Home > Bob Marshall > Bob Journal Vol 2 Most Grammar mistakes are intentional, typed as written in my journal The Bob Journals 5/20/05 - 8/20/05 Volume Two: A Summer in the Dirt Written by Eric Kroeger 10/14/05 Check these out: Travel Log - Injury Log - Animal Log ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Journals of Eric Kroeger: Summer of 2005 as a United States Forest Service employee in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, working as a backcountry trail construction crew member on the Spotted Bear Ranger District in the South Fork Flathead River Valley. This was Eric’s second season on the district. He was hired chiefly to reconstruct the Limestone Creek Trail at the most southern tip of the wilderness in the Danaher Creek Valley (the headwaters of the South Fork of the Flathead). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 1                5/20/05 I stayed the night at Shotzberger’s last night. We woke up at 5:00 to get a very early start on packing. We were on the road by 7:00 to SB. When we got there we had to fill out some paperwork for this volunteer hitch. I am with John, Deena, Jess, and Amanda Shotzberger and a guy named Rob. We have 5 horses and two mules (Flash, Skippy, Sonny, Dreamer, Munch, Mandy and Polly). Rob and I switched off with riding and hiking. We hit the trail at 14:00. We got to BB at 18:00. The camp deer are everywhere just like I left them. The mountain tops are covered with snow. It rained a little bit today, not for long though. Not a real exciting day besides going back to the Bob! I rode Munch most of the time and he always wanted to trot so it was pretty annoying. I think I prefer hiking over horse riding at this point in time. I’m hoping to use this hitch to get in better shape for when I start my paid work. Day 2                5/21/05 I woke at 6:30. We packed up and left BB around 8:00. I led Munch to get warmed up after a cold wet morning. Then, of course I got on and rode. I learned how to properly trot on a horse. A little after Little Salmon I hopped off and hiked the rest of the way to SF. Amanda and I took opposite directions to check the perimeter fence for damage. It was good. John, Deena, and I cut trees to fix the gate on the corral. It turned out nice. Then Jess, Amanda, Rob and I took off up Big Salmon to clear trail. There was light Blowdown, but it was fun to get back on the crosscut. We got about half way up the lake before we hiked back to meet John and Deena at the mouth of the lake to go fishing. Rob caught a little cutthroat. We came back to the cabin for dinner and a campfire. I haven’t had cooked trout for over a year! Anyway, the camp deer are all over the place here. No big bucks though, even though it’s early in the season. Things haven’t been too exciting yet. Haven’t seen any animals or found anything cool. To bed at 21:15. Day 3                5/22/05 It was a lazy morning. None of us got up until John started the fire in the cabin. Back to the oatmeal breakfast. Can’t say I miss that aspect. We got out of SF around 9:00. We left Jess and Rob at SF. They have to work in Libby on Tuesday. Munch went with them. So I rode Flash all the way to BP. It was a good ride, but I found that I get dehydrated more when on a horse than I did last year hiking. We stopped for lunch at Burnt Creek Parks. [Most people say cheese doesn’t go bad, but the Swiss that day was horrible! Maybe I was just a wuss at that point in the summer.] I’m glad I had a horse for that climb out of Burnt. It was brutal last year hiking. We rolled into BP around 15: 00. We set to work repairing and opening up buildings. Whoever shut down the water system last fall did a pretty crappy job. The pipes must have frozen and busted the plumbing in the Packer’s Cabin, Bunkhouse, and the Ranger’s House. We managed to flood the bunkhouse and the basement of the ranger’s house in the process of fixing it. The bunkhouse needs a whole new hot water tank. That work with plumbing will continue tomorrow. We saw a bald eagle and a badger today. Pretty cool. I didn’t think baldies ever made it back here. It’s odd to not have the bustling BP as I knew it last summer. That time will come in June I guess. But for now it is very quiet, just the ringing of Skippy’s mare bell in the trees. There was a striking sunset tonight. To bed at 21:24. Day 4                5/23/05 I woke at 6:30 this morning. We lounged around the Ranger Station until 8:00. I went and helped John finish up the plumbing projects. Everything works except for the broken hot water tank in the bunkhouse. Amanda and I swamped out the Packer’s Cabin. To finish off the morning, I sharpened axes. I found our axe from last year. After lunch, we went shed hunting. We came back with two keepers, both whitetails. I found another but it was chewed up really bad. The shed hunting was up Lime Creek. We were back at BP by 17:00. I took an hour nap, ate dinner, did dishes, then sat on the porch watching all the whitetails play on the airstrip. Another calm day with another great sunset. I said to Amanda, “I wonder why there are great sunsets here every night.” She said, “Cuz we are in the Bob and everything in the Bob is great!” To bed at 21:40. Day 5                5/24/05 Woke at 7:00 this morning. The front room of the bunkhouse was covered in water again. The hot water tank still had water in it and it was dripping out of a broken pipe in the stove. We left for Young’s Ford a little after 8:00. We were clearing, but hardly had any trees down. If this keeps up, this summer will be a breeze. But in the back of my mind is the thought that all these trees in the burn will fall over the next 15 years. We got to the ford around noon and ate lunch by the river. We rode back (I was on Dreamer all day) with Deena clearing rocks off the trail until we passed Flatiron. We switched to horn-hunting mode. I couldn’t get Dreamer to go anywhere I wanted him to, so that was frustrating. I want a horse that is independent! Amanda found a few elk sheds near the Gordon Ford. I was following her and Skippy when we got to the flats near BP. She expertly guided Skippy down a VERY steep bank at a nice cross-slope angle. Dreamer just had to follow Skippy. Dreamer and I reached the top of the bank, and that’s when my mind was telling me to hold on cuz that sucker was steep! The next few seconds had dropped Dreamer and I over 30 feet onto the next flat, as Dreamer ran straight down the slope. I thought he was gonna trip and wreck at the base of the hill, but he proceeded to gallop and buck for the next 70 yards. The rodeo was actually kinda fun, I never felt like I was gonna fall off. The only thing that fell was my hat. We got back to BP at about 15: 30. I slept for a while, then sharpened up the rest of the single-bit axes (except for the lame ones with fiberglass handles) I managed to cut myself 3 times in the process but nothing big. Played some gin. Drained the hot water tank and to bed at 21:55. Day 6                5/25/05 I woke at quarter to 7:00. We left for Basin Cabin hoping to clean up a mess from a problem bear. I rode Dreamer again today. He was slow and distracted at first, but Deena showed me how to get him to respond to me. We arrived at Basin, half expecting the old griz to still be living in the cabin. No sign of the bear [actually there was plenty of bear sign everywhere and it contained the weirdest stuff.] and garbage was strewn everywhere. The inside of the cabin was trashed. The bear had gotten to every bit of food. The only survivors being one can of tomato soup and one can of tuna. [Also the old MRE’s were uneaten…he bit into a bottle of bleach but did not eat the MRE’ s…hmmmm what does that tell you?] We burned everything that would burn to get rid of the smell of bear urine. But now Basin is livable again. We saw a huge black bear across the river a little way south of the Young’s Ford. We spent the remainder of the evening, thinking of a hilarious entry in the cabin log. It turned out awesome. Since the bear ripped through the nail mats on the door and walked around with bleeding paws, it goes to show that a grizzer bear is not an animal to mess with. To bed at 21:10. Day 7                5/26/05 Woke at 6:45. I slept on the floor and had the penetrating, very strong odor of bear urine burned into my nostrils. A mouse was keeping busy all night on a thing of Lipton Tea next to my sleeping bag. It sucked. But anyway, we made a trip down to the Danaher today. We had a couple saw logs on the way. I start to wonder why the trail crew does not have slang to describe trees that are down. Like the one we cut would be a rooted, split double trunk pincher with a double catch and a left side strainer. That basically means that the tree was still rooted in the ground, the trunk forked into two tall trunks which were split at the fork running toward the roots. The tree sagged in the middle which would cause it to pinch. Both top trunks were caught in adjacent trees and the entire assembly was pressed against an adjacent leaner tree which causes more tension on the trunk. Anyway, we blasted through the saw logs, and proceeded to the swamps of the Danaher. We stopped at the cabin for lunch and saw a few bull elk that were huge for this time of year (already had 5 pts). We shed hunted for a while and climbed to the top of Horse Hill with the horses. A sweet view from up there. We then came down the back side. John and Amanda found a few spike elk sheds. We were on our way down Bar Creek when I realized a bag that was hanging on my saddle horn was missing. John and Deena made their way back to Basin while Amanda and I were sent to retrieve the bag. Good thing it fell off Flash near the bottom of the hill cuz that would have sucked to climb back up the ridge. So that took us about 50 min. to find the bag. We made it back to Basin only 30 min. behind John and Deena. (Flashy must have been flyin’!) Anyway, we cooked sausage over the fire in the back for dinner. To bed at 21:24. Day 8                5/27/05 I slept in the cot last night. The bear urine smell has pretty much faded in Basin. I forgot how cold sleeping in a cot is! I didn’t get up until the fire had warmed up the cabin. That was a little after 7:00. The ride back to BP was uneventful. I led Dreamer until Cayuse when Deena got back on. All of us including the horses are happy to be back at BP. We got back near 13:00. I took a nap then headed to the river to explore. I stumbled onto a cow elk near the Indian graves on the hill by the bridge. She saw me and slowly walked away. I decided to look around a little more on the hill then decided to find the elk again. Well I found her but she didn’t find me until I had to yell at her to keep from being trampled. She was tearing up the side of the mound right towards me and got within 25 feet as I yelled “Hi, Girl!” She stopped, finally saw me, then took off down the hill. She still didn’t run far. She hung around for a long time and barked at me a couple times. Amanda said she was still in the same spot when they went fishing this evening. The elk must be calving soon. As I write this the grey wolves are howling upriver. It sounds so cool. The first time I have ever heard a wolf howl. Coyotes hundreds of times, but never a wolf. I spent the evening digging through the bookshelf in the office. I found a bunch of historical accounts of the Bob from 1907 and stuff. I also found some ghost stories. The one about the Roush girl at BP and the Rangers at Schafer Meadows. John shared an account of a lone Indian checking on him and Deena a few years back to make sure everything was okay. Gordon said he had seen the same spirit. John said that was the year he found a weird lookin pelvic bone behind the packer’s cabin. One of his archeologist friends recognized it as a human sacrum. Interesting. To bed at 22:32. Day 9                5/28/05 I woke at 5:45 and could not get back to sleep. I had a dream