Sept 20, 2011

Fallen Tree in The Granddaddies crossing time

When I was a young scout our summer camps always were going into the mountains near where we lived. I never knew at the time about Maple Dell in Payson canyon or that it was a scout camp where you would go for an entire week so when I became an adult and a scoutmaster for the first time I didn’t ever take my troop there because it was so foreign to anything I had ever experienced.  I did however return to some of the places of my youth so that I could take boys into the mountains for a real true scouting experience. Of course it also took me back to some of the places where I had felt fear as a youth and gave me a chance to overcome some of those long past feelings.

Of the camps that I went on as a youth I will write about the most memorable ones or at least experiences from them. This story is about one of those camps combined with one from my adult years as well.

I have taken pictures for many years and during my scout years I had a small brownie instamatic that I carried with me into the Uintah Mountains. Each year we would travel into the Grandview trailhead and then walk the 4 and a half miles into the Granddaddy Basin.  We went to Palisade Lake twice, Govenor once and Betsy once.  Of course we had to go past Heart lake and Granddaddy each time since the other lakes were further into the basin. We set camp one year at Palisade and then walked to different lakes in the Basin each day to go fishing. I wasn’t much of a fisherman but still enjoyed the fun of the camp and especially taking occasional pictures. One year as Don Hansen and I were walking along a trail to go back to camp I saw a tree that really captured my artistic interest. It was a large pine tree that had fallen across a small marsh. The water in the marsh was about a foot deep and had lots of grass growing up through the water. When the tree fell the larger limbs caused the trunk to break a couple different ways in that to stand back and look at it the main trunk formed the letter M. I was taken by it I guess because it would be so recognizable in the way it formed the letter that stretched across the entire little marsh over which it had fallen.  Fore several years as I was growing up I looked at that slide often and the memory of it was well burned into my mind. I often wondered just where it was but didn’t expect to ever find it again.

Then in 1992 I asked my troop committee to get a tour permit for the Granddaddy Basin so that we could go to Palisade Lake and camp there for a week. The Outdoor Committee Chairman, Brother Broadbent, checked with the Forest service to get the permits but couldn’t find Palisade Lake and decided to get the permit for Pine Island Lake instead.  I figures that was OK because what I had planned would actually work at any lake. I remembered the fears that I held in my youth of getting lost so at that time would never leave the trail. This time I wanted to dispel any fears that my scouts might also harbor of the same nature. (I came to realize later that nothing scared them or so it seemed.) Anyway I planned some special events for the week of which part will be covered in other stories.  One special event though was to have the boys take a cross country hike guided by their ability to follow a compass and read a map properly. We had worked on this several times and this would be the test in the outdoors.

So after we had hiked in to set up camp at Pine Island on Monday I let them go fishing and basically relax on Tuesday. The Wednesday we would hike into the Four Lakes basin staying on trails to get use to the maps followed Thursday by the cross country hike. Friday we would again relax before hiking out on Saturday.

To prepare myself though for the experience I did a cross country experience on Tuesday. I was blessed that year by the fact that I had four other adults that went on the camp with me. So Tuesday morning I told them where I was headed and with map and compass in hand set off for Palisade Lake which ironically was only a half mile from of Pine Island Lake where we were camped. (On the trails it was about 1 and 1/2 to 2 miles to Palisade.) I had a great time crossing through the forest following my compass. I went to the edge of a small cliff which was tall enough that I had to navigate around it to get down but not so far as to be a menace of sorts. It was only a short time and I was at the edge of Palisade lake looking at the outlay of the lake and trying to remember where I had camped  some 22 to 25 years earlier. I located it after some time since my coming from Pine Island had brought me in from the other side of the lake than where I had entered in during my youth. I spent an hour or more at the lake just enjoying my childhood memories and planning my exercise for Thursday. 

When it came time to return I was walking along one of the trails near the lake and noticed fresh Llama tracks. Hoping to see the Llama I followed the trail deeper into the Basin which would then wind around and take me back to Pine Island from the side opposite of which we had entered the day before. It was about 2 miles before I got back to camp and I didn’t ever get to see the Llama but as I came close to where I thought we were camped I suddenly stopped in total awe of the scene beside me just off the trail. There laying across a marsh with water about a foot deep lay the tree which formed the “M” across the marsh. I couldn’t believe that I had actually found the tree but to further my astonishment it was only 200 yards from where we had set up our camp the night before.  (I found that after I had returned to camp a few minutes later.) I stood back where I thought that the angle looked correct for where I had taken the pictures years earlier. I snapped off a couple shots so that I could compare them when I got home.  I later reflected while preparing to retire that night about the events that had brought me back to that tree. Had Brother Broadbent found Palisade on the map where it had apparently been left off on the map he had secured from the Forest Service I would never have been near Pine Island that week. My plans would have all taken me in the opposite direction from that lake. Then had I not returned on the trail from Palisade instead of cross country again I probably wouldn’t have seen it then either. I might have seen it on the way to Four Lakes Basin but with scouts on the trail with me I could have easily not seen it since I would have been traveling a lot faster and in the opposite direction from either of the other two times when I had seen it. I felt that the Lord had granted me the request of my heart that I had made known to no one else since it was just a nagging thought that had been in the back of my memory for all of those years. I had no idea where that tree was when I photographed it as a youth since I only followed the trail and had no maps to refer to during or after the camps.

Father in Heaven had truly blessed me with the opportunity to reflect on the passing of time and experiences that would normally mean nothing. After I returned home and had the film developed I compared the two photographs only to find that the trunk of the tree had changed but very little and that was due to the smaller branches having rotted and fallen off leaving only the large branched that held the trunk out of the water still in tact. The other major change was in the trees in the background as other smaller tree had grown and changed the background significantly. It made me ponder on the relativity of time and changes to the earth. I would never have expected to find so little change with the tree when my life had changed so much since the first encounter with that tree. I now almost wish I could return again just to see it again.