Ranger Writings
Mt. Whitney Ranger Station, Lone Pine, CA – 1969-1972
I’d only been at the Mount Whitney Ranger Station in Lone Pine for about a week; arriving by Greyhound bus from Long Beach, when I turned twenty years of age on June 18th. There had been a huge dumping of snow that winter and spring in the Sierra Nevada range. So my first assignment as a seasonal forestry aid was to ride along up to the Whitney Portal; trailhead of the Mount Whitney Trail and site of both a day-use area and overnight campground. That spring, due to the heavy snows, an avalanche had run and demolished an outhouse next to the trailhead.
Pete Garner, a horse and mule packer, was our driver and an old Paiute Indian (to us old, but in his late 50’s) who lived in the Owens Valley. Later we found out he was one of the best rodeo team ropers in the area.
Sharing the front bench seat of the green Forest Service pickup truck was another seasonal forestry aid and also a college student, Tom Highberger. Our job was to use sledgehammers and break up and haul out in the pickup the concrete base of the destroyed outhouse.
I should have known at the time that the removal of an outhouse would somehow play a part in a later story. But I will save that for another time.
Pete, in his slow and methodical way, told us stories during our work breaks. He said that being a Paiute Indian he and several other local Paiutes were often called to play as extras in the numerous movies filmed near Lone Pine and in the Alabama Hills. Pete said they played “Indians” and sometimes “Arabs”.
Much of the television series “Wagon Train”, with actor Ward Bond, was filmed here beginning in 1957, and ran for eight years topping the Nielsen ratings at number one in the 1961-62 season. And who can forget the movie scene with an elephant being led by an “East Indian” and in the background there stands Mount Whitney? This 1939 black and white classic starred Gregory Peck, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and playing Gunga Din, the title of the movie, was Sam Jaffe. The most remembered line in the movie, based on Rudyard Kipling’s poem, said by Peck to Jaffe, “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”
I’d tell people that Humphrey Bogart was killed here at the Whitney Portal in 1941, by a sharpshooting Forest Service ranger with a rifle named Slim. I explained, with a straight face, that many people didn’t realize that Bogie had gone bad and robbed a bank. Then I’d laugh and tell them it was all in the movie “High Sierra”. A big chase scene through Lone Pine, up the winding Whitney Portal road, culminating in death.
Even Hopalong Cassidy, played by actor William Boyd, owned a vacation home tucked away in the Alabama Hills which were halfway between Lone Pine and the Whitney Portal.
Pete continued with his movie story as he drove us down to Lone Pine en route to the landfill. He said that he and several Paiutes were hired as extras and were supposed to storm a stronghold held by soldiers up on a hill. Whooping and hollering and galloping their horses towards the soldiers, they rode at breakneck speed. Only the movie director forgot to mention one thing. “No one told us that the soldiers would be rolling boulders off the hill towards us as we rode to attack them,” said Pete. “We turned tail and rode nonstop on our horses straight to a bar in Lone Pine.”
Pete said that it took several hours coaxing and pleading by the movie director to get them to promise to return the next day to re-shoot the scene. The director had failed to mention to Pete and the others that the soldiers would be rolling paper mache boulders, not real rock, down on the attacking Indians. Pete laughingly said, “By gawd, we thought they were real and they were going to kill us!”
As a mule packer I don’t think anyone could be any better than Pete. Plus the mules used on the Inyo National Forest were a source of pride for their size and good looks.
I was up at the trail crew camp when Pete rode in with his string of mules to pack out their gear at the end of summer. It was fascinating to watch him. Just like his story telling, which was slow and methodical, I realized he packed his mules in the same manner. There was no wasted motion.
Pete would look at items and mentally weigh them in his mind. He knew which mule would carry heavy loads, which could handle bulky items, and the mules all knew him. Except one.
Pete had been loaned a mule named “Cotton” from one of the other ranger districts. As he would load a pannier, a canvas pack, onto the pack saddle all of Pete’s mules would stand absolutely still. When he started towards Cotton the mule started to act up. Pete stopped where he stood, looked straight at the mule and in a loud voice called out, “Hey!”.