about Tania and that had my mind going. It’s been almost a year since I’ve seen her. Unfortunately, her Navy lifestyle and a few family circumstances of hers left her with no choice but to end our relationship. I dated her for 10 months, only seeing her for 3. It was rough and I’m not sure I have quite moved on. Anyway, I took a walk around the prairie again to clear my head. I saw the cow elk again. She ran across the bridge. At first I thought it was a horse, and that I might have left the gate open, but it was closed. I got to my first bit of PR today. Shotzbergers were down at the river when two hikers (a guy and his son) came to the station. Good thing I did all that studying on BP history. I could actually answer their questions! They were heading up over White River Pass tomorrow. I told them about the foot trail on the south of the river. They were grateful to hear that they didn’t have to cross the White. And yes I did tell them that the going was rough on the foot trail. The remainder of the day was spent stocking up on R&R (rest and relaxation…not the liquor). Deena, Amanda and I went down to Cayuse on foot to hunt for antlers…found nothing. Came back, lounged around, then played cards. I love playing cards, but only with people you’ve played cards with before. That way all the stupid little quirky rules are known. But tonight while playing rummy I was going for a 3 of a kind and a stupid quirky rule cut off my strategy. But since I am the oddball in this group (the only one not in the family) I was a victim of the quirky rule. Damn it! Oh well. Early start tomorrow. Going to White River Butte to do some trail maintenance. To bed at 21:30. Day 10                5/29/05 Woke at 6:15. Cleared towards the White River. We stopped and did a bunch of retread on the butte. It looks pretty nice and feels a lot safer on horse. We had lunch at White River Park. Those old Pondies down there are still hangin on after the ’03 fires. We went and checked out the ford on the White. Its crazy…the end of May and I would feel safe crossing the White River on foot. Almost unheard of! The skeeters are starting to show up. Back to feeling that  “I wanna itch” feeling. I hiked back to BP once we got out of the White River Butte burn. I was in front and going good. But man those horses speed up when they get close to BP. Took a long nap and then played golf (the card game) after dinner. Headin up to clear Tillson alone tomorrow. Shotzbergers are going back to Basin for 2 days. To bed at 22:06. Day 11                5/30/05 Happy Memorial Day! If that makes sense…honoring those who died…that might be happy…? Anyway, woke at 7:30. I helped Shotzbergers get ready to go to Basin. They are taking a load of goods there to restock after the bear broke in. I lounged the morning away. Then, left for Tillson Peak at 11:30. I got to the peak at 15:00. There were a few saw logs near the top. I realized that my legs are not in very good shape. Ate some candy bars on the peak then made my way back down, brushing. Brushing is tedious but the machete helped out with the problem-children (little tiny pine trees that grow next to the trail or in it). A big ol’ rain cloud was approaching, but I made it back to BP at 19:30, dry. It’s kinda lonely around BP when you’re the only one here. Well, me and the whitetails, but they don’t talk much. Anyway, to bed at 21:30. Day 12                5/31/05 End of May already! Woke up around 8:00 this morning. Got a call on the radio shortly after. It was Gordon asking if I knew anyone else who wanted to work for SB. I told the name of a friend of mine, but they said he wasn’t on “the list.” I got to talk on the radio three times today…”Yeah this is Big Prairie. Go ahead.” Ah, I love it. Makes me feel important. I hit up the project list today. A broken chair needed fixing, so I tackled that. Put a new seat in and reinforced the braces on the legs. I hope the glue holds. It must have frozen and thawed a bunch cuz it was pretty bad lookin’. John came back from Basin at about 13:00. Deena and Amanda had to go back and get their hats they left. They got to BP around 15:30. It was pretty cloudy today, got some heavy rain when the girls got in. Some T-storms later on in the evening. I rehandled a hatchet. I was gonna make a really cool elk antler handle, but there is probably some safety code that says all hand tools must have wooden handles. Oh well, it still turned out great. Day off tomorrow. To bed at 21:19. Day 13                6/1/05 Wow! It rained today! It hasn’t rained like this since I was pretty young! Maybe the 7 year drought is coming to an end. Woke at 8:00 today. Then just kinda hung out. I built a new sheath for the machete, made it outta old fire hose. It should work great. I’ll have to experiment with the old deer rawhide one when I have more materials to go through. I was thinking about hinting to Tad that I want to be on roaming trail crew again like last summer, but if they put me on the Limestone construction crew I guess it’ll be alright. It’ ll lead to new experiences and give me more knowledge about my line of work. I was thinking that it may not be as cool as being a roamer, but no matter what ya do back here, ya get cool stories and memories. So bring it on! Plus, I decided I would be more of an extrovert this summer and hang out with people more. So it sounds like they will be hiring more rookies this year. That’s good! What good is being a second year worker if there are no first year workers? I burned most of the day (and most of the logs in the bunkhouse) reading a Terry C. Johnston novel. I’m not much of a reader but those mountain man stories sure get me. We played 11 hands of golf tonight (cards again) and I lost miserably. I blame it on bad lighting and the glare coming off John’s cards. To bed at 21:32 Day 14                6/2/05 Another rainy day. In our time here so far, we have already completed our 80 hours of volunteer time. So we didn’t feel any need to tackle any big projects during these rainy days. I woke at 7:30. I’m switching bunks tonight because I haven’t slept well the last couple nights, including last night. I was really bored today. I find it hard to sit down and read a book all day. I read some, slept some, took pictures, mopped the ranger station, blah blah blah…anything to pass the time. Later I went out on the airstrip and called in ravens. Getting them to circle twice is a victory in my book. Except the horses couldn’t figure out what I was, crouched on the ground and calling with a god-awful rasping “caw!” I think this drought has gotten me too used to nice, dry, warm days where I can easily keep busy. That’s about what happened today. To bed at 21:20. Day 15                6/3/05 Man….rainy days are really boring. Although it did stop around dinner and a hint of blue sky appeared. But quickly clouded over. I woke at a quarter to 8:00. The switching of bunks last night really helped, except I was next to the wall which meant I was closer to the rhythmic plinking of water drops on the laundry tubs outside. We cleaned up the bunkhouse today. I moved the smelly old couch (probably hasn’t happened in about 10 years) to clean under it. Only found one dead mouse, a simple reminder to set out more D-Con. Another laid back day, however it was less boring than yesterday. We found an old MCC classical guitar upstairs in a closet. The strings were all over the place, and the ones that were still intact were way out of tune (the high E and the A string aren’t supposed to sound the same.) Anyway, classical guitars annoy me. I don’t like nylon strings. Give me my 30 year old, made in Korea, unknown brand, 6 string steel acoustic and I’m set. 2 more days until I get back to that instrument. [I was seriously counting down the days. Withdrawals?] I can’t wait. Yeah, I sing on the trail, but nothing beats singing with those strings in your hand. To bed at 21:13. Day 16                6/4/05 Woke at 10 to 6:00. We packed up and left BP around 8:00. The mountains looked ghostly this morning as they were blanketed in fog. I had to let my feet out of the stirrups to keep my knees from hurting. [This problem led to an injury later on.] The trails were muddy as hell (and hell is pretty muddy in case you were wondering.) But the rain held off. We headed north on the west side trail from BP all the way to Black Bear Cabin. About 24 miles. It was a long day. I got off and let Flashy walk without a passenger. Had to do an official baptizing of my new boots (although I’ve had them for awhile) in the mud and horse crap. I’m pretty excited to roll into SB tomorrow. All my co-workers will be coming tomorrow (to SB) so that’ll be awesome. Its always cool meeting up with friends ya haven’t seen in a while. To bed at 21:28. Day 17                6/5/05 Woke at 5:30. Got the horses ready and headed out before or around 7:00. Dreamer was being really lazy and would not walk with the rest of the string. So I got off and made him walk at my [faster] pace, which he didn’t like. So we made it to Meadow Creek around 13:00 or so. We had some brownies with Laird and then packed and loaded up, then drove back to SB. Man it feels weird driving so low to the ground rather than being up on a horse. There were just a few people here [at SB] when I arrived. But they slowly trickled in over time. It was good weather while we were on the trail, but it turned really rainy with T-storms in the afternoon. But all is good and Orientation starts tomorrow. To bed at 22:49. Day 18                6/6/05 Woke at 6:30. Man there is a snorer amongst us! So last night was pretty restless and my earplugs would not stay in. Anyway, we had our intro discussions today. It wasn’t too bad. Stayed awake. I got an award for helping cook dinner last night (a bandana that has a historic FS map on it). It is the Forest Service’s 100th birthday this year. Played some horseshoes. We won one game and lost the next miserably (me and Jamie Robertson). I had KP (Kitchen Patrol) tonight so I did a bunch of dishes and scrubbed garbage cans with a toilet brush. No toilet brushes on the dishes though. Went and played guitar by the river. But the still swollen river was producing to much white noise and it made my guitar sound like crap. Called home tonight; Mom’s over at the farm ‘til Thursday. Then, I just kinda hung out the rest of the night getting to know the new people in Stalog. Pretty cool bunch. Two of the people will be on my crew as we rebuild Limestone Creek trail under my crew leader Ryan Smith. Tyrell is a guitar player as well and we jammed a little on the porch of Stalog, then we all talked a lot about history…Oh yeah, we had the “Old Timer’s Panel” to finish off work. Bud Moore, Fred Flint, and Dave somebody came to talk about their days back in the Bob. Dave was back there in the 40’s and he says it’s pretty much the same as it was then. The people in Stalog are nervous or something. They ask me a bunch of questions, but I love answering and telling them about the Bob. To bed at 23:00. Day 19                6/7/05 Woke up around 6:30 again. We did something for an hour (can’t for the life of me remember what it was). But anyway we then went down to the barn and did stock training. We did saddling on Mandy the mule. It’s always nice to handle stock that you know. They have 2 barn cats. One looks like a young lynx and has ear tufts almost.   