Jan. 12, 2012

4H Forestry

For this story I will break it into several sections. I spent 2 or 3 summers taking 4H Forestry from Burt Danenburg who was the local unit Forest Ranger Supervisor.  The Uintah National Forest had their headquarters in Duchesne so we had the forest service building there along with their fleet of vehicles. It was fun to go there two or three times a week each summer and basically spend the day working with a forest ranger. The following segment are the specific ones that I remember best and are not in any sort of order other than that is how they came to mind as I have been listing them.

Walking fences around Mud Springs Campground,

 One of my first memories of 4H  Forestry was going to the various campgrounds in the forest and doing service work on the campsites. One time in particular we went to a camp in Indian Canyon in the Avinaquin area at the top of the canyon. There was a campground there called Mud Springs. The camp was built in the usual fashion with an old log fence that was built by doing a zig zag type structure where each log in the fence was stacked on another log and only notches in the logs was used to keep them in place and thus the entire fence had no wire or nails.  Many of the old fences around the Rocky Mountains had these fences for controlling wildlife and range cattle during the early years of forest conservation practices.

I had visited Mud Springs many times during these years since it was one of our favorite campgrounds and was fairly close to Duchesne thus easy to get to on days when 4H would have several of us going to class. On one of those trips we had spent the morning picking up trash from around the camp and after eating lunch it was not unusual to for the camp rangers to lay down under the trees in the shade and take a short nap. Well for some reason I was not tired that day (as I am always now after eating), so a couple of us in the group decided to walk around the perimeter of the camp. It wasn’t just walking around the perimeter though that made this time so much fun, it was the fact that we went the entire distance, minus the road crossings, on the top of that fence. It has stuck in my mind for many years that we were actually able to maintain our balance on those logs for that entire distance. A few years ago Marie and I visited the camp again as we were traveling to Duchesne to photograph Silver Beaver Recipients for the Utah National Parks Council and I became aware of why that must have stuck so deeply as I realized what it really meant. We looked at that fence that is now rotted out in many areas and discovered that it followed the terrain of the mountain and I had forgotten that little detail. We actually had walked up and down some pretty steep areas on top of those poles and now it seems to me that we were almost like tight rope walkers in what we had accomplished during our lunch.

Mines and Mt Lions, Oh My.

 Another trip found us about half way up Indian Canyon where we had hiked up the east side of the canyon on the slick shale covered hillside. We were identifying different species of trees and different types of rock formations. We were also collecting samples for our presses. We had actually gone several hundred yards up the side of the canyon and had become somewhat spread out when we heard a very strange sound. I can’t recall what it even sounded like now but I very clearly remember everyone’s reaction. Burt’s reaction was very short but very clear, “Get down the mountain” he loudly shouted and we all started running down the hill. I have thought many times about the incident since that day and cannot recall what the sound was but have often wondered if it was a Mountain Lion or a Bear or something of that sort which caused such  alarm in his voice. We  never did (or at least none of us young men) ever did identify the sound but it was obvious to me that Burt had and he knew the present danger that it posed.

That day ended up being eventful to me in a couple of ways. In the afternoon on our way back down the canyon we decided to hike up to the old Gilsonite mine, the entrance is still visible to this day as you travel the canyon. The road looked like a trail and from the bottom of the canyon the doorway appeared to be pretty small and so I was worried from the start about this particular event. We started up the hill and I soon learned that the trail was big enough for a vehicle to travel. It had the room for a vehicle although I would never have driven it since it was also not very far before the drop-off from the road was straight down.  It was a long hike as well though and took us quite awhile to get to the entrance which when we got there was not only two stories high but each story was probably 10 feet tall. We started into the cave but only a few of us had flashlights of which few I was not one. So I depended on the guy in front of me and at times found it hard to see. I apparently have a bit of a dislike for dark, tight spaces (even though it was ten feet to the ceiling) and became somewhat scared that the water, which was steadily getting deeper on the floor, would suddenly be over my head or that the road which was very level would suddenly drop 150 feet to the next level. All of these were not founded on fact and in fact I learned later from my father that the mine actually comes out the other side of the mountain into what we refer to as the right hand fork of Indian Canyon. I was glad though when Burt decided we had gone far enough and to the dismay of several others in the group had us turn around and go out. It was a short hike to the vehicle and that only because we all pretty much ran back down to the bottom. Twice in one day and each time I had been pretty scared.

Marking trees

On another trip we drove up the old road which is now covered by the water of Starvation Resevoir. We were going out to do some Forest Service business that I did not understand since we were being taught to identify trees and learn of their importance to our lives and yet on this day we were going out and putting big paint marks on them so that they could be cut down. Well I learned that day what it ment to the forest to have trees “harvested”. Burt was very picky in which trees should be harvested and which should remain and he was looking specifically for things like disease and overcrowded areas etc.  We drove up through an area that I knew as the twin peaks at the head of strawberry river. Then we kept driving and went places where roads didn’t even exist, places where only deer hunters seem to drive otherwise. Then suddenly to my amazement we ended up at Mud Springs campground. I finally knew again where I was and learned about how close things can be to where you are and not even knowing that you are that close. It was a great trip and one that will always remain in my memory because I learned about some real good uses of forest management.

Leaf press,

One of the projects that we had to do for 4-H was to make a leaf press fro 1 inch slat boards. It was about 14 inches by 20 inches (just guessing now) but there were two sides that were then put together with two pieces of cardboard on each half and filled with several white pieces of  paper of the same size between which leaf and pine needle samples would be placed. The boards were then tightly bound with a couple of ropes. It was a lot of fun drying our plant specimens for 4-H using this plant press. Years later, even though I almost threw it out several times when moving, for some reason I had held onto that press and my children used it for school projects. It was well worth the time it took to make.

Above Granddaddy Lake rolling rocks.

 One last trip that I remember from the first year that I was in 4-H forestry I remember getting to the Forest Service Station quite early with our lunches packed as usual to go with us. We drove up the Duchesne River through Utahn and ended up at Tabiona and then Hannah. We turn right and went down a road that had trees growing on both sides of it making a tunnel from the branches covering the roadway. (I think I have always loved pictures of roads like that usually taken in the deep south of America due to that one day.) We then went up a small canyon and were soon climbing along a very rough dirt road higher up on the mountain as we would wind through the trees and vegetation. Finally we topped out onto a long flat area typical of these mountain ranges in Utah. Some of the mountains go to a top peak but many of them end up leading to flat areas several miles wide in most cases. We stopped and went to the edge of the hill and could see down into what is known as Rock Creek canyon.  Then we walked over to a wreckage of a small aircraft that had crashed several years earlier. After exploring the wreckage we got back into the truck and drove another mile or so to the edge of another part of the plateau.  There we got out and hiked to the edge and were suddenly looking down on Granddaddy Lake in the Granddaddy Basin. I have wished many times that I had known enough about photography back then to have taken a camera with me that day because I would like to have that image today somewhere other than in my mind’s eye. For several years following that day as I would climb into the Grandaddies on scout trips I would look up to the edge of the mountain above Granddaddy Lake  and try to remember where we were possibly standing at that day on that 4-H trip. 

There was one lesson learned that day that I will never forget. When we had first walked to the edge above Rock Creek there were several of the older boys that started to roll rocks down into the canyon but as soon as Burt got there it came to an immediate halt. He told us about people who had been hurt badly by someone unknowingly rolling rocks down onto them from similar vantage points but because they couldn’t be seen the ones rolling the rocks were unaware of the consequences of their actions. I have never rolled rocks again off of areas even if I could see clearly all the way to where the rocks would stop.