When it comes to Himalayan climbing literature, it’s a truism that books about successful expeditions just don’t “sell.” The climb may have been extremely difficult, loaded with frightful hazards, suffering, near-misses, and frostbit digits; it may be an account of one of the Last Great Problems, pulled off in impeccable style by some of the worlds best alpinists. But if no one dies, the book won’t sell. Okay, the analogy isn’t perfectly apt but in some ways I face a similar situation here: maintaining interest levels when everything goes well, when there’s no catastrophes. ◦◦◦◦◦ One of the best things about life as a Wilderness ranger is that something interesting—something amazing, or inspiring, or just plain awful—happens virtually every day. In my journals there were hardly ever days with absolutely nothing worth recounting—even if it was just a nifty bird sighting or out of the ordinary visitor encounter. On the other hand, an average day in ranger-world doesn’t always make for riveting reading. Cutting fallen trees out of the trail with a crosscut saw has a certain primitive appeal, maybe, but no one is interested in details about digging waterbars or pruning willows or installing signs or checking Wilderness permits. A lot of my log entries include rants about this and that (I’m a ranter by nature) or me venting about the atrocious behavior of idiots-on-vacation. Such things get stale in a hurry. Even the close encounters with forest critters might start to get a little old. Glorious sunsets: use judiciously. But search & rescues, anything involving bears—real fan favorites. But—lucky for me—not too many of those to share. ◦◦◦◦◦ I first copied what follows way back in 2014 but never finished the editing. In the meantime, I’ve posted a disproportionate number of entries that centered on livestock-related adversity. These certainly qualify as stimulating reads, especially the ones where I…or the horse…or both of us “coulda died.” Also, there’s this: an invaluable tip I got from my mentor, Lorenzo—a masterful raconteur. Lorenzo said that, when telling stories about yourself, “It’s better to be the goat than the hero. You don’t wanna always be the hero of your own stories. People start to get bored.” As it happens, in most of my stock-debacle entries I’m hapless victim, at best. But more often than not, I’ve done something foolish and it’s me being me at my very worst. ◦◦◦◦◦ So I’m going to post yet another semi-embarrassing misadventure narrative—the dramatic conclusion to a summer of mostly peace and plentitude—my nineteenth season on the Bridgeport Ranger District.
17 Oct (Wed) Leaving tomorrow so big day ahead. So many “things”! To do! As in: everything gets stored away—moved somewhere else, put in a can, hung on a wall. This pile of papers here has to be sorted, that jar of stuff I never ate, emptied and cleaned or thrown out. This and that…then there’s that…and oh this, too. Plus what seems like five-hundred other micro-chores. ◦◦◦◦◦ Got down to it. Chopped firewood (in case of winter emergency break-in). Oiled my chaps and boots. At one point, went out to take care of something and heard loud whoosh of flapping big-bird wings not far behind and overhead. Figured it was just a raven, didn’t give it much thought, but turned to look and, whoa! That “raven” has a pure white head and white tail! Huge bird! BALD EAGLE fly-by!! It flew right over my head, no more than thirty feet away, circled overhead a few times, climbing fast, lookin’ me right in the eye. And then…gone. Wow. Few minutes later, I went out to look for it. Directly overhead but very high, higher than hawks usually soar, three big birds. Too close to the sun for me to see head color. Went for my binoculars but before I made it back to the yard they’d up’n disappeared (as soaring raptors can do in an instant). I’m pretty sure it was three eagles. And that’s when I noticed an entire sky’s-worth of assorted crazy clouds, variations on a cirrus theme, with a gleaming 52° halo around the sun. It was that kinda day. ◦◦◦◦◦ After lunch, cleared the porch, shifted tools into the cabin, stored unused food and grain, swamped out ice chests. Shitbird finally deigned to show himself late into the afternoon. (That there is one gallivantin’ kitty….) To tire him further, maybe get him to sleep more tonight, we went on a hike. Scrambled up to the viewpoint across the river. Rookie cat followed with little enthusiasm. He lagged behind but finally made it. Sat and admired the meadow and surrounding peaks from that fine vantage—my own personal domain—while