Pretty cool lookin cat. After we relearned all that stuff we came back for defensive driving. It was actually fun this year rather than last year when we just sat and watched movies about how to properly back up a vehicle. Then we did tool training. Pretty easy stuff now. Then, a meeting for those of us going back up the South Fork. It turns out I’ll be heading back in EARLY Monday morning with Steve Hodgedon and we will hike from Meadow Creek all the way to Salmon Forks that one day (about 23 miles). So that’ ll be pretty brutal for the first hike. But we will be heading to Pendant then back to BP over Bartlett Pass and Bartlett Trail. Everyone else will work on blow-down on the East Side Trail. I’m looking forward to my little side adventure since I will be in construction camp all summer. I’m thinking I may have to bring my snowshoes. Bill Dalmyer said there was 6 feet of snow on Bartlett Pass last year at this time. And he was post-holing, so snowshoes will definitely be in order. Oh yeah, we are just doing recon in the area to scope out trail structures that will be fixed later in the summer. It’ll be cool. Oh, I just remembered what I did for that hour this morning. It was an explanation of time sheet stuff. SB Olympics were tonight. I didn’t do so hot this year. I galloped in the hobbles race but it didn’t work as well as last year. I crosscutted with Aaron Darnton. We had a good cut going but we were standing wrong. I was too close and Aaron too far away. Oh well, it was a great night. Fun stuff! To bed at 23:24. Day 20                6/8/05 Day 20 already! CPR and First Aid day today. I sat in for both this year to renew my certification. Fun stuff. Wild Bill has a great way of teaching besides lame videos and stuff. Played guitar after work and put on new strings. Then burned up the day bullshitting with people; later, around a campfire. Oh yeah, ALERT flew in today for First Aid training. Got to learn hands on about the bird and how to deal with situations involving the helicopters. Pack test tomorrow. To bed at 22:51. Day 21                6/9/05 Woke at 6:30 or something. Had the Pack Test this morning, but I was in the second group this year and went to Maps/GPS first. We had a presentation abut the cutthroat trout project. The barn dance was tonight. Isaac and I were two of the few sober people there. We had to help a few people to their beds because they could not manage their consciousness. That was a great teamwork effort using the bed of my truck. It was great laughing at all the drunk people. Stayed up way too late. And for that, tomorrow will be brutal. Sleeping up in the cookhouse tonight to avoid residual vomit. To bed at 03:24 on day 22. Day 22                6/10/05 We had fire refresher today. The instructor said “You guys are doing pretty good for having hangovers.” Then Klug said “That’s cuz none of us have hangovers yet!” That about explained it. [Later in the afternoon when the booze wore off,] the people that were drifting to sleep were handed a 20lb pipe wrench to hang on to. So when they fell asleep the wrench would fall to the ground and everyone would know they were sleeping. After work, Amanda and I drove back to Libby. Very tired tonight. Day 23                6/11/05 At Home Day 24                6/12/05 Woke at 8:00. Went to church in Troy. My old priest from childhood was there. It was great to see an old friend and a man that played such an important role in my life (Fr. Ray Hannigan..[yes, the ex-hockey player]) After that I collected what supplies I had forgotten. Then headed to Shotzbergers to see Jess and pick up Amanda for the trip back. We hit the road around 14:00 and got to SB around 18:00. We went down to the barn and I helped Amanda and Blair pack up the manties (mule packs) for the trip tomorrow. People are downstairs right now watching a John Wayne movie. I’m sleeping in the cookhouse tonight. Long day tomorrow. To bed at 22:56. Day 25                6/13/05 Woke at 6:30. Went down to the barn to help finish packing. We shuttled to Meadow Creek around 8:30. Hit the trail at 10:00 after eating  few brownies. Since I don’t have to clear, I took the lead of the hikers. I stopped for lunch with Carlos at Mid Creek, but realized that I forgot my lunch in my truck. Yum yum, that brick of cheese will be good by the end of the summer. I pushed ahead and reached BB at 14:30. I ate some food, electrolytes, Advil and water. I even took a short nap cuz I was only a little over half way to my destination. I left BB a little after 16:00. Man this trail got longer in that week of orientation, or maybe it’s the 23 miles I did today. Not bad for the first day. There were 6 mice in the Rocky Mountain Roller. They must have been there for awhile cuz they didn’t look so good. Off to Pendant tomorrow if we can cross Albino Creek. To bed at 21:48. Day 26                6/14/05 We failed to wake at our 6:00 alarm this morning and rose at 8:30. we hit the trail at 9:45 towards Pendant. Big Salmon Lake was glass the whole time we walked along it. At the end of the lake (about 4 miles up) my knee started hurting. That made the rest of the 17 mile day miserable. We checked the few puncheons that Tad wanted us to check out. All the worries about not being able to cross Albino creek faded as we trudged through the ice-cold water. Dart creek wasn’t bad either. We almost made it to Pendant dry, but we got hit by a thunderstorm about ¼ mile out. Once we reached the cabin we had to do the anti-hantivirus spray down with bleach water. [Another T-storm hit later. The rain had almost ceased, and I went onto the porch. One single ½ inch piece of hail smashed into the ground in front of me as a warning shot. I ran for the cabin door just as hail began to pour from the sky. I made it without getting hit once]. Pretty cool being at Pendant [besides there being no food]. I just wish my body was in less sorry shape. My knee will probably be giving me troubles tomorrow going up and over Bartlett Pass. The knee injury put quite a damper on my enthusiasm for the rest of this trip. But if all goes well, we will be back at BP tomorrow. To bed at 20:56. Day 27                6/15/05 Woke at 6:00 and hit the trail at 8:00. My knee was feeling good for the first 100 yards of trail, and then went back to hurting. There are some sweet views from the west side of Bartlett. I forgot about those. So my knee was in pain and we hit snow right around 6500ft. It wasn’t very cool hiking up to a pass in deep snow with an injured knee. Well the snow wasn’t that deep. 2-3 feet max on the west side and 3-4½ feet on the east. We scrambled down the east side of the pass. I could remember pretty well what the boulder field looked like from last summer’s trip up Burnt Creek. We had issues with falling between the hidden boulders through the snow nonetheless. [Steve broke trail in front of me and I just hoped to God I didn’t fall under a boulder and break my knee, snap a ligament, or make matters worse. We lost the trail many times in the upper bowl of the valley. All we could follow was the corridor in the trees; the trail was buried.] Once we finally got out of the snow, it was a pretty boring hike. Although it was cool to see the work the Bartlett Crew did last year. But the trail was long and my knee was really sore. I just wanted to be back at BP. At 17:00, we finally rolled into BP. Even though I was just here, it is always great to be back. To bed at 21:13. Day 28                6/16/05 Woke at 7:00 this morning. I’m on light duty for the next few days to recover my knee. So while everyone else that is here so far went off to fix the Flatiron blowout, I stayed at BP and did odd jobs. I first stocked the food room. Then set to work staining the new screen door for the Ranger’s cabin. I also stained a line of chinking on the front of the Packer’s Cabin. It’s pretty off color (which I wasn’t too proud of), but hopefully time and dirt will bring it to be the color of the rest of the cabin. I also cleaned off the bench and window sill in the tool shed. Carlos was telling me that he had to clean it one time, and it took him and another guy 3 days to just see the top of the bench. Carlos helped put the bench top on that is in there now. After lunch Carlos and I headed over to the dam and scoped out a project repairing some crib logs near the main valve. Carlos took a quick time out to test the bouncing log for surfing capabilities. Anyway, I came back and finished the day checking handles on the tools in the tool shed. Blair, Jamie and Erika came in today. Klug and Malone tomorrow with the rookies. Played some flute (native cedar flute) while the coyotes were howling to the north. It sounded sweet, echoing off the mountains. To bed at 21:40. Day 29                6/17/05 Woke at 7:00 again. Light duty again today as well. People went to work on Flatiron again today. I stayed at BP with Jamie and Erika. It took us all morning to set up the wall tent for the new people. We had issues with the fly being too small and stuff like that. After lunch, the group of newbies came in with the usual first year blisters and stuff. After they got all settled in, we finally got up to the dam to start work on the valve pit. We kept talking about it all day, but it was hard to get motivated to hike all the way up there. But we finally got up there and cut a few poles for the structure. I helped out a bit with dinner tonight. Carlos made some hot chili. The rest of the time was spent bullshitting on the porch just like the good times I remember. Once evening set in, I went and played some flute. The sound relaxes me and makes me feel like I shouldn’t speak to break the peace for the rest of the evening. To bed at 23:42. Day 30                6/18/05 Woke around 9:00 this morning. A pretty boring day. Sat around and bullshitted for most of the morning. I went and did a bit more work in the tool shed. Carlos was wondering why I was working on my day off. But I enjoy that kind of stuff. I had to do something cuz I was so bored. So I went for a walk down towards the North Gate with my CD player. I was kinda wondering if I belong here for another summer, but that’s probably because of my rough start with the knee injury. I don’t feel my boundless freedom as I did last summer, but it’ll probably come back when my knee heals. Some of the newbies decided to go surfing at 19:30. It was windy and cold and I didn’t figure it was very smart. But, oh well, look at me, I almost got struck by lightning last year and that was because of a stupid move. Well, maybe that was just circumstance, but anyway…I got my deer hide soaking in egg solution tonight and will soften it tomorrow. We had a fire tonight. Pretty fun hanging out and telling stories. To bed at 0:25 on day 31. Day 31                6/19/05 Woke at 8:30. Didn’t do much today. I started softening the deer hide, but did not finish. But it’s safe in a bag for overnight. Oh, I read about how to split really big long logs (with only wedges), so I went and split a big ol’ log into 4 pieces. It was pretty fun, but I gained a couple blood blisters on my left hand. Tad barbequed some good chicken tonight. An awesome fiery sunset happened as well. To bed at 22:30. Day 32                6/20/05 First day of BP orientation and I am roughly done with a third of my summer. Damn! We felled trees today to “certify” the newbies. One tree we had dropped and butchered in less than 15 minutes and that includes hauling it away. We “certified” the newbies with the tree climbing gear as well. Then we sharpened tools for Limestone to finish off the work day. Bill came in today with his string. Gordon came also. No mail for much of anyone. So that sucked pretty bad. My guitar came in though, so I played on the porch. It was Cindy’s birthday today. Carlos made some carrot cake for that. Then I struggled to write letters for Bill to take out tomorrow. My knee is starting to feel a little better. Blood blisters went away and guitar calluses are starting to grow back. Sweet! To bed at 22:53. Day 33                6/21/05 Summer Solstice! Woke at 6:45 to get pictures for the Pro Testing program I’m doing. Those went out with Bill. I forgot to get peoples’ addresses so I hope they write me first. Anyway, it was really hot today. Most people were digging a new pit for the grey water tanks. But my Limestone Crew worked on getting all of our stuff together. I then worked on an axe from scratch. Put a new handle on it, sharpened it (didn’t need