A couple of excerpts from a
four day patrol at the start of hunting season—a yearly ritual in the early
days of my career. It so happened that the designated hunting zone in the Bridgeport
region—known as X–12—was extremely popular, notorious amongst deer hunters for
its high success rate. They’d come from all over for “opening weekend.” One of
the most popular staging areas was Obsidian Campground, some miles up a dirt
road off of Highway 395, in the vicinity of the Sonora Pass junction. This camp
was at the confluence of two canyons—Burt and Molybdenite (a mineral that had
once been mined there)—and was excellent hunting terrain, in part because there
were no lakes in either canyon and thus few hikers and fishermen to contend
with. For a number of years, I’d patrol this area each opening weekend of rifle
season (bow season started earlier to give those hunters “first shot,” so to speak.
As a Forest Service employee, I was entitled to “validate” bucks by signing the
tag showing that the deer was a legal kill. (It had to have horns with at least
one branching, or “fork.”) Hunters were always delighted to have me sign their
tags as this saved them having to stop by a Fish & Game Office, so I had
the opportunity to talk with many hunters. Of course, being a professional, I
kept my personal views to myself. And while not morally opposed to the idea of
taking game, the notion of enjoying killing for “sport” has always baffled me.
Many of the hunters I met (virtually all men) were perfectly respectable and
conscientious but, not surprisingly, a fair number of them were…I’ll just say,
not people I’d care to spend time with. ◦◦◦◦◦ As the years passed, the high kill-rate
took its toll on the local population, as did a viral infection that wiped out
many deer in the entire region. The State Department of Fish & Game cut the
number of permits in half and, just a couple of years later, halved that figure.
This put an end to the bonanza days of X–12; a lottery system was instated and,
suddenly, even local hunters were unable to get tags. People who had,
literally, been coming for decades simply stopped showing up. The local pack
stations took a real hit, the hunter clientele being one of their top earners.
The permit reduction was long overdue but I actually missed these patrols.
There was a special excitement to them, with the hope (always) of nailing
someone with an illegal deer. ◦◦◦◦◦
These entries start with my return to Piute after a few days off. Note that, in
these days I was still writing hints and directions to future rangers that
would be reading these journals. It wasn’t long after this that I realized I
wasn’t leaving my records behind and began to use them as a vehicle to record
my experiences in a more personal way, and with an eye to a future book of some
kind.
8 Sep (Sat) Opening day of deer season! No shots heard
(yet). ◦◦◦◦◦ A lesson learned yesterday on my way in. I’d packed two sacks of
grain on Redtop, in slings, and tarped. But the tarp didn’t totally cover one
of the sacks; a little corner was hanging out. Still at Cranney’s, Redtop was
swiveling around and nibbling at that corner. I didn’t think about it again until
I’d pulled off the trail for a quick break just before the Long Canyon
junction. But when I got off Pal, there’s Redtop (a.k.a. Baby Huey) eagerly
crunching away at a growing pile of oats leaking from the corner of that sack.
And there’s a thin line of grain running down the side of the trail ended at
that pile. Incredibly, I had no string! Took a draw-cord off one of my little
ditty bags and clove-hitched the hole shut and pulled the tarp completely over
and under the grain. Today’s lesson is: Don’t let a good horse go bad! Cover
your grain! Carry some string with you, always! ◦◦◦◦◦ Today I packed stuff for
a three-nighter and rode up Ypparaquirre Canyon. (When I passed that spot where
I’d stopped yesterday, found that the trail of grain was only a hundred yards
long and very spotty for the first half. It’d just started to flow in earnest
when I caught it; probably lost only 3–4 pounds but if I hadn’t spotted it when
I did that sack would’ve bled out in five minutes or so and the load would’ve
gone around his belly. Lucky again!) ◦◦◦◦◦ A lovely warm, clear day. Turned off
at the Ypparaquirre cutoff [local Basque sheepherder surname; pronounced
“para-gary”] and rode up the steep but so-fine old trail, gorgeous views down
on Hidden Lake, and as per usual got lost at the hunter’s camp. (Don’t go up
the draw, contour!) ◦◦◦◦◦ Went to my favorite camp up top. Seems like I was
here at about this time last year and expected the feed to be even better but
the little ponds were dry and the sedges and grasses browning. Set up my meager
scene while keeping an ear on the horses’ bells. Took a quick hike up onto the
moraine—the old map shows a “lake” up there but it’s only a depression that
holds water early (dry now). Poked around ‘til sunset looking for obsidian
shards. Had a can of beef stew in the last light. The boys started drifting
just as I was falling asleep; the moon had just risen so I caught and tied ‘em
up. Had hoped to leave them out all night.
