldn’t take a full breath. The padded sections of the shoulder straps didn’t even come to the top of my shoulders and thin, 1” nylon webbing dug into my collarbones, causing arms to go numb. My radio was hanging from the waist belt and, on the stiff hike uphill, its weight caused the 2” webbing band to slip through the buckle and, twice, our group had to stop when my radio fell into the dirt and I had to put myself back together. Couldn’t breathe! Arms going numb, grumbling & whining. Put my radio inside the pack (big no-no) and pressed on, sweating already. Briefly wondered if I was being hazed. ◦◦◦◦◦ Started the show. My job was to “hold line” at the top of the burn…keep a sharp eye out to prevent embers from starting spot-fires up the slope. In minutes we were all engulfed in dense smoke, choking and wiping tears away. I wondered, for the umpteenth time, How do these people do this for a living? Small trees were “torching”: within seconds, a 30 foot Jeffrey pine would go up like a flaring match and just as quickly die out, leaving a smoldering skeleton with all needles gone. Most impressive. Saw one incredible thing, the only event that made this day rewarding: a “fire whirl” was born on the slope just below me and roared to life. These things are common in this game—like a dust devil made of fire. This one was only about five feet high, a twirling bundle of dense orange flame that walked over the ground emitting a sound like nothing I’ve heard: a small, muffled roar with a raspy-scrapey quality. Stood and gaped at the thing in awe. ◦◦◦◦◦ The day was completely boring thereafter. Had to breathe much smokage at first but when the guys torching it off had moved downhill and the upper part of the burn was settling down it became tolerable. I just had to pace back & forth across a section and keep an eye out for spot-fires. Almost immediately I broke one of the premier rules: just couldn’t wear that pack; way too painful, so I took it off and walked around without. Something firemen never do—never! (You have to be ready to move out in a serious hurry and never leave your gear behind.) But when others were around I’d put it back on again. Once, got called on the radio by George—the foreman whose crew I’d been assigned to—but my radio was in the pack. Darcy, standing right beside me, let me talk into her radio when she saw me like some idiot trying to struggle out of my rig to get at the thing. She suggested that I put the radio in my shirt pocket. ◦◦◦◦◦ Somewhat later I embarrassed myself again, working with Wes. We were trying to dislodge a burning log that threatened to roll, sending embers over the line, and turn it perpendicular to the slope. Both of us were wedging shovels under the thing to pry it up (very hot!) and I was bending over it when the radio fell out of my pocket and tumbled right into the fire. I yanked it out in a flash and blew all the ash off the thing to Wes’ obvious amusement. (Stories for later: Those wilderness guys…haw haw haw! He dropped his radio right in the fire! Did you see that?! ◦◦◦◦◦ And minutes later, a final insult. Wes says, “Tim—where’s your shelter?” These things are small rectangular packages, strapped to the bottom of the pack, that you open up and fold out into small, silver foil “pup tents” that are a last resort for firemen caught in a tight place, e.g., about to get burned over. If you need to deploy your fire-shelter, you are in deep doo-doo. Most likely gonna die. But these 2 pound gizmos are talismanic to firefighters, who never go on the line without them. Many carry the things for years, wear them out without ever so much as opening ‘em, and I’ve not met anyone who ever actually used one. (If you do, and survive, you’ve got a story to tell the rest of your life.) So you can imagine what Wes was thinking when I took off my pack and rustled around inside it and told him, casually, “Hmm…doesn’t seem to be in here…guess I didn’t get one.” Wes was obviously appalled and called over George to tell him. To my chagrin, George reacted with stunned shock: “He…doesn’t have…a shelter?!” George then led me over to Geoff, #2 guy on this deal, and told him firmly that one of his crew members had issued my gear without (gasp!) giving me a shelter! Oh, dear—now I was getting someone in trouble. ◦◦◦◦◦ Things were under control by this time so they sent me down by the road where I’d have an easy escape. I felt mildly humiliated by all this rank buffoonery but mostly kind of amused; I enjoy being humbled before my peers from time to time—good for the ol’ ego. The rest of the day, last five hours or so, was sheer boredom. I sat in the duff breathing fumes, watching trees torch, stumps smolder, and committed yet another mortal sin. I confess: Verily, I didst falleth asleep on the fire line. Repeatedly! ◦◦◦◦◦ It got to be five o’clock, then six. The show was over and I wanted to go home. We finally reconvened at the trucks after a complete hour was wasted, with people just standing around talking…no one at all still working. We finally rolled back to town and got to the warehouse at 8:00. I was in a foul temper. Never! Again!