much cuz I already sharpened all the single bits a few weeks back), then made a sheath. I marked the handle with the propane torch and stamped my initials on it. Oiled the handle and head, then called it my own. No, I’m not proud. A few of the guys put up 3 fifths of Jack Daniels for the first person to jump into the freshly uncovered grease slump pit. Aaron Klug was the taker. He went up to his neck (so the deal went) in the nasty grey water/greasy scum. It was awesome. I worked late helping Carlos get the new grey water system back running. We stayed up real late tonight just shootin’ the shit because it was the summer solstice. Some T-storms impeded on the extra long hours of daylight. [Carlos, Steve and a bunch of others went up to the caves on Packrat to have the annual jam session above BP.] My knee feels significantly better tonight, but I will still be on light duty for a while. To bed at 0:19 on day 34. Day 34                6/22/05 Woke at 7:00. Light duty again. Started out laying sod and spreading native grass seed in the elk wallow behind the bunkhouse. Then did some random stuff like rehab a burn scar behind Gordon’s house, rake up all the woodchips from yesterdays woodcutting. Then after lunch, I fitted the screen door to the backdoor on Gordon’s house. It was an inch too big all the way around. So I hand sawed the big stuff off, then used a hand planer to take down the rest of the wood. It was a sweet project. The rest of the day was spent lounging around trying to get out of the heat. I am still in awe of my axe. I will definitely write home about that. Blair has an infection in his finger and my knife was used to lacerate it to see what was happening in there. I was gonna use it after it had been boiled, iodined, and alcoholed, but I still couldn’t after seeing what had come out of his finger onto it. It was a good day though. My knee should be good for hitch if I take it easy this weekend. To bed at 22:14. Day 35                6/23/05 Woke at 7:00. Hung back at BP again. I spent the whole day up at the dam cutting crib logs for the new valve pit. Cindy came up and helped me at about 10:00. We felled about 10 trees and bucked them into pieces a little longer than my axe. But man, my clothes changed color, well my whole body changed color to the color of the trees…black! [The forest back by the dam was burned in 2003.] My fancy axe looks all rough and tough now because it is black as well. But I rocked it hardcore while chopping out a face cut. It glanced off the trunk and nailed a large rock. So, I’ll probably sharpen that back up this weekend. Had pork for dinner. It was pretty good. Took a shower and put on clean clothes. I am feeling pretty confident about my knee being healed (or at least good enough) in time for the hike to Limestone on Wednesday. The bats returned to the bunkhouse last night, but it didn’t keep me up any. This was a great solid work day. I really felt like I got something done. To bed at 22:09. Day 36                6/24/05 The grease pit is gone! Well, buried at least. We made the old broken water heater from the bunkhouse into the new grease trap. We had to anchor it into the nasty grey water tank with rocks, so Klug and I put on coveralls and braved the splash-back factor of the rocks entering the water. [No matter how carefully you let go of the rocks they always splashed back.] I got splashed a good one once. After the pit was filled in, we lit the grease fire (the old pit logs, grease chunks and random slash). Carlos was skiing on Fossil Mtn and he said he could see the plume. It was Carlos’s Birthday. After lunch, I started sharpening my axe. I almost finished, but Keegan needed my assistance with tree felling problems…yeah I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Then Keegan, Chelsea and I came back to do firewood, but all the splitting mauls had broken handles. So I rehandled two mauls and that took me the rest of the day. We had cake for Carlos’s birthday. Then I coaxed the grease fire back to life after hours of smoldering. We hung out around the fire until late. The whiskey was definitely going around tonight. However, I still feel no need to participate. [I tried some whiskey back on day 11. Can’t stand the stuff! If there was ever a time I thought I was drinking fingernail polish…] To bed at 0:41 on day 37. Day 37 Woke at 9:00 today. The fire was still burning good from last night. Klug designated me the new “Fire Ring Coordinator.” An honor. I’ve been sitting around BP for almost two weeks now; so on the weekends I just want to keep busy. So I rehandled a pulaski from about 10:30 to 14:30. Sanding off the stupid varnish took forever. Then we had deep fat fry day today. Klug, Blair, and Craig started at noon and fried every damn thing they could fit into the batter bowl. It was awesome. We made some special “leftover” donuts for Gordon with a bunch of crazy food and condiments in it. [They included ranch dressing, chocolate chips, kipper snacks, Tabasco sauce, etc. We figured we had to make sure it was palatable before we let our boss eat them, so we all took a little bite. Next thing I knew we were all looking for something strong to get rid of the taste in our mouths. We figured they were “palatable” so we topped them with some chocolate frosting and some powdered sugar. And if you know Gordon at all, you would expect what happened next. “Not bad!” he said as he ate the other three donuts. Oh man!] I came up with making cheese sticks and jalapeno poppers. So basically, we had a huge fry fest. It was greasy and great. We toasted to America at the table. Also squeezed one more night out of the grease fire. To bed at 0:15 on day 38. Day 38                6/26/05 Woke a little after 8:00. Couldn’t even look at the leftover fried food from yesterday. I sat around for most of the morning. Everyone went off on their own little adventures today. Klug went to Bulletnose. Blair to Pilot/Fossil/Gordon. Tyrell and Kevin to Brown Sandstone. Brian was going for Haystack but got lost in Lime Creek????? [haha] Ben, Anna and Malone went up Jumbo to ski what’s left of the melting snow. They dressed in very interesting clothing. I could feel the grease from yesterday setting in, so I tried out my knee on Packrat Mt. It felt pretty good. Still a little weak, but good. So I took off down the backside of Packrat into the Lime Creek area. [No, I never saw Brian.] I didn’t find any sheds. Got back around 14:30 then slept. I used 17 cups of powdered sugar to make frosting for the cupcake dessert tonight. We had few people at the station tonight, so we ate dinner “Family style” where we all sat up to the table and passed the pot of potatoes around, [called each other brother and sister…?], etc. Just like thanksgiving, except with pork and beans. [That’s when “brother Brian” came in from his interesting excursion. It was awesome timing.] It turned rainy this afternoon. Oh, I finished softening the deerskin. It started smelling a little, so I decided I’d better finish it. I might smoke it tomorrow. [Braintanner lingo. I don’t smoke.] The grease fire finally went out. To bed at 22:40. Day 39                6/27/05 Woke around 8:30. I spent most of the morning making preparations for smoking my deer hide. Backcountry Horsemen group from Butte came through today, along with a few hikers. I love having visitors! I was about to start smoking the hide when a big windy T-storm came in. So I had to wait. Amanda got back from Black Bear today with a letter from Jess. At BB, Zippy got hurt pretty bad and had to have surgery. Lots of sitting around today. Lots of rain as well. The evening brought less wind so I got the hide functionally smoked. I will resmoke it later to get better color. So now I reek like smoke. First full hitch starts tomorrow! Can’t wait to get away from BP. I should be at Basin tomorrow night. Oh yeah, yesterday, word came in that Shaw Cabin got broken into by a bear. To bed at 23:15. Day 40                6/28/05 Woke at 7:00. Very slow moving this morning. I spent the majority of the morning packing up all my stuff for Limestone. I figure I won’t spend much time at BP. I’ll basically be living at Limestone, so I brought most of my possessions that I have back here. It all made for one heavy pack! I taught Darnton how to rehandled tools. I left BP around 13:00. All that sitting around BP for 2 weeks made for a brutal hike (11 miles isn’ t bad, but with that heavy pack, it sucked!) My knee started bugging me a little so I slowed down. 11 miles in 5 hours, I think that is my record worst. And my body protested every step of the way. [It was like my mind and my body was not connected at all.] So now I’m at Basin, finally. I’m sore and tired. I saw plenty of wolf tracks today between Youngs Ford and here. Followed some very fresh bear tracks for a ways. Even saw some cat tracks around Flatiron. Well, the sun is still up and I’m going to bed, 20:15. Day 41                6/29/05 Got a well needed 12 hours of sleep last night. Woke at 8:00. My body didn’t feel that bad this morning; but later on down the trail it was back to hurting. I repacked my bag which made today’s hike a little more bearable. Just as I was closing up Basin, Ryan came hiking up. He must have gotten a way early start. So Ryan flew on ahead as I crept along at my hurting pace. The last 3 miles from Danaher to Limestone was hellacious. [It’ s a big valley and you can see where you need to be over an hour before you get there. Oh by the way, it was actually 4 miles from the Danaher to Limestone. That’s not what the sign said!] I couldn’t believe my body was still doing what I was telling it to do. I gimped into our soon-to-be camp. Ryan was the only one there. I arrived at 15:00. This camp will be sweet. It is really “parky” looking. Some sagebrush off to the South. Limestone Creek to the North. But somehow it took the camp deer less than an hour to find us. Guy came in with our gear and the rest of the crew showed up around 17:00. [Crew for this hitch: Ryan Smith, Blair Rynearson, Kevin Booher, Aaron Darnton, Erika Kaarre, Anna Bengston, and myself.] I got within 5 feet of a camp deer this evening. I found a good spot for my tent except its facing the wrong way and it may be a little close to the camp center. But no snags will fall on me! To bed at 22:37. Day 42                6/30/05 Woke at 7:00. We broke into small groups. One to go dig the latrine, another to set up the cook tent. I was sent to build a new fire pit and rehab the old ugly one (I am Fire Ring Coordinator after all.) I then was sent north to find a good spot for us to cross the creek every morning without getting wet. I found an old logjam which would do. Later we went back and “desketchified” it and beefed it up. The rest of the day we made firewood. I put down the old bedsprings that we found here to keep the wood off the ground and dry. Took a nap after work then hung out around our new fire pit. I left my tent door open too much today. Had to get a few spiders out that had crawled in. I still haven’t fixed my tent. And I may have a few symptoms of the Big G. Only Time will tell. To bed at 21:56. Day 43                7/1/05 Woke at 7:00. No Giardia symptoms this morning, so I guess I’m in the clear. We all hiked to Limestone Pass (except Ryan and Blair who were flagging “Segment A” of the project). I can really see why we are rebuilding this trail. There is no drainage, no switchbacks, just straight up, and it’s really rocky. We got up to the upper part and man what a view! Some of the coolest cliff faces on Pinnacle, Little Apex, and Apex. Too bad we won’t be up here more often! Kevin had his cell phone for some reason and he got reception at the pass. We all wanted to call home real quick but he didn’t have any minutes left. We did some drainage on the way down and rolled into camp right at 16:30. I felt real nasty and sweaty, but I changed bandanas and felt much better. I will clean up