All the other mules froze in place. Pete slowly walked forward, started to lift the pannier, and Cotton acted up again.
“Hey!” yelled Pete. The other mules somehow all stood straighter and more rigid.
Pete started once again to lift the pannier and Cotton danced. In Australia I have watched two crocodiles slowly swim towards each other and then in a millisecond turn on one another. I’ve watched a golden eagle fly down just as a prairie dog poked his head up to look around, and be immediately snatched up into it’s talons. But the Pete Garner I knew; soft spoken and slow moving, struck like a rattlesnake.
Pete dropped the pannier, leap up and wrapped his arms around Cotton’s neck, and bit the mule’s ear and held on.
Myself and the trail crew just stood dumbstruck. Pete released himself, walked back to another mule, and checked it’s cinch. Then he picked up the pannier and turned again towards Cotton. The mule started to move and Pete loudly said, “Hey!”. Cotton turned his head forward, stood rigid, and didn’t move. Pete finished packing and soon had the string headed out as if it was just another day in the saddle.
I ran into Pete one more time when he was returning from taking supplies in to Tunnel Meadows. It was late in the day. His clothes were covered in dust and dirt. I invited him to relax at my camp.
“What happened to you Pete?” I asked.
“I was riding across the meadow trail, kind of dozing in the saddle, when all of a sudden a jet flew about twenty feet over my head,” he answered. “My pack string started bucking and I was thrown. I had to chase down my stock for two miles. Then I had to go back and repack them all.”
The China Lake Naval Air Station is based out towards Ridgecrest and is 40-50 miles away. The military jets like to fly low over the Sierra Nevada. At times I’ve been on Army Pass looking down into the cockpit of the fighter pilot. This pilot saw Pete and the pack string and purposely dove down right on top of them.
Pete was sore and stiff but in one piece.
“You know what they told me to do when a jet flies low like that?” Pete asked me.
“No,” I said.
“They told me to get the tail number,” he said as he chuckled. “I was on my back looking up at the sky. Couldn’t read the tail number from there!”
Mt. Whitney Ranger Station, Lone Pine, CA – 1969-1970
The year was 1969, and I was one of several summer seasonal employees working for the US Forest Service in Lone Pine, California. Most of us were college students and others were teachers. This was before the real start of the environmental movement and Earth Day. I had listed my college major as pre-forestry; although later I switched to geography. Tom Highberger was an art major specializing in pottery. George Lathrop was a drama major. A couple others were forestry majors at Humboldt State; James Q. Brown and Rick Robinson. Dana Ready was another college student and Walt Pettis, in his 40’s, had worked as a miner, with horses, and other odd jobs. Teamed up with Pettis in some colorful antics that summer was high school teacher and football coach, and an ex-bouncer in Reno during his college days, Orville Leao, Jr. Orville was about 6’2″ or 6’3″, 260 lbs. plus or minus, broad shoulders and chest, and very little neck, and had played football as a tackle for the University of Nevada at Reno in 1964 and 1965.
We all worked for Marion K. Borrell, the assistant district ranger and Ben Casad, district ranger. Marion was ex-Army and looked and acted the part in every way, from his crew cut to having us “police” the grounds in the ware yard many mornings. We were all scared of Marion except one.
Walt Pettis was working on a hot, sultry summer day on the water system down in the canyon below the Whitney Portal Campground. Orville showed up during during the hot windless afternoon and joined Walt along with a case of cold beer.
As Walt and Orville were working and drinking, Orville asked, “Hey Walt? How many Forest Service vehicles did you drive here today?”
Walt laughingly replied, “Just one that I know of.”
“Well I know that I only drove one.” Orville said. “So why are there three Forest Service trucks up there on the road?”
Suddenly Walt sobered and said, “Crap! That’s Marion’s vehicle!”