 

   ©2015 Tim Forsell                                                                                                      22 Apr 2015                                                                                                 

                          

Piute Log..."That Was Weird" 1988

22 Jun (Wed)     Carried my axe up the Cascade Creek hill and cut out that snag sticking into the trail…then another one of those old, rotten logs on the trail that no one ever bothered to remove. Went and got another one on the trail to Harriet [Lake] which was actually always quite a pain for livestock (who had to step over it). ◦◦◦◦◦ Stashed the axe there and pressed on with my shovel, cleaning waterbreaks and rocking. Lunched at Dorothy Lake Pass where I had a very strange experience. ◦◦◦◦◦ Just sitting quietly when I heard a deep rumbling. Thunder? That was my first thought but…No clouds. Then as it continued and built I thought, Rockfall! but couldn’t see any dust cloud. Very odd. Like, maybe, what a jet crashing into a mountainside three miles away would sound like. Then came an indescribable, inexplicable sound—first farther away then moving closer: a bizarre, modulated “warping” sound, as of a gale blowing across a knife-edged ridge…quality like the warble-ey sound of a musical saw, but vast. It was coming toward me, seemingly through the air but maybe the earth. That…that was weird. The nearest thing I could compare it to is the sound a frozen lake expanding after sunset as it gets colder, but much different. I have no explanation whatsoever. Wow. ◦◦◦◦◦ Worked the shores of Stella and Ruth Lakes. Tore out three firepits and found old, old trash dumps. Walked above and west of Ruth to the YNP [Yosemite Nat’l Park] border and visited a small lake on our side—pristine. Followed the Yosemite border back to Stella and walked home, tired. A productive day. Doc hadn’t gotten to his camp yet.

           →  7 visitors           →  11 miles           →  3 pits          →  3 trees                

               →  5 lbs. trash           →  8 W-Bs cleaned

  

     ©2015  Tim Forsell                                                                                                       27 Mar 2015              

                        

Don't Worry, I Won't Eat Your Baby 1995

We drove down to the Alabama Hills one afternoon with an actual goal, for a change. I’d recently “discovered” a tiny, secret valley tucked away on the northern shoulder of Cobblestone Mountain (my name for the colossal stone hill that hems in Movie Flat on its west side). That whole mass is just an immense heap of gigantic boulders weathered out of granite bedrock—a place unsuited for strolling…any forward progress being half upward and dearly gained. Mostly I’ve just poked around its edges, where a lot of the best rock climbing routes are, and only once scrambled to the summit (which proved to be a major undertaking). Several days ago, having climbed a technical route up a big granite pillar for the first time, I was surprised to be looking down into a completely hidden little amphitheater; it was so well-concealed, I’d somehow managed to miss discovering it despite all the other climbing and explorations thereabouts.

            Of course, I wanted a real visit and was happy to be going with my partner, Diane, to see this brand-new place. So we parked in one of those natural enclosures out at the north end and in minutes were scrambling up a deep chimney choked with big blocks. After a few tricky maneuvers getting over or around chockstones the narrow passage opened, abruptly, into space—an amphitheater strewn with rounded boulders that had fallen, rolled, and were piled like giant marbles in the little flat. It was a place that felt “close,” a place that echoed like an empty room, inviting visitors to speak in hushed tones. Bisecting the flat was a dry brook-bed that flows only after cloudbursts. Following its advice, we walked on its coarse sand and wound our way under, over, or around the boulders in deep shade punctuated by shafts of afternoon sunlight—all that the tall cliffy walls let in. Had I been by myself I would hardly have noticed the soft lighting peculiar to that season and hour or the sweet desert silence.