tomorrow. We all sat around and made wooden bowls with smoking the inside out. It is working pretty well. But it dampens our “Limestone gruff construction crew” image. Oh well, just brushing up on some primitive skills. To bed at 22:14 Day 44                7/2/05 Wow. I had some crazy, messed up dreams last night. It might have been from all the smoke inhalation. But I haven’t had a decent nights sleep since I’ve arrived at Limestone Camp (L camp). My sleeping bag is too warm or something. Or there is too much crap in my tent. Or maybe cuz I still haven’t turned my tent around. Anyway, today is the fifth day of first hitch and the first day of digging tread. I don’t think it will be that bad. But today, none of us had any luck with trees. Blair hung his tree up right off the bat. I cut a crooked one and then the wrong type of tree. Ryan hung up a tree. It was a rough start to the project, but we progressed nicely. I built my second waterbar ever, and completely redeemed myself from the really shitty one up Gordon Creek last year. Ryan then sent me ahead to hack out the next reroute with my machete. If anything will give you carpal tunnel it would be trying to hack at mountain juniper with a machete! I got half started on another waterbar when we called it a day. Made it .32 miles up the trail today. Cooked some huge hamburgers for dinner tonight. Burned on the wooden bowls a bit more. To bed at 22:12. Day 45                7/3/05 Woke at 7:00. Man still not a good nights sleep. I end up sweating a lot but still being cold…weird. I deflated my sleeping pad for tonight to see if that will help. More treading today. I finished the waterbar with the 10’ drain. But I was getting really frustrated with all the damn rocks. Couldn’t swing the pick-mattock without nailing a damn rock which throws the pick around. But I got done with that by 10:00 and moved on to removing rocks and roots (rockin’ and rootin’ as we like to call it) from the old trail bed. After lunch we started on our first reroute. It was rough going with the rocks once again, but the 130’ stretch we did today looks pretty good now. I just started another WB (waterbar) when we quit. I came back to camp through the meadow benches looking for antlers or bones. I found a milk crate and 2 pieces of plywood. The milk crate will be good for helping our campfire seating problem. I tried to call in ravens before bed, but it didn’t work. Made it to 0.6 miles today. To bed at 21:55. Day 46                7/4/05 Happy 4th of July! We dug tread today. It started out a little rough, but I’m getting more efficient. We dug 470’ of new tread. Which leaves us at 0.65 miles up the trail. Tiff and Keegan (river girls) stopped by for dinner. Then I went to bed early cuz I’m hiking to Basin after work tomorrow. Some neighbors dropped by and offered some coke and rum to the crew while I write this. Its amazing the hospitality there is on the trail. Found a hobo spider in my tent. Door will be shut at all times now. To bed at 21:28. Day 47                7/5/04 Woke at 6:30 to a damn squirrel. Everyone was kinda slow rising this morning. I guess they all stayed up ‘til midnight. We finished the first reroute and headed on to the next one after lunch. I helped brush the first bit of the new route. Then I came back and finished up on a really steep in-slope section. Damn I was getting frustrated! I was hot, sweaty, tired, and frustrated at the uneven footing and the damn rocks that would almost throw you backwards if you hit them. Then the damn pick head would not stay on the handle and kept moving around. I was about to snap that handle in half. But after work the frustration faded and I became a ball of energy. So I hiked 10 miles to Basin after work. It’ll cut the 22 miles to BP in half again. And I won’t have to work tomorrow afternoon because of it. So we got to Basin around 21:00. Kevin and I had some Dinty Moore for dinner. To bed at 22:22. Day 48                7/6/05 Woke at 7:00 and was on the trail to BP by 8:15. Got there at 11:30. Played a lot of guitar today. I watched Jimbo the mule break the fence south of the corral. I might fix that tomorrow. The weeds crew looks like they will be around until mid-august (Ron, Leif, John and Brandon). So that’ll be cool. Stayed up for awhile. Blair is happy. He got his beer brewing equipment. Wow, I’m tired. To bed at 22:49. Day 49                7/7/05 Woke at 7:30. Sat around for a while then decided to start smoking my deer hide around 10:00. The smoking was successful but needed a little more. Tom from Bear DNA last year came in to visit. I tried a sip of Dandelion Wine. It’s alright. I went for a walk to go see what I could find. I made a broad circle around the perimeter of the compound. Only found an owl feather. Had a spur of the moment change in weekend plans. I was gonna climb up to the wall and find Diamond Lake, but too many people are gonna be heading that direction. So I am heading back up onto Cardinal Ridge to climb “Furious Mountain” or the nameless one west of Cardinal Pk. Then I will run the entire ridge all the way back to Pilot and back to BP. [This plan included a night’s stay at the ridge camp from last year.] It should be a good one. We cranked on the ice cream maker to see if we couldn’t get some dessert. It was pretty runny and WAY too sweet. But we ate it anyway. Finished smoking the hide in the dark. It is good to go now. To bed at 23:31. Day 50                7/8/05 Wow, I’ve been in here for a while! Woke at 7:45. Amanda and Wes came in last night. Wes is working out of Choteau on the East side of the divide. I got a very late start out of BP for my trip…10:15. It was already sleeveless shirt weather by that time. It was so hot going through the burn on Gordon Creek. I should have left at 8:00. Anyway, I got to Elk Creek and had lunch there. I pushed on to Cardinal Creek and got there at 13:30. I made camp and enjoyed the rest of the day. I love this kind of camping. I got my survival tube tent just in time for this weekend. I have no tools so my firewood is all broken by hand or leverage. I have my same shitty banged up pot that I had last year (haven’t crushed it yet). I eat with a stick I carved. [Do my dishes with gravel and water.] This is great. Talk about going light. Looks like clear skies, so no worries about getting wet in this tent tonight. “To bed” at 19:38. Day 51                7/9/05 This could quite possibly be the longest day I have ever done. I didn’t sleep very well at all last night. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to put my tent next to the creek. It was really buggy and the DEET wasn’t working real well. I left the base of Cardinal Creek at 7:45. I was quickly reminded of how steep that trail is. I reached the ridge by 10:00. I eyed the nameless mountain, but the weather was cold and windy and very cloudy. [It seriously looked like it was gonna snow on me.] So the mount didn’t look appealing. [Suddenly a thought crossed my mind. I decided I would try to make it all the way back to BP in one day.] I went the other way towards Cardinal Pk. and passed it around 11: 30. I couldn’t resist the huge bowl in the mountain side and did some alpine bowling down a couple thousand feet. I ate lunch at the Cardinal Ridge Camp that we stayed at last year. Time disappeared for a while and all I was trying to do is beat the impending storm clouds to the end of the ridge. I didn’t want to replay last year. The trail between the Cabin Creek Trail and Kid Mountain was nice. Steep at times, but nice. The last climb up to the Kid ridge, it was just like last year where it was sketchy, and then the trail disappeared. Although, the trail was a little better than last year’s upper one. The climb up to Gordon was just as sketchy as last year. The wind didn’t help any. I climbed to the top of Fossil Mtn. Since it was the only named mount on the ridge I hadn’t been on top of. My knees were hurting pretty bad by the time I got to the saddle near Gordon. That made the 4000 foot descent down Pilot really painful. I hit the South Fork Valley a little after 19:00, [the first time I realized I had checked the time since noon.] I crossed at the Gordon Ford and stumbled into Big Prairie after 20:00. [I was seriously falling asleep while hiking 3 mph. If the trail would have been straight and rock-free, I would have been sleep walking the last 2 miles.] My voice was raspy and faint either from being completely exhausted or hollering “Yoh-bah” the whole day (a lazy version of the bear noise maker “Yo Bear.” I love being lazy.) 19 miles, 7000 ft vertical climb, 7200ft vertical drop, over 12 hours of straight hiking. [Hardly stopped at all for food or water. I guess I was “in the zone” for the majority of the day.] Wow, I can’t believe I wrote this much for how tired I am. I couldn’t even walk straight by the time I got in. To bed at 21: 51. Day 52                7/10/05 I couldn’t get my earplugs to stay in last night, so it was a restless night. I got up at 7:30. Had a can of pears, then played guitar for the next few hours. Took a long nap after lunch then woke at 16:15. Played cards with Amanda and Wes on a mantie tarp behind the bunkhouse. Monty Chef came in on his day off and hung out at BP all day. I went fishing after dinner. Caught 4 nice cutthroats, one being nearly 18 inches. We tried ice- cream again today. It was perfect thanks to some REAL milk that Monty brought over from his camp. A bunch of tourists are hanging out and getting drunk tonight. [They accidentally ran one of their horses through the BP hitch rail.] They wanted me to play guitar cuz they heard me playing earlier. I hate being asked to play guitar by drunk people I don’t know. Puts me on the spot too much. But I played a few courtesy songs, then snuck off. To bed at 0:43 on day 53. Day 53                7/11/05 Woke at 8:00. Pretty much lounged around all day. Went fishing and caught a few nice fish. Wrote a bunch of letters tonight and stayed up way too late for how early I’m getting up. To bed at 23:41. Day 54                7/12/05 Woke at 5:45. I noticed all the horses were in the corral already, so I was gonna go shut the gate behind them. But they weren’t our horses! Darnton wrangled our horses in and managed to bring in even more bonus horses. Anyway, I hit the trail to Limestone at 7: 15. I made good time to Basin, but the heat began wearing on me after that. I got to L camp before 15:00. Blair and Ryan were already here and we sat avoiding the heat, sleeping, and swatting at our newly acquired horsefly population. We had chili-mac tonight. We didn’t have any milk or butter for the macaroni, so we substituted Ranch dressing and sunflower seed oil. It’s good to be back at camp. To bed at 21:15. Day 55                7/13/05 Woke at 6:20. Dug more tread today, but we started with a couple hours around camp. We had our daily stretch routine, then I built a new dam to house our bear box that is cold in the creek. Then we hit the hill. Me and Ryan at first, then as the others finished their jobs around camp, they trickled in. I started with the newly acquired pole saw, then went back to tread in the same frustrating side hill that I ended last hitch on. I’m not sure if construction is my thing. I get frustrated really easy. But maybe that’s what it is all about. Either way, I’m not a big fan. The trail we dug today turned out pretty nice. I ended the day trying to remove a damn stump from the trail. The taproot is all I have left to cut (easier said than done.) Backcountry Horseman brought in our groceries today. Kevin stayed back at camp to receive them. It was a very hot and tiring day. Hoping for dry lightning soon. Then we will get paid more to do fires. Waking up early to beat the heat tomorrow. To bed at 20:25. Day 56                7/14/05 Woke at 5:00. Man it was cold this morning! I couldn’t believe we were doing that to beat the heat. But by 11:00, I remembered why. We are