Orville quietly picked up the empty beer cans, stuffed them into the cardboard container, and started up the hill towards Marion who was walking down the hill.
“Marion,” Orville said when they reached one another, “take this will you? I can’t believe people who litter. Makes me sick! I’ve got to go back now and help Walt. Thanks Marion.”
With that Marion went back up the hill to his truck with the empties and Orville went down to Walt with a big smile on his face.
* * *
Orville was a man of few words. With his size he didn’t need to ever say much. This was evident on a busy weekend nearing the end of the summer season.
Driving a fire prevention pickup truck which had a water tank, pump, and hose; occasionally Orville would hose out the inside of the toilets to help the recreation maintenance crews with their cleaning. He would hook up a high pressure nozzle taking just a minute or two to blast the toilets clean.
While at the Whitney Portal Campground he stopped at one of the toilets. He would knock first to be sure no one was inside, would open the door, prop it open with a large rock, and then he would use the hose. This time he knocked. Pulled open the door. And there stood a young man peeing all over the interior walls of the bathroom.
Orville literally filled up the doorway with his presence. He puffed himself up, glared at the man, and pushed the door shut. He then softly explained to the man, “You let me know when the inside of that toilet is completely clean. I don’t care how you do it, but you’re not getting out until it’s clean.”
Orville closed the door and leaned against it. Several minutes passed when finally a very meek voice spoke. “Sir. I’m finished,” said the voice inside the restroom.
Orville opened the door. All of the toilet paper was gone from the rolls. The young man was bare chested holding his t-shirt in his hands. Orville backed away from the doorway and nodded okay. The young man ran back to his campsite, packed up his camp, and drove away.
* * *
I had first hand account of how Orville’s mind worked. Which in itself can be scary. It was a Sunday. We had placed large rocks around the loop road near the Whitney Portal trailhead to discourage illegal vehicle parking. Backpackers would park here and do a weekend hike to climb Mt. Whitney; highest point in the contiguous United States.
It was nearing noon and Orville and I stopped to eat lunch at a picnic table next to the kid’s fishing pond. A blue VW bug was parked illegally. They had moved a rock to the side and then drove their VW into the resulting space.
Orville just sat there and pondered. He turned to me and said, “Jon, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I replied, “I hope I never think like you Orville.”
He laughed and told me to grab a shovel. We walked behind the VW and I dug a hole. Orville then picked up the massive rock and dropped it into the hole so that only half was above ground, but still high enough to prevent the VW from escaping. We then went back to eating our lunch at the picnic table.
In about a half hour backpackers started coming down off the Mt. Whitney trail; a twenty-one mile round trip hike that starts at 8600 feet elevation and culminates at 14, 497 feet (plaque on summit reads 14,496.811) at the summit. Much of the hike is a mental trudge. From Trail Camp at 12,00 feet, people hike and vomit their way up ninety-seven switchbacks to Trail Crest Pass, and then onto the peak. They pick up their packs back down at Trail Camp, usually finding that the marmots and ravens have broken into their food bags, and then hike all the way down to the Whitney Portal where we now waited.
“Orville look,” I said as I pointed. There the first of two backpackers had arrived at their Volkswagen. You could tell he was exhausted. He slipped off his backpack, dropped in onto the ground, leaned against the car, and then slid down and collapsed in a sitting position with his back against the driver’s side front tire. We kept eating.
In a few moments the backpacker got up and put his pack in the backseat. He started to walk around his car when suddenly he stopped. He stared down at the rock behind his rear bumper.
Just then his hiking partner came off the trail. After sloughing off his backpack the first hiker pointed to the rock. You could not hear their voices, but it was easy to read their gestures, the head scratching, the walking around their vehicle looking for another way to drive out, then more talking and pointing.
I started to stand up but Orville told me to stay and finish my lunch. “There’s no hurry Jon,” he said while munching on a cookie his wife had baked.
For the next forty-five minutes to nearly an hour, we watched as the two already physically exhausted young men attempted to lift or pull the large rock out of the hole. At one point they got the rock partially out of the hole, when it fell back into the depression I had dug.