he prowled around. Had one last bath at dusk and with it came the gift of a brand new river-insight. ◦◦◦◦◦ The gravel bar (where I bathe most days) changes shape every year and last spring’s flood left it much broader than in prior years. And today I finally “got” something I’ve missed. Okay: Spring floods scour the riverbed, deepening its holes. But all that sand & gravel isn’t simply washed away; much of it gets re-deposited almost immediately—shoveled into inside bends or dumped just downstream of the newly deepened holes, relocated into eddy zones. The size of sand & gravel deposits below fresh-scoured holes is proportional to the deepness of the hole. And just now, I finally was able to grok the connection between my deeper-than-usual swimmin’ hole and much-enlarged—longer, broader—gravel bar. It’s all physics…fluid dynamics, eddy patterns, wave action. Waves! (So many things boil down to waves!) But ain’t it grand that I can keep on learning how things work in the mountain environment simply by seeing and watching and figgerin’ stuff out? It! Never! Ends! ◦◦◦◦◦ After dark I lit the bonfire—junk-wood piled months ago, awaiting immolation. A fine ritual, this last-night-at-the-cabin burn. Kitties came over to watch, even. I wonder what they make of those ten foot flames? At a safe distance they showed no fear but didn’t exactly look spellbound, either. ◦◦◦◦◦ Kept on working. Making good headway and I’m farther along than usual. This was day #103 at the cabin this year. (Just counted.) Despite this season’s brevity, spent more time back here than I have in recent years. My one true home!
18 Oct (Thu) Blocked the cat door last night with my cast-iron griddle. Shitbird woke me in the wee hours, wanting out. Naturally, he was outraged at having his civil liberties denied and protested in cat-fashion by clawing & scratching, pacing & mrrow!ing without cease. Pissed off was he! Messed up my sleep, thankyouverymuch, but I expected as much. Finally just got up. Still dark. It was 26° F, utterly still…that profound silence, such a marvelous thing to “hear.” Venus just up over the ridge when I looked. ◦◦◦◦◦ Got to work. This day always has a special edge, an urgency…every action directed at one final goal: shutting the metal door, clang. Much stuff yet to do. Thought I was on top of things but, of course, there’s always the unanticipated “extras.” Like: taking both cats, separately, on walks so they’d go potty. Would’ve already hung up all the leftover FS bigwig-trip sleeping bags in the loft to keep rodents from harvesting stuffing for nest material but, as a Certified Feline Psychologist I knew that altering the cats’ bedroom scene would alert them that something was up and they’d disappear. So that took awhile plus I put off to the last minute writing up an entire season’s-worth of Incident Reports (basically, tickets for people who didn’t get caught). To me, THE MOST absurd of rangerly duties but allegedly important, being one concrete way to alert higher-ups that we need more Wilderness funding. So I spent a good hour and a half writing up completely bogus IRs, Lorenzo-style, making up an assortment of the usual travesties and knaveries that I find after the villains have fled the scene. Wolfed down some chow, chewing while loading panniers and washing last dishes. Horses already caught and fed. Like the cats, they could tell something big was up. When I’d go out to stir the ashes of last night’s bonfire they’d shoot me these pointed, questioning looks using subtle eyebrow and ear innuendo. ◦◦◦◦◦ This was I think the third time I’ve closed the cabin. Most years, people come up after I’m gone. I prefer doing it myself if only because it lends a real sense of completing a cycle. Got up on the roof, closed the skylight covers, then put up the shutters. Suddenly, the cabin’s very dark inside, in broad daylight. Weird. Had to light a lantern. Covered bookshelves with another tarp. Cupboard now bare with doors wide open (so Ursa won’t bother to rip them off their hinges as per the ’87 break-in). Both cats were crashed-out in the loft. One of the last chores is piling all four mattresses on the table. This left kitties huddled in the dark on the loft’s bare floor, their various beds all gone. These final chores are unsettling; everything homey about the place has been taken away and “home” is suddenly gone. Within the space of an hour my summer abode turned into a dark, lifeless cave—a far cry from July with light streaming in, tall bouquet on the table, everything in its proper place. Makes me sad in a