almost done with this second reroute. We won’t open any of them up until after this winter, so the broken ground can settle. We started work at 6:00 and were done by 14:15. I read a little this afternoon. An outfitter came by. He said he met a guy in Ovando who called himself the Bob Burglar. I guess he had a camp across the creek from ours way back in the day. He stashed a bunch of stuff including a 20 gauge shotgun and a .22 rifle wrapped in burlap over there. So I went exploring. I found the remains of his camp, but no rifles yet. The crew that is working at Danaher came over for dinner (Ben, Jamie, Tyrell, Klug, Carlos). So that was cool to have more visitors. To bed at 21:31. Day 57                7/15/05 Tried to wake at 4:30, but it didn’t happen. Woke at 5:00. Tania has been in my dreams the last couple nights. Dug more tread today. We went back and touched up our second reroute. Then we moved on to touching up a part of the existing trail. That took us until about noon. Then after lunch Ryan and I tackled an old snag that broke off of its stump and was leaning on an already leaning huge dug fir. It was slightly sketchy. We took two sections off of the bottom of the snag but it kept dropping straight down and not really going anywhere. So we reamed on it with the rock bar and rolled it with the ball buster. Eventually I got it to fall. I gotta give most credit to Ryan on that project though. So we ended the work day with the ball buster lodged under the resting snag. We’ll get it tomorrow. It ain’t going anywhere. After work I read some, cut some sage, then went wandering on the knife ridge behind camp. It’s pretty cool up there. A small fire started on Snow Peak yesterday and another on Slategoat Mtn today. Tis the season. I found a spot across the meadow in some trees that will be a good place to beat the heat in the afternoons from now on. But this evening is warm and I’m sweating in my tent while writing. Horse Flies were thick today. To bed at 20:49. Day 58                7/16/05 Woke at 5:00. Hit the “snooze” and finally was out of the tent by 5:15. Making lunches in the evening really helps with these early mornings. We treaded again today. It was great cool and cloudy weather, perfect for grubbing. We started and finished the third reroute. It was just over 200 feet long. We completed a very short “on trail” reroute. Which is basically just removing a curve in the trail. We moved on to start the 4th reroute which is pretty brushy, but oh man that soil is nice and fine! It was great actually digging through real dirt. None of that rocky shit. My right bicep was hurting today. I think I may have strained it. So I picked left handed on and off to relieve the pain. A few weak storms moved through after work. I slept for awhile before they hit. Pork chops went bad. I still wanted to cook them up cuz they weren’t really that bad. But everyone else wanted to burn them, so 8 pork chops went up in smoke tonight. Blair hiked to Danaher and brought back some whiskey, so I imagine the others will be up late. Anyway, to bed at 21:01. Day 59                7/17/05 Woke at 5:00 again. Work was normal. No tough spots. After work we climbed Danaher Mtn. We decided to go straight up an avalanche chute. It was really steep. I thought I was in better shape than that. Anyway, I found a 5pt elk shed at the base of the chute and a 4pt mulie shed at the peak of Danaher. I also brought back an elk pelvis for aesthetic value in our camp. So we bushwhacked up from the Dry Fork Divide side then followed the ridge down off the backside of Danaher that is west of the main peak. We bushwhacked down that ridge to find a beaver pond. Usually beaver ponds are cool, but this one was in Limestone Creek; the creek we drink from. Oh well, we’ve been drinking untreated and nothing has happened…yet. I made some berberine dye from barberry plants this eveing. It looks a little brown, supposed to be “a brilliant yellow.” Must have cooked it too long. Oh well, I’ll try again. A good hard hike today and I found cool stuff. To bed at 20:53. Day 60                7/18/05 Happy Monday. Wow this one sucked. Woke at 5:00 from a dream where things were happening that were making me mad. [I decided I needed to take work a little lighter than before this day. It wasn’t a good sign that the frustration was making its way into my dreams. It made it so I could not escape the frustration.] I opened up my tent to find it covered in a thin film of ice. All the water drops were frozen solid. It was cold! We got up on the trail and found that my axe had been severely rocked repeatedly yesterday. So that had me pissed. So I was frustrated at every rock, root, stump, branch, horsefly, anything that stopped me from carrying out a full swing. [This day must have been the peak of my frustration. Treading was hardly ever frustrating beyond this day.] At lunch I went to sleep for a bit and that helped. However, I am mastering the frustrated low growl. We finished the 4th reroute after lunch and started on the 5th. These things get brushier and brushier. Except this one had the added bonus of extremely large rocks that can’t be removed. I am wearing my set of single front carrharts from last year. I am seeing if I can completely destroy them. I had to cut off the right cuff this morning. The knees are wearing thin and there is getting to be a significant hole in the crotch. Perfect. I started on resharpening my axe. So hopefully all the metal filings will help in the wear- down of my pants. I also greased my boots tonight. We cooked a huge amount of huge steaks tonight at an early dinner. We have a lot of steaks and not enough nights to eat them. So you can guess what’s in my lunch for tomorrow. It is a windy, clear evening. Prolly gonna be cold in the morning. To bed at 20:35. Day 61                7/19/05 Dug more tread today. Wow, it wears on your body by the end of hitch. We finished reroute 5 and ended the day rockin’ and rootin’. The horseflies were thicker than ever today. Oh, I started the day with the pole saw, getting all the low branches below the 1st reroute. There is fresh bear sign around so hopefully our camp will still be in one piece after this weekend. Darnton made an apple pie and we rigged up an oven from the historic junk behind camp and tinfoil. It used radiant heat from the fire. It worked really well. [The pie crust was “quite flaky”.] To bed at 20:45. Day 62                7/20/05 Ugh. Another extremely long day. Woke at 5:00. Started work at 6:00. Picked until 10:00 break then worked on a waterbar after that. I didn’t get the drain dug for that waterbar yet. At noon we headed back to camp to see what we needed for food, also cleaned out the bear boxes. I hit the trail for BP at 14:00. Made kickass time to Basin (10 miles in 2 hours 45 minutes), but that was because I had to get there before Ryan left, cuz he had the key and I had no food. The last stretch from Flatiron bench to BP was brutal. I was in my normal shoes and they are starting to wear pretty thin. So I got a couple blisters. And my toe nails are too long, so that hurt having them jamming into the front of my shoe. I also have a bit of tendonitis in my right ankle. It seems like this type of injury is common for trail dogs, or at least me…one of the two. I rolled into BP at 20:15. Cindy said there haven’t been any horseflies here. So that should make for a nice weekend. My folks are hiking in to visit me. I’m pretty excited to show them around my office…To bed at 22:16. Day 63                7/21/05 Yes! I got to sleep in finally! Woke at 8:30. Hung out all day. We had a bunch of visitors today. Some real nice folks. It was blazing hot today…well it got up to 89°, but you couldn’t escape it. Ryan found me a huge glass to drink ice water from. It probably holds almost a quart and looks like a big wine glass. It’s awesome. I’m heading up Gordon Creek to find my parents tomorrow. To bed at 22:12. Day 64                7/22/05 Woke at 5:00 cuz a few girls were getting ready for a trip and were being noisy. I did laundry then left for Elk Creek at 10:00. I met my parents up there and we hiked back to BP. Just hung out. Jess Shotzberger hiked all the way in from Meadow Creek today. To bed at 23:02. Day 65                7/23/05 Slept on the airstrip last night. It was pretty restless. But the moon was full so that made it alright. Got up at 7:00. Hung out all day. Spent the majority of the time at the river with Jess, Amanda and my parents. Caught a couple fish. Played guitar later on. Showed my parents how to do laundry. A good “cheese and crackers by the river” kind of day. Very relaxing. To bed at 22:27. Day 66                7/24/05 Woke at 6:45 or something. Made some really good biscuits as a combined effort with my mom. After breakfast, Jess, Amanda and my parents and I went to see the tri-motor Ford and to the top of Packrat. My parents loved it. I’m so proud of them for hiking this far in to see me. It’s been great! I hope they have a safe trip out. We spent about a half an hour at the river until Ryan came running down to get Amanda to ride to Shaw. Klug has a family emergency and he needs to be intercepted and given a sat phone. Ali (MCC) took off for Black Bear this morning. A few people are back volunteering (an older couple) and it has been great talking to them. One of the game warden guys’ mules is lame. This evening and night feels very eerie. There was a lot of late night (22:00) radio talk about Klug’s situation. Ali cannot be found and was supposed to be at BB tonight. A large cloud of smoke is horizontal against the southern sky and the coyotes seem real close. Tonight just feels weird to me. To bed at 22:47. Day 67                7/25/05 Woke early to see my parents off. Dad fixed the hook on my braces that was jabbing my tongue. They hit the trail at 7:00. [For some reason, I was pretty sad when they left.] It was a colder day. Ali was located and is safe. Klug came over Pendant and did not receive his message until reaching BP. Jess went with Amanda yesterday and arrived back at BP around 13:00. Amanda back at 19:00. The string came in today. I was told I had mail. So I pulled the letter out of my box and it was actually for Erika. So that really sucked. [I hardly got any mail this summer, so the letter mix up was especially brutal. Kinda like not getting anything for Christmas.] At 22:10 I was writing letters in the office when the whole building and everything around me started moving! We had an earthquake!! And a pretty good sized one too! It lasted about 5-10 seconds. It was amazing! [Especially since I was on a chair with wheels!] Anyway, there are a bunch of bats in the bunkhouse. Lots of letter writing tonight. To bed at 23:54. Day 68                7/26/05 Woke at 6:30. The earthquake last night was 13 miles NW of Dillon and was magnitude 5.6. Heard that on the radio. Prep Day. Wow, I think that is our first one all year, at least it feels like it. Cleaned up the bunkhouse and worked on the backdoor. Now, it doesn’t scrape the floor anymore. I talked to Gordon and ordered Plexiglas for the window in the door. After lunch, I took 4 credit hours and hiked to Cayuse and the Wire Ford. I was looking for the match to the 7pt elk shed that Brian found the other day. I cut through Cayuse Meadows to the end, then bushwhacked through a jungle of tall fireweed to the Catchem Creek Meadows. I then caught a trail back to the main trail and went on towards Wire Ford. I was just looking for cool stuff. I moved along the river south of Wire Ford and found a very weathered 4pt whitetail (would have been a 5pt if all wasn’t chewed off). Then headed between Cayuse Mt. and Flatiron. I decided to get to the top of Cayuse Mt. It had a weak cairn on top, so I built it up and added the winterkilled whitetail skull. It looked awesome. I dropped off of Cayuse through the burn to the west and got back into the burned flats below. The fireweed