A few more attempts and the two finally succeeded and rolled the rock off down the hill a ways. Just when they looked like they were going to get into the bug and drive away Orville said, “Okay Jon. Now it’s time.”
Orville swaggered over and literally towered over the two men and the Volkswagen.
“Boys. That was my favorite rock. Why did you move my favorite rock?” asked Orville.
The two started stuttering and making excuses. They said the rock wasn’t there before when they had parked. Orville told them,” No. The rock had always been there and you two moved my most favorite rock.”
He then told them that they could back out their vehicle but needed to put the rock back the way they found it. Orville and I then went back to the table and watched another twenty minutes. They slowly rolled the rock back uphill; finally dropping it into the hole. The men, now totally wasted, walked down to us and looked at Orville to be released and set free.
It was then that I knew that Orville had rubbed off on me. “Orville,” I said. “I do believe the rock was put back upside down.”
Orville just grinned his Cheshire cat smile and said, “Boys, I do believe this young ranger is right. You put my rock in upside down.”
Mt. Whitney Ranger Station, Lone Pine, CA – 1969
George Lathrop – drama major. George’s job that summer of ’69, with the US Forest Service, was to cleanup and perform light maintenance on the front country campgrounds. In other words, clean and remove ashes from campfire rings, paint picnic tables, clean restrooms, and pick up trash.
George also wanted to be a cowboy. He bought the hat and the boots. He even boasted he would enter a rodeo and sign up for the bull riding. Remember, George was a drama major. As a joke, we bought him a pair of Mattel Fanner 50 toy revolvers complete with a gun belt. Back then these toy guns looked real and didn’t have the orange tips they have on toy guns today.
One evening we all walked down to Bobo’s Bonanza Cafe in Lone Pine. In lighthearted humor there was a sign just inside the doorway complete with wooden pegs that read, “Hang Your Guns Here”. I laughed and pointed out the sign to George.
With a slight Southern drawl, George in his thespian mode spoke loudly for all the restaurant patrons to hear, “They’ll have to take me first before I’ll give up my guns”.
George, walking bowlegged, strolled slowly over to a booth with both thumbs hooked into the front of his gun belt, pushed his cowboy hat to the back of his head, and sat down. George was good. He could have played a part in the John Wayne movie we had all traveled to Bishop one night to see; “True Grit”. Yes George was good. Too good.
Whether it was the owner, one of the waitresses, or one of the customers, in about five minutes two Inyo County deputies entered Bobo’s. They headed straight to our booth with hands on their holstered sidearms.
“Why’d you wear guns in here?” one of the deputies asked.
George never said he word. Slowly he pulled his hat down, got all squint- eyed, and started to stand up into a gunfighter’s stance.
It was at this point that an entire contingent of college student – seasonal Forest Service employees shared the exact same thought in a millisecond. Call it instantaneous collective reasoning. As a group we jumped George, ripped off his gun belt, and set the two Mattel toy guns on the table for the deputies.
It was quiet. No one said a word. You could feel the tenseness. George could be arrested. He should be arrested.
One of the deputies reached down and picked up one of the guns. Holding it in his hand he turned it side to side. Then with both hands he opened it up and cracked a small smile. “Hell boy,” he spoke. “You forgot to load these. You didn’t put any caps in these cap guns! Now I’m going to take your gun belt and guns and hang ’em high on that sign by the door. When you leave, you take them home, and you don’t EVER wear them to town again.”
* * *
George was driving his Forest Service truck down the highway from Onion Valley Campground, near the Kearsarge Pass trail head, having just cleaned up all the campfire rings. With a shovel he would scoop out all the old wood and charcoal ashes, put them in plastic garbage bags, throw them in the back of his truck, and drive down to the Lone Pine landfill.
At the end of the workday George told us about his afternoon.
“I was driving in on Highway 395 and people were all so friendly to me,” he began his explanation. “Cars would pass and honk and wave at me. I thought it was nice how many people liked the Forest Service and were letting me know.”