9 Sep (Sun) Up at dawn to turn the horses loose (with
hobbles, of course). Saw Venus rise just as it was getting too light to see it
easily. ◦◦◦◦◦ I love this place—it is so peaceful and spacious and good for holding the stock as well. ◦◦◦◦◦
Big day ahead. Heard three distant shots before I left on a big loop around
Walker Mountain. Started up what I call “Yparraquirre Pass,” which exits the
eastern lobe of the head of the canyon into the “hanging valley” above—an
amazing little vale way up on the crest of the mountain ridge, a little
snow-fed brook meandering slowly through a meadow at over 10000’. ◦◦◦◦◦ Dropped
down the old Piute Pass trail. Got lost a time or two but found blazes on trees
at opportune times. Hardly anybody uses this trail any more but it was
certainly a route the Piute used. ◦◦◦◦◦ Pal real eager today and when we hit
the Burt Canyon trail and turned downcanyon he really moved out. Neat to be
here again—first time since ’86 when Lorenzo and Jim Mabe and I took out all
those avalanched trees. (We cleared all of ‘em out with the crosscut—a huge
job). The sawn ends were all grey and weathered-looking already. ◦◦◦◦◦ Started
seeing a few hunters and when we got to Obsidian Campground, one flagged me
down. We talked a bit and I validated his buck. Sadly, it had one of those
arrows (with the tip made out of what are essentially razor blades) lodged
between the tibia and fibula of one front leg. It’d probably been hit at least
a couple of weeks ago and had somehow managed to break off most of the aluminum
shaft. Glad this guy had gotten him; the wound had festered and surely would’ve
killed the thing in time, after much suffering. The hunter (early 30s) didn’t
seem particularly fazed by the buck’s plight but was happy to have put it out
of its misery. He was a real talker and, eventually, sensing he’d talked about
himself long enough, tried to shift the conversation my way by asking me when I
was going to get a chance to go after my own buck. “Well…actually, I don’t
hunt.” He was visibly shocked and after a moment, sounding a little disappointed,
smiled and said, “Well, at least you get to do a lotta fishin’!” When I told
him that I didn’t fish, either, his face fell. This news stunned him to silence.
It was obvious that the idea really floored him: the notion of a ranger, living
in a backwoods paradise, not taking advantage of harvesting the bounty of the
land. He rallied to ask, in a sort of mystified tone, “Well then, whaddya do back here when you aren’t workin’?” I
knew better than to tell him I was into birds and flowers so instead said,
lamely, that I just enjoyed walking around looking at things. Clearly disturbed now, he gave me this kind of sidelong
glance, wouldn’t look me in the eye, and mumbled something about what he’d
be doing if he had my job. At that point, it was easy to disengage. He
obviously thought I was some kind of crazy. ◦◦◦◦◦ Headed into Molybdinite and
started running into bunches of hunters heading back to camp after the
morning’s outing, two parties with carts. Two had a buck they’d hauled down
from Mud Springs Canyon. What an epic that must’ve been! A horrible tangle of aspens and deadfall! They
looked none too happy, in fact. ◦◦◦◦◦ Farther upcanyon, started running into a
big spread-out stock group of eleven. These guys had been coming up for years
and every year Lorenzo would stop by their camp way in the back of the
campground. They asked about him and said how much they always enjoyed seeing
him. They’d each scored—11 bucks in
the two days of opening weekend. Quite the slaughter…. ◦◦◦◦◦ For the first time
ever, I rode over the top of Moly Canyon. Absolutely gorgeous up there. You
have to go around to the left of that big rock wall (when on horseback) but you
can easily ride behind it. First, though, I rode to the ridgetop above—Flatiron
Ridge—for stupendous views down into Buckeye Canyon, right across from Eagle
Peak and its 4000’ drop into the big long canyon—likely one of the largest
scarps in the Sierra. A fine place—sort of a high plateau, flat with clumps of
whitebarks. Also looked into a tiny pocket meadow in the drainage from Hanna
into Buckeye, a neat little grassy hole surrounded by tall rock cliffs. A very
isolated and holy place never visited by man. Seriously, it’d be really hard to
get down to it and probably only a few humans—white or red—ever have. Love
to go there… Spotted mountain quail feathers blowing around and found a scattering of them where an eagle had
dined after toting its meal up from the valley floor (of one of the two
canyons). Found a gauzy, pale brown leg plume that told me it was an eagle
kill.
©2017 by Tim
Forsell 5 Jan 2017