was small so it was easy to look around. I came across a hunting dump (bones, etc.). I found a near perfect coyote skull. All the teeth are in it and everything. I decided not to press my luck any further and made it back to BP just in time for dinner. Spent the evening cleaning the skull. Still needs some work. The antique phone repair guys are here tonight. To bed at 23:39. Day 69        7/27/05 Woke at 5:45, but I thought I slept in until 6:30…yeah I was confused. It seemed really cold this morning. After a lot of motivating I finally hit the trail to Limestone at 7:45. It sucked, considering the fact that I felt like going back to sleep at 7:30. So the hiking was really long and it was hard to keep moving. I decided to go look for cool stuff around Basin. Didn’t find anything. Finally got to Limestone at 16:00. Then we just sat around and shot the shit. To bed at 20:59. Day 70        7/28/05 Woke at 6:00 to slowly ease back into the five o’clock mornings. Started out replenishing the firewood supply. Then around 8:30 we headed up the hill. I was a bit dehydrated this morning and that made the hike a little tough. I finished my waterbar from last hitch and built another too. Then we moved on to the next reroute, which goes through a thick, little lodgepole, tinderbox of a forest. It was hard to get down to mineral soil. I’m gonna try bug spray tomorrow cuz the horseflies and little other flies are SO BAD. It interferes with my treading. So the OFF is going on. Had a little bit of a thunderstorm move through to the south with a few downstrikes. Hopefully some fire action will come our way soon. To bed at 20:48. Day 71        7/29/05 Woke at 5:00. Started out the day with a big ol’ rock to remove. I actually had to bust out the rock bar for that one. I should probably use it more because my pick is starting to bend off to the side a little. We are doing little reroutes now, just to take the sags out of the trail. The bug spray helped significantly today. So that kept me from getting frustrated. I hung up the hammock and enjoyed an after work nap. Blair and I cooked pork fajitas tonight. A good work day. To bed at 20:52. Day 72        7/30/05 Woke at 7:00. My whole goal for after work was to find “cool shit.” That category includes any bones, skulls, antlers and whatever else is appealing. [We figured hitting the jackpot was finding a antlered bull moose skull, but that was a dream.] So I hiked toward the divide and hit an open slope. I traversed across the side of Concord Mt just staying in the open spots. I found a severely chewed 5pt elk antler. It’s a little bigger than the other one I found. To bed at 20:59. Day 73        7/31/05 Woke at 5:00. Almost slept through my alarm. We hit the tread again today. It was pretty easy going on the little reroutes. After work I took some crew pictures. Came back and slept in the hammock. I got to try out the deer dehabituator stick tonight. [It was a perfectly balanced piece of wood that was designed to make a lot of noise when thrown.] It works really well! To bed at 20:37. Day 74        8/1/05 I have officially been in the Bob longer than I was last year. Woke at 5:00. Work went pretty smooth today. Treading is definitely a lot easier now than it was. I chased a deer after work onto the meadows above camp. [Blair had the deer distracted as I hid behind a tree. At the opportune moment I pounced and sprinted after the deer. I had the deer in my sights and was holding a steady distance from her. I realized I should pay more attention to the gopher holes than the deer. So I did, and still kept up with it. But then she rocketed up a steep hill to the meadows and I hit a wall.] Kevin took off for the North Fork of the Blackfoot to meet his brother. I realized that since my parents had to deactivate my cash card, my online subscriptions are probably messed up. I’ll deal with that when I get to SB for the centennial picnic this weekend. Too much stress and technology for right now. To bed at 21:25. Day 75                8/2/05 Wow, last day of digging tread at Limestone. Woke at 5:00 with the good ol’ morning fire and a cup of mixed Special K with Red Berries and granola. Did the morning stretch routine and were off to work. It was hard to keep from distraction today, but the work was easy. I put in a waterbar and did some retread. We started another reroute with some tree felling. Had a few “impotent falls” but they all worked out. This hitch has been pretty awesome. Treading has become so easy, and the crew is really bonding. Seems like this happened by third hitch last year too. I wish I was actually hanging around for another few hitches. [I never thought I would ever say that.] After work, we had an awesome dinner. We knew we were gonna be able to sleep in a bit tomorrow, so we stayed up really late sitting around the campfire, listening to bluegrass, and talking about how the remoteness of this place allows you to take a step back from the world and view society as it truly is. There was some pretty good conversation along with a lot of whiskey and rum. I don’t drink or smoke, but tonight was so fun. I haven’t laughed that hard or felt this good in a long time. We lastly walked out in the meadow to enjoy the amazing stars. We had been going to bed so early this summer that I haven’t seen much of the night sky. [The stars seemed particularly bright that night.] We talked about how we are in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere. Spotted Bear is really remote and we are as far away from there as you can get without leaving the Bob. What an amazing night. We officially hit 2 miles on the trail, got to walk back through all of our work, had some good grub, heard some good stories, laughed with some good friends in the middle of no man’s wilderness. This night may have just made my whole summer. To bed at 0:57 on day 76. Day 76 Woke at 7:00. We cleaned up camp to start the day. The weeds crew came in early and packed up our stuff that was going to BP. Then we packed up what was left and headed to the North Fork Trailhead. We stopped at the North Fork Cabin for a break then made it to the trailhead at or around 17:00. We hit up Trixi’s in Ovando, then headed north to Whitefish. We had pizza at the Dire Wolf Pub, then went to Erica’s house to crash for the night. I checked the stuff with my check card subscriptions and sure enough, they want money. So I’ll deal with that tomorrow. So anyway, I am showered up and sleeping on a comfy couch in Erica’s house. Pretty cool. I haven’t been out in a long time. To bed at 23:31. Day 77                8/4/05 Woke at 8:30. We hung around Erika’s for a while then went to eat breakfast at the Buffalo Café. I had a big ol’ hamsteak, but it wasn’t enough. I was still very hungry [That’s the good ol’ trail crew metabolism for ya.] Anyway we went back to Erica’s for a bit. Then Blair, Aaron, and I headed north to Polebridge. We stopped to see a few of Blair’s friends, but nobody was home. Stopped at the Glacier Institute, and the place was empty. We went into the mercantile at Polebridge, then came back to C-falls. Blair got his oil changed, then we went to hang out at the Night Owl. We sat at the bar. I haven’t ever been to this many bars in so few days. We met back up with Erika there then headed to SB. Pretty much hung out, telling stories with the Schafer and Mid Creek people. Stayed up way too late around the campfire. To bed at 0:34 on day 78. Day 78                8/5/05 Woke at 6:30 to the smoke alarm needing batteries. I decided not to work today, but I hung around for the 8:00 meeting. They just explained what will happen tomorrow. We got our district shirts. After the meeting, Darnton drove me to Meadow Creek to grab my truck. I came back to SB to load up a few things. I then took off to go look around Kalispell. About 30 miles out of SB I decided to drive all the way to Libby because my grandparents (Kroeger) are in town over there. And by the time I finish work, they will be gone. I made it to Libby at 2:30 and surprised my mom. I saw my dad too just as I was leaving for town. I visited some friends in town, then headed out to Dunn Creek Flats and surprised my grandparents. Hung out there for a while [with them and my parents] then headed back to SB via Fisher River and so on. My contact lens got trashed right as I began the South Fork Rd (east side). But I fixed it, kinda. Got to SB at midnight. Centennial Picnic tomorrow! To bed at 0:13 on day 79. Day 79                8/6/05 Wow! A lot of stuff happened today. Started work at 8:00. Got ready for the picnic. My job was to give tours of the Ranger house. But I had few visitors so it was easy. Around lunch a strange cloud began rising to the South. While I was in Deb’s house, I was listening to the spotter plane on the radio. Two main fires were spotted. One on the west side of Limestone Pk (towards Schafer) and one on Kelly Point, north of BB. Kelly Point fire was only 2 acres at 14:00. By 18:00 it had grown to over 700 acres heading up Hodag Creek. It was like a switch had been flipped. SB turned into fire zone. Helicopters were flyin, and crews were heading out. All but the majority of the Big Prairie crews. So everybody left and things calmed down. So the general felling is that of twiddling thumbs. Oh, and bitching about all the people that went and we didn’t. Anyway, I watched a John Wayne movie with some others, then ditched out to listen to the radio. Steve reported another fire at Holbrook Ford, but it is small. The tables have turned! To bed at 23:49. Day 80                8/7/05 Woke at 6:15 and asked Steve (Wirt) if there was a possibility I could get up in the spotting plane. It didn’t happen [because the pilot had lost a family member in a plane crash and didn’t want to take extra passengers.] So I manned the radio until 8:00. No traffic. At 8:30 we had a brief briefing before the briefing. It just explained what we were to do for the morning. I cleaned up some stuff around SB and helped load up the big tent we rented. At noon, we had our big briefing. The Kelly Pt fire burned out the majority of Hodag Creek and spotted into upper Black Bear Creek and North Fork of Helen Creek. Limestone Pk fire is still just hanging out on that ridge. Gordon needed two people from BP that were at SB to fly in to the Holbrook fire to put it out. Tyrell and Brian were picked. Me and Darnton drew the long straws. So Darnton and I had lunch in the cookhouse. Someone came in and said they were taking one more person. So Aaron and I did rock, paper, scissors for it. I won. I went and got my No-Mex firefighting clothes and hurried up to wait. After a few hours, we had a briefing. Then we headed to the SB airstrip and caught the second flight in “Nine-Eight-Delta” (helicopter) to the Holbrook Ford. My crew is Rich Inme (squad leader and IC), Robin Treat, Tyrell Johnson, Brian Roat and myself. WE got to the Ford at 17:00. The bird landed right on the rockbar on the river. The flight was awesome! WE had an awesome view of the Kelly Pt fire torching over 200ft flame lengths. Our fire on the other hand, had no flames and just a few smoky spots. We used the piss-pumps and helped put out the small smoldering “fire”. We patrolled the small hillside until 22:00, when we stopped working. The Kelly Pt fire is probably over 1,000 acres now. Our fire here at Holbrook is “contained”. We will finish with it tomorrow. John McAllister and Steve Hodgedon came down from SF to assist us. So, we are ironically sitting around a campfire at the edge of our burn, [the most fire we saw on the whole incident.] The front country is at Stage 1 fire restriction, but the wilderness is still normal. So I got some good H-pay, OT and Sunday differential, Making a little money! Anyway, worked 14 hours today…to bed at 22:49. Day 81                8/8/05 Woke at 6:45. [I slept in just my sleeping bag on the ground by the river.] Hung out around the campfire until 8:00. We