If you got into a truck George Lathrop had been driving you always had to readjust the mirrors. All the mirrors. Both side view mirrors and the rear view mirror. For George would practice his dramatic facial expressions as he drove. He’d study his actor’s face to create different responses: a sneer, a look of cold bloodedness, gaiety.
After driving a while he noticed that people weren’t really smiling as they passed him and waved at him. In a moment of realization George readjusted his rear view mirror. What he saw were flames in the back of his truck.
George pulled to the side of the road and jumped out. It turned out that some of the ashes he collected and put in the plastic bags weren’t all cooled down. Driving at 60 mph on the highway, some hot coals began melting the bags and then were fanned into flames which ignited the broom in his pickup bed.
George finished telling his tale then walked over to his truck. He reached down into the bed. He pulled out a broom handle with just a little tuft of blackened straw. All that remained of his broom.
Mt. Whitney Ranger Station, Lone Pine, CA – 1970
I wrote earlier that I would return to the subject of outhouses. Today, there is concern about hepatitis and numerous other unpronounceable diseases. Not so in the late 60’s. The methods we used back then were the norm. The campground toilets had a concrete floor and either concrete or wooden walls, a roof, a wood or metal door, and an Angeles can; a metal riser covering the pit hole with a toilet seat and cover. One side was the Men’s, the other the Women’s, although both were exactly the same. Marion Borrell, assistant district ranger, would require that we occasionally, with Pine Sol, bucket, and stiff brush, get down on hands and knees and scrub the floors.
One afternoon in Lone Pine Campground I was in that very position when a camper stopped to use the bathroom. I apologized that I was cleaning the Men’s side, but told him he could go ahead and use the Women’s as they were the same.
The man used it and left. I didn’t think another thing about it until I got to the ranger station at the end of the day.
“Jon! Ben wants you in his office right now,” said Marion talking about Ben Casad our district ranger.
I can’t say that I sped right over to Ben’s office. I was taking my time and attempting to figure out what I had done wrong. I procrastinated as long as I could and knocked on Ben’s open door and walked in to learn my fate.
“What did you do today up in Lone Pine Campground?” Ben asked in a very serious tone.
I must have looked like an idiot. I just stood there not knowing what to say. It got worse. Marion walked into the room and told me to sit down. This was the end of my very short career with the Forest Service and maybe even the Federal government.
Ben and Marion both smiled. “Jon,” began Ben, “a man drove all the way down from the campground just to tell me what a dedicated employee I have working for me. He was impressed that you were literally on your hands and knees cleaning the toilet. He said it was nice to use a clean restroom out in the wilds and wanted to make sure you were recognized.”
Two things happened that day. I received my first compliment from the user public. And I discovered that you can have all sorts of nice amenities in a campground, but if you don’t have clean, nice smelling bathrooms, that’s all most people will remember.
* * *
In 1970, all the restrooms at the Whitney Portal were old and needed to be replaced. There were no monies allocated, so it was a challenge to keep them clean and fragrant.
Tom Klepperich was now the assistant district ranger in charge of the front country recreation program. James Arasim was now district ranger as Ben Casad had retired over the previous winter.
Tom asked me to head up to the Whitney Portal and spray all the insides of all the pit toilet vaults with a chemical that is mixed with mineral oil. The concoction lessens the obnoxious smell and the oil coats the pit walls so the chemical will stick.
Rod, the recreation technician, handed me a canister pump and partially filled it with the chemical. He then pointed me to a 55 gallon drum with a sign over it labeling it as mineral oil. He told me to fill up the rest of the canister with the oil.
I drove up the eleven miles to the Whitney Portal and went right to work. There were at least a dozen toilets, many with two pit holes. I really saturated the insides of those toilet vaults using the spray nozzle on the canister pump. Already the toilets smelled oh so much better.
I finished up with the last of the toilets and headed back to Lone Pine. I was just cleaning out my truck when district ranger Arasim came out to the ware yard looking ashen and worried.