            That stillness was abruptly spoiled by the sound of some jeep or truck revving its engine. We weren’t actually too far from a road but it was strange to hear the sound so clearly and my first thought was that it was some deal where distant sounds are reflected off the rocks in such a way that they’re amplified. (I’ve experienced such things before around big cliff faces, which can act like parabolic reflectors.)

            Right then, clambering over the top of a car-sized rock, I discovered the source of that engine-noise before there was time to wonder about it further. A movement caught my attention and, turning my head, I locked eyes with a bobcat. Only ten yards away, I knew it was a “she,” and she was a mother, when one tiny brown thing dove under a boulder just as another buried itself beneath a leafless shrub. There could have been others, already hidden. As Diane stepped up behind me the mother was watching us like a hawk, her short tail twitching angrily, and the intense look in those fiery eyes said plainly enough that if there were just me, and I was no more than twice her size, I’d be dead.  She would kill me if necessary. My skin crawled as if I were facing down a rattlesnake but instinctively knew that Diane and I wouldn’t be attacked or even threatened—this was a standoff. Though rigid with attention, I relaxed to enjoy our meeting. When you meet the wild ones like this, something special happens.

            I hadn’t seen a bobcat in many years; never this well, and never in a situation where I had so much as time to realize what I was seeing before the encounter was over. As it was, there was time in abundance to take in that deadly glare, which contained the distilled essence of every mother’s imperative to protect her young. That lean brown body, exquisitely camouflaged against stone and sand, was motionless aside from the twitching, stumpy tail but her presence and intent captured all my senses and I stood motionless (in lieu of having no tail of my own to wag). Diane’s hand was on my shoulder and I knew she was the same. Then the wild cat grudgingly slid away into a crevice where I couldn’t see her eyes on me. But I could still feel them, oh yes. Don’t worry, mom—I won’t eat your babies!

            Out of the corner of my eye, I’d seen where one kitten had scrambled under a bush. My partner, a mother herself, didn’t want me terrifying the children and causing further stress but I had to see this…just once! I scrambled down into the fine gravel of the little creek bed, and soon spotted an inert clump of beige fuzz blended between twigs and sand, a thing human eyes would never perceive without prior warning. I approached warily and ever-so-slowly knelt down until I could’ve reached out and stroked the silky sand-colored fur—a thing I was sorely tempted to do. Like a fawn in hiding, the wildling remained a living statue, eyes fixed on some distant point and filled with a helpless terror that amounted to its hunger to continue being alive. I saw the gray-blue eyes that had only opened to the great world days before; they were the eyes of any kitten, not their true color yet. They’d be just as cute and innocent  were it not for the sheer ferocity that was in them: an ineffable thing that no tabby possesses. I wanted so badly to touch—to hold it—but was afraid. Of a cute little kitten! And, for good reason: that one-pound infant, on perhaps its first foray into the lighted land, would’ve done serious damage had I tried to cuddle. This I knew for certain when I finally got too close, spreading the shrub’s branches aside for a better look, and the kitten abruptly wheeled, suddenly twice as large, pumped full of adrenaline, and "spit" at me—Phttt!! I backed off, humbled and exalted both, laughing out loud. (Out of nervousness, mostly, but it was funny in some way.)

            I looked up at Diane, grinning like a fool, while she cast me a reproving look, and beyond her I saw the other mom who’d circled 180° and was peering at us from under an overhanging rock, forty feet away, with that same impotent but defiant glower. My skin crawled anew. I was pumped up as well, in my own way. Diane, watching us both, whispered, “C’mon! Leave it alone!” The kitten had gone back to being a pale clay figurine. Its fur glistened faintly, ears a miniature of its mother’s—black stripe, white stripe, black tip—and those tips were long black tufts. A perfect, complete little creature-of-the-desert. Grudgingly, I backed off. The girl and I walked off in respectful silence until it seemed, when far enough away, that we could talk out loud again. Still outside myself, full of raw joy—like a child on Christmas morning—my first words were, “That’s one of the best nature-things I’ve seen in my entire life!”

©2015  Tim Forsell                                                                                       12 Jun 1995, 20 Apr 2015