way I find hard to express. That leave-taking thing. ◦◦◦◦◦ The very last task prior to shutting the metal door is sacking cats. Horses and mule waiting at the rail. (Piute saddled, Zack loaded, Tom saddled but with no load; Brenda naked except for halter and free to follow.) Cats, protesting, forced into burlap sacks; sacks duck taped shut and gingerly placed inside nosebags, tail-end at the bottom. The cats (who’ve been here since Solstice—almost four months) reacted with proper feline outrage. Both instantly went into claustrophobic frenzies with attendant yowlings. They hate this part but in a few hours it’ll all be over and forgotten til next time. Closed and locked metal door behind me. Without cats to deal with, I’d take a short break at this juncture, stroll around the place one last time, looking everything over, absorbing the lights & sounds and fluffing up my sense of gratitude. The feline frenzy precludes this moment of quiet appreciation and forces me to just go. They went silent when I hung their nosebags off my saddlehorn, one on either side. Red’s always cool with this; not so, Piute. Bagged cats make him nervous. Finally underway at 2:30. (Eight hours already, with no breaks.) ◦◦◦◦◦ And this is where things got “interesting.” Two minutes out, across the river and up onto the trail, something spooked my string from behind and—just like that [raise left hand and snap fingers]—my saddlehorse is galloping full tilt, front gate up ahead. I’ve only experienced this once before, some years back, after a close lightning strike. Instant panic-and-flee response, lots of things happening at once. Piute accelerated so fast! I dropped Tom’s lead and went for the horn and in doing so lost my reins. Reaching down with free hand, trying to latch the reins, out of the corner of my eye I see a wide-eyed Brenda come up on the right. She’d been at the rear, had spooked at something—or nothing—and then precipitated panic by ramming into Zack (heard that) who then charged Tom. Terror spread through the ranks. I felt it coming from behind, into my horse and through his body into my thighs and seat. With the adrenaline surge I went out of myself and into survival mode—certain perceptions heightened, others thrown overboard. Gate coming up fast. No room! Giant mule just off my right hip, cats howling. I finally got hold of the reins and tried to haul Piute in. He jammed on the breaks and his rapid deceleration caused the cat-bags to swing up wildly and slam back down (like my ass was being slammed into the saddle). Pitiful lament from both cats, me just hanging onto my saddlehorn and trying to hold down the leaping catbags. Then Shitbird was gone—his bag empty and flapping. Gate just ahead: No! Room! Brenda veered hard off to the right and it looked like she’d crash into that old downed log but then skidded to a stop, spun ‘round, and resumed galloping—back up the trail the way we’d come. All this happened at just about exactly the same time and in my condensed state I only witnessed bits of the action. Never even saw the two packhorses. Got Piute slowed down and stopped, maybe ten yards shy of the gate. I wheeled around and saw my sacked cat lying right at the edge of the trail, giant mule heading right for him. She ran right over him and sprinted off. My blood froze. Fearing the worst, I rode over to the sack…wave of relief seeing it untrampled, cat unsmashed, then looked up to see a cloud of dust rising behind three terrified four-leggers heading for Kirkwood Pass in a big hurry. I quick plopped Shitbird’s sack back into the nosebag and went in pursuit. Piute (now completely freaked) was doing a crow-hop dance making my poor kitties wail anew. Jumped off him and dropped both catbags there by the trail. I was furious. Wordlessly, angrily wondering why—on this gorgeous autumn day, symbolic day of departure—must I be subjected to mortal fear? What just happened?! ◦◦◦◦◦ Dashed up the trail and caught up with the three fugitives a quarter mile off. They’d slowed to a walk by this time but our sudden arrival set them off again and they all trotted down into the meadow toward a steep drop-off into the river. I was raving insanely, screaming at them to STOP! STOP! Ringleader Brenda, loose, leading Tom with Zack roped behind him. (Of course!