Tom Klepperich, Rod, myself and some of the other summer seasonals walked over to Arasim.
“What’s the matter Jim?” asked Tom.
“A man just came down here from the Whitney Portal,” started Jim. “He said he was sitting on a toilet, pulled out a cigarette, lit a match, and tossed it down the toilet. Suddenly he was blown off the toilet by an explosion!”
“I sent him down to the hospital and told him the Forest Service would pay for his medical expense,” added Jim.
At that point Rod and I looked at each other. I pulled out the canister I used to saturate the pit toilets. I poured out a little liquid onto the ground. Rod lit a match and bent down to the liquid. It burned!
We smelled it. Gasoline. We all went over to the three 55 gallon drums. The mineral oil drum had been placed in the slot belonging to the gasoline drum and vice versa.
“Oh crap!” I thought. “Oh shit!” said Jim out loud.
Walt Pettis and James Q. Brown jumped into the fire prevention truck with its pump, tank full of water, and fire hose. I rode passenger in another vehicle with Tom. Can’t say the speed limit was adhered to as we sped up the steep road to the Portal.
We did not know exactly what to expect when we parked the two vehicles next to the toilet near the Whitney Portal store. Just for safety we donned leather gloves and hard hats. Pettis and Brown staged by their fire truck in case it was needed. Tom and I slowly approached the restroom and made sure it was not occupied. He lifted up the toilet seat so the pit toilet hole would be accessible.
“I’ll light a fusee [like a road flare] and drop it in,” said Tom.
I opened the door and stepped back. Tom struck the end of the fusee, lighting it, and tossed it into the toilet hole.
WHOMP! The Angeles can was blown up into the air and hit the roof of the bathroom. Flames came up out of the toilet vault. Tom, who was a redhead, turned to us with his eyes wild and his face as red as his hair.
“Holy shit!” said Walt.
“We’d better hurry up and do all the other toilets before someone lights another match,” I said.
We drove up to the trailhead and day-use area near the small fishing pond. This time we took off both Angeles cans on the Men’s and Women’s sides and set them outside on the ground.
Tom stood next to the bathroom door ready to light the fusee. Just then a mother walked up with a small boy holding her hand to use the bathroom.
“What’s going on?” the woman asked Walt.
“Don’t worry ma’am,” answered Walt. “We’re just disinfecting the toilets.”
Just at that moment Tom tossed in the fusee.
WHOMP! Flames again came out of both pit toilet vaults and the doors blew wide open. Flames also came up through the roof vent pipes. The mother grabbed her child in her arms and ran off; probably telling her husband to pack up and leave.
We finished the remainder of the toilets which were old and wooden. They must have had leaks as none of them had any kind of explosion.
District ranger Arasim was waiting for us when we returned to the ranger station. We told him what happened with the fusees at the first two toilets.
“The flames went how high?” he asked. “And it blew off the Angeles cans?”
Then Walt told the story of the mother and child and that we were, “just disinfecting the toilets”.
All at the same time we started to giggle like school boys. Then the giggles turned to out and out laughter. We noticed that Arasim was laughing harder and now had tears in his eyes.
“Guys,” said Arasim, “when the man came into my office and told me what happened, his eyebrows were singed.” And then, doubled over laughing, he could barely spit out, “If his eyebrows were singed, what do you think his privates looked like?”
Arasim finally calmed down to where he could speak. He told us he had checked to make sure the man was okay, he had left the hospital, and was now checked into a motel.
“I told him we were very concerned for him and were glad he was not seriously hurt,” said Arasim. “And then I told him that he should never ever throw a lighted match in an outhouse due to ‘natural gases’. But I told him he wouldn’t get a citation as he’d already gone through so much.”
This was back in the days before lawyers sued for hot coffee burns at McDonald’s.