cold trailed the wild smolder. Found a few new hotspots. We also found a western toad hanging out in the warmth of the burned ground. Robin, Rich, Brian and Tyrell headed north to BB to help fight the Kelly Pt fire. So John, Steve and I were left to watch the Holbrook Smolder, make sure it didn’t do anything. We watched it and put out the hotspots. The “Holbrook Incident” was declared “dead-out” at 16:00. We did a little rehab then hiked back to BP. It is good to be back. Played a lot of guitar tonight. To bed at 22:58. Day 82                8/9/05 A very relaxing day. I took my contacts out and let my eyes rest today. Woke at 7:00. took a nap at 10:30, another at 16:30. Played some guitar until 22:00. Heading to Pine Creek tomorrow. To bed at 22:45. Day 83                8/10/05 Woke at 7:00. Was able to use a horse for my trip today. I saddled up Coke and rode North with the weed guys (John and Leif) They took off into the woods at 2 mile meadow and Coke and I proceeded north to Pine Creek. At first Coke didn’t want to leave the other horses. And the whole time he was walking slow and would sometimes refuse to walk any further away from BP. [It was like driving a car with bad wheel alignment. He always wanted to pull right to turn around.] So I had to lead him a lot. I had to ford the White in my boots cuz Coke refused to cross. So, I got soaked and my boots were full of water. We got to Pine Creek (Coke and I) and I fixed the break in the phone line there. We needed to re-establish communications with BB on the landline. So that was a quick fix, and Coke was on autopilot with no problems riding back to BP. Four fires started on the reservoir today (Mink, Rock, Battery, and Quintonkton). Also one began in Brushy Park up the White. A cold front moved in this evening, so it is really windy and threatening lightning. We hung out on the airstrip by the station waiting for a lightning show, but none came. To bed at 23:03 Day 84                8/11/05 Woke at 7:00. Started work by dropping a tree across the airstrip. I had a hard time staying busy before lunch as I waited for 98Delta to do re-con over the Brushy Park fire. I fixed the chest freezer lid and repaired the freezer door on the kitchen fridge. After lunch I cut the tree that I felled earlier and drilled holes in it with the brace and bit for it to become a part of the North Gate. So the rest of the afternoon was spent repairing the gate, replacing the back post and ensuring the pin hit the circle right. It turned out really well. [I love good “handyman” projects.] The Holbrook Smolder has been reported as still being active. That really sucks. An outfitter also claimed to see flames up Bartlett Creek last night. No smoke today though. [I later found that the outfitter had alternate motives for claiming false fire activity.] Played some guitar in the airstrip tonight. Reviewed all the video I took this summer as well. Well, I guess today was my last full day at BP. It felt good to do a decent project (the gate) on my last day here. I gotta pack up my stuff tomorrow morning, then hit the trail with Erika and Klug. Time to fix some phone line! To bed at 22:11. Day 85                8/12/05 Woke at 7:00. It was suddenly 47° today. It began to rain hard shortly after 9:00. I really felt that I should have been hunting this morning. It felt and smelt like late October. Jumbo reported significant snowfall. The fires are laying down pretty good. We took the majority of the day to prep for hitch. Some pretty creepy guys hanging out around the station today, [and that’s saying a lot coming from a 6’4” traildog.] Klug, Erika and I finally left for Salmon Forks around 14:30. I didn’t have any rain gear, so I found a bright yellow rain slicker and a nice brimmed hat. [The hat turned out to be Laura Mill’s Amish Girl hat from last year, but oh well. So I rigged up the “little amish girl hat” with a p-cord stampede strap and waterproofed it with a zip-lock and some duct tape. The hat was way too small for me, but it worked…kinda.] We forded at Holbrook. Our fire from before looks completely dead out after over ½ inch of rain. We finally got to Salmon Forks where the weeds crew had dinner ready for us, [one of the greatest things one crew can do for another on a cold, wet, long day.] My hands were so cold, they were almost nonfunctional, and I couldn’t feel my wrists. My boots were full of water and my pants were soaked up to the crotch. That was all from rain water. I switched into my No- Mex cuz they were dry. Oh yeah, I set the old-school gopher trap in the warehouse at BP to catch a packrat. The rats are starting to move in at BP and I moved out. Well anyway…to bed at 21:03. Day 86                8/13/05 Woke at 6:00. Started at 7:00. We crossed the South Fork here at SF up to mid-thigh deep. We hiked to the White River and took a break. Aaron and Erika set to climbing trees and hanging phoneline. I went ahead of them, clearing the logs off the line. I found a burned elk skeleton. Left it. I cleared line until the SF phone junction. Saw 3 red-tailed hawks circling high over the river. Got back to SF around 15:00. Took a nap around 16: 00. John went to the White after work and brought back a bear skull he found. I might head back down there tomorrow to bring back the claws. It sounds like the crews are moving out on the Kelly Pt fire. I had to Gold Bond the hell out of my boots and socks tonight. They smell worse then that bear skull John brought back. Must be a combination of those new insoles I bought and the fact that I didn’t grab an extra pair of socks when I left for the Holbrook Incident. So I’m not sure how many weeks I’ve been going in these socks. [All the wet weather probably didn’t help the situation out any either.] Anyway, to bed at 21:17. Day 87                8/14/05 Woke at 5:00. Everyone’s alarms went off but nobody got up and out of bed until around 5:20. Started work at 6:00. It was a damn cold morning. I felt again like I should have my Ruger .270 with me. Anyway, the ford across the river at the cabin is a good waker-upper at 6:15 in the morning. Then the climb up to the main trail gets ya warmed up. I went ahead of the rest again today. There were a few more trees down on the line running north from SF. I walked out on the bog at Mud Lake. The whole thing floats. I stayed dry, but when I jumped, the grass moved 20ft around me. Bushwhacking along the phoneline north of the lake sucked because the grass was really tall and wet. Hidden logs would throw me off balance. I finally made it to Damnation Creek a little after 10: 00. I saw a few mulie fawns with spots there. Anyway, I made it back to the SF junction at 11:30. Ate lunch, then headed to the White River on credit hours. My boots are rubbing and putting pressure on my Achilles tendon and it really hurts. I got to the White around 14:30. I first washed off in the river then went to look for the bear skeleton John found. As I was putting on Leif’s old red Converse All Stars to cross the water in, I found a rock with a question mark naturally engraved in the side. It instantly had me questioning why I hiked all the way to the White to find a few bear claws. I never found the skeleton. Found a cow elk skull though. Left it. Got back to SF at 18:00. Just in time to stop the hunger pangs before I couldn’t walk anymore. We celebrated Erika’s birthday tonight, even thought its tomorrow. Packer Bill Workman and his dog Shania are here tonight. To bed at 21:11. Day 88                8/15/05 Woke at 6:00. Got 2 mice in the roller last night. One actually woke me up. That is an awful sound to have to listen to. Anyway, we cleared up Mud Lake Mt today. There was a lot of down and the trail was really steep. We met Justin Pickar and Rebecca Tidwell half way up. They were clearing for Moss’s camp, so with a combined effort we made it to the top quickly. I had no idea there was still an old lookout up there still. So it was cool, we hung out at the lookout for a while. I think Mud Lake Lookout would be worth fixing back up. We headed back down to SF. Erika decided that since we weren’t doing morning stretches like at Limestone, we should have evening back rubs. So that began. Bill went to BP and back to SF, so he got back around dinner. We had hash and mushroom soup. Then Justin and Rebecca came over and brought beer and pop. They hung out for a while then left. Then I got my back rub. To bed at 21:31. Day 89                8/16/05 Woke at 6:00. I waited around for the rest of my crew to get ready. We (Erika and I) didn’t hit the trail until a little after 8:00. Klug hung back to close up the cabin while Erika and I headed off to do phone line from SF to Damnation Creek. We had only a few hangs to do on some pretty sketchy trees around Mud Lake. We waited at Damnation Bluff for Klug, then we pressed on to BB. The cabin here is wrapped in fire wrap, basically a bunch of tinfoil made to protect the structure in a forest fire. So BB is not the calm “last stop” cabin on my way out right now. There are a bunch of fire people running around in No-Mex getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to look pretty and/or “put out” the fire. Kelly Pt fire is too big now to be put out, so I am confused about why all these people are here. [Also the ¾” of rain in the last few days and the impending snow had to have done a number on the fire.] I’d rather be digging tread for $10.52 an hour than sitting around “scrogging the pooch” for $21.04 an hour. I gotta be doing something while getting paid. I feel guilty otherwise. Enough of that…Anyway, I split wood after work. I had some tough rounds, but I got all of them. I tried to split a 2’ x 3’ green piece of Doug-fir with a normal axe. It became a test of self-worth, but no luck. Splitting maul…no luck. Splitting wedge…no luck. I finally got it after the wedge was stuck in all the way and I hit the bottom with the maul. To bed at 21:25. Day 90                8/17/05 Woke at 6:00. All the fire people were still asleep. Once things got going, I headed down to the corral to help get materials for new posts with Amanda Shotzberger and Keegan (river crew). Klug had climbed and limbed about 80ft up a big Doug-fir that is endangering the cabin. Everyone was getting all upset when he started, but the tree has been marked for removal for a while. Just everybody is afraid to take it down for fear of crushing the cabin. So Klug started on it. The remainder of the day was spent removing the huge pile of branches at the base of the tree. I’m looking forward to getting out. Once your mind realizes that it is time to go home, you just want to get there. Plus the drama around BB right now is driving me insane. Before bed, I went down to the bridge to sing, [Night Rider’s Lament in particular]. Last full day in the Wilderness. To bed at 21:19 Day 91                8/18/05 Woke into the dark at 4:30. Then with combined effort, we caught up the mules in the pitch blackness. We finally pulled out of BB and away from the fire zoo at 6:00. The trails were really muddy. For every step forward, you slid a quarter step back. We pulled out of Meadow Creek around 10:30 after the usual brownies and hot chocolate. Oh, a cold front moved in and it was rainy and cold again today. Made some phone calls and checked in my fire gear. I left SB at 14:00 and arrived in Libby by 18:00. I hung out with some friends until about 22:00. Then went and visited some more friends until about 1: 00 in the morning. At 1:30, I got a call from Search and Rescue to go on a call to find a man that was lost on Snowshoe Pk in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness. Well, the call was canceled when we got half a block from the SAR barn. Oh well. It’s better that way. But I figured I needed an energy to go on the search. So after the cancellation I was wired for a while. It’s great to be home again. To bed at 3:30 in the morning. Home > Bob Marshall > Bob Journal Vol 2