—mules are always the ringleaders.) I leapt off Piute and lunged for Tom’s dragging lead-rope—Gotcha! But then my knavish saddlehorse walks away and I had to chase himaround. Piute doing his standard cagey act, like he does even in the corral—turning and wheeling away right when you go to nab him. Meanwhile, the other three stooges wander off again, la la-la. Final insult: Piute proceeded to wade across the river and I plunged in after him, up to my knees, before he finally let me take hold of his reins mid-stream. I’d lost it completely—an out-of-control, trembling heap of fury in sloshing-wet boots. This is when sane men commit murder. But I got back on Piute with Tom in tow and headed back to collect my traumatized kitties. Brenda followed meekly behind. ◦◦◦◦◦ The cats were still and seemed to be okay when I poked their sacks. (Plaintive, questioning meow?s in response.) Then noticed my hat was missing. Where’s my hat? So I had to go off in search of lost Stetson. Tied up all three horses and Brenda, too. Retraced my “steps” but couldn’t recall the exact sequence—it was all a blur. This is the place where we scraped under the lodgepole branches…but, no, it wasn’t there. This is where we dropped into the meadow…I think. No hat. Went back and tried again. Did it fall in the river when I waded after Piute and float away? Rode back toward the front gate and finally found it by the trail where Piute’s grinding-to-a-halt had bounced it off my head. ◦◦◦◦◦ Finally able to retrieve the cats. (In our absence, Shitbird managed to crawl/roll a dozen feet, his sack now studded with pine needles.) Got underway again and through the front gate—forward progress at last!—forty-five minutes after my day blew up. I felt downright ill. Following adrenal-discharge there’s this half-mental, half-physical deflation—a queasy, weak-in-the-knees, not-fully-in-your-skin sensation, most unpleasant. Mixed in with complete outrage that this had happened when it did and…period. How did I end up with those three drones on this last tour? Why didn’t you tie Brenda on, idiot? You should know better by now! As we went along, details started coming back and I replayed them over and over again. Throat felt raw like when you’re catching a cold and I realized it was from all the yelling, which I barely noticed at the time. Sickened by how close I’d come to losing the mini-lion and how that could’ve gone. Add thoroughly disgusted by how I’d handled myself. Shocked by how quickly and easily a perfectly fine day turned to vinegar. ◦◦◦◦◦ Mercifully, the stock all settled right down. Piute, on the other hand, was sketchy all the way out. The whole debacle hit me really hard. The helplessness. I’ve experienced so many moments of crisis—with the stock and while climbing—but have rarely felt quite so out-of-control. Had a lot to do with my feline wards’ lives being endangered. And my abominable behavior. The rest of the ride I coughed with raw throat (I hardly ever yell) and felt drained and diminished. At the Fremont junction, still so distracted that I forgot to stop and retrieve my stashed shovel. Upon remembering, a mile later, I felt bad all over again. ◦◦◦◦◦ It was actually a perfect Indian summer day in spite of all this noise and I finally came around enough to enjoy it. In dry years the aspens up here sometimes turn orange—some of them almost red—and if no big winds come the leaves just hang on and continue quaking. Today I saw some of the finest displays yet. Brilliant orange and scarlet clones mixed tastefully with piney greens, backed by volcanic cliffs in earthy shades of brown. Nary a soul did I see. (In fact, the trail crew were the only humans I saw this whole tour.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Got out at dusk. Drove to the barn, weary in my soul. It was dark before everything was done. Nobody had fed so I had to haul a couple wheelbarrow loads of hay out to the corral. Said goodbye to Red and old Valiente but they were only interested in hay. A kinda sad way to end the season. Cats were in the cab, waiting. Stopped by Greta’s. Of course she asked how it’d gone. Told her, curtly, that I’d just had “a terrible experience”—her face fell—but it was “gonna have to wait til tomorrow.” ◦◦◦◦◦ At the warehouse, off-loaded cats (Whoo-hoo!) plus all my crates and sacks various. Paused for the first time in 13 hours to stand, facing west, and watch a thin crescent moon set over Rickey Peak. Filthy and beat but unable to shower, alas. Cruel irony! Shower shut off for winter! But thanks to a big can of Chunky®Soup, I was able to eat something like dinner. Had picked up a newspaper on my way through town; since I was last here there’s been anthrax infections, delivered via U.S. mail. We live in interesting times. And that’s how I finished off the 2001 season, Amen.
©2020 Tim Forsell 12 Dec 2020