There is an epilogue to this story. At the end of the year the Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service, as well as some state natural resource agencies held a meeting at the forest supervisor’s office in Bishop to talk over the year’s accomplishments and setbacks. A manager with the BLM got up and said that one of their toilets had been vandalized. Someone had dropped in a stick of dynamite and blew it up.
James Arasim, with a big smile on his face, started to stand up to tell of the man we blew up on a toilet. But the forest supervisor for the Inyo National Forest grabbed Arasim’s arm, squeezing it tight, he pulled Jim back down into his seat and whispered in his ear, “Don’t you even think about it”.
Whitney Portal, Mt. Whitney Ranger District, CA – 1970
Yosemite Valley in 1970, experienced the “4th of July Riots”. Hundreds of anti-establishment, anti-Vietnam counterculture youths camped illegally in Stoneman Meadows in the national park. The park rangers ordered them to leave. Horse mounted rangers rode into the crowds in an attempt to remove them from the meadow by force. The park rangers lost this battle, but later won the “war” with help from the National Guard. This incident immediately filtered it’s way into the Forest Service.
Tom Klepperich gathered all the summer seasonals together and gave us the “new policy” of the Forest Service. From now on we were not to give warnings; we were to issue tickets. Tom informed us that if someone had not paid their campground fee by eleven o’clock that morning, no excuses accepted, write the campers a ticket.
So we took two vehicles and all of us headed up to the Whitney Portal campground. Tom said he would show us how it was done.
All of us sat at a nearby picnic table and watched as Tom walked up to a camper trailer at 11:30 am. We weren’t close enough to hear, but we could see everything.
Tom knocked on the trailer door. A grey-haired man in his late 60’s came out with a smile on his face and shook Tom’s hand. As they were talking the wife came out of the trailer. She too had a smile on her face. Suddenly she turned and disappeared back into the trailer. A few seconds later she returned, standing at the door, holding out a plate with a piece of pie on it for Tom.
Klepperich tried to refuse the pie, at least his hands said, “No”. The woman stepped down from the trailer and placed the paper plate with pie and fork in Tom’s hands. Tom stopped talking and took a bite. Then he ate the rest of the piece of pie. The woman took away his plate and fork. She and her husband, both still smiling and waving at Tom, climbed back into their trailer and closed the door.
A very red-faced Tom Klepperich walked back to the picnic table with his head down. When he looked up he saw six seasonal employees still sitting there but now wearing ridiculous grins.
Jim Brown was the first to speak, “Kind of hard writing a ticket with pie in your hands.”
“Glad you showed us how to do that,” I added.
“Shut up,” Tom replied with a slight embarrassed grin on his face. “I do not care what the Forest Service says is our ‘new policy’. But we will not be writing many tickets this year.”
And we didn’t.
Mt. Whitney Ranger Station, Lone Pine, CA – 1969
Those first summers working for the Forest Service were at times, dead serious. In 1969, we had forty people die in the Mt. Whitney Ranger District. At the age of twenty that first year was an awakening for me. I’m sure at some point I asked myself if I really wanted to become a ranger.
The winter and spring of 1968-69 was an extremely heavy snow year. Owens Lake, which had been dry since 1924 when Los Angeles Water and Power commandeered most of the water for use in the LA Basin, was full again in 1969. In early summer the streams were running hard, high, and cold as the snow melted.
A family was camping at the Whitney Portal campground and the parents had placed a plastic container of lemonade in the cold stream, weighted down with a rock. Unbeknownst to his parents, their young son, knowing the lemonade was there, went down to the stream. Shortly thereafter, the parents realized their boy was missing.
The Inyo County Sheriff’s Office called the ranger station and immediately we all mobilized for a search and rescue mission. The worst was confirmed. Hiking along the stream bank, probing with long sticks, we found the drowned child.
It wasn’t long before another call came in which was doubly sad. A family drove from Los Angeles to the Whitney Portal in an El Camino (a car with a pickup bed). The couple had three kids, and since the El Camino only has one bench seat up in the cab, they put the three kids in sleeping bags under a tonneau cover in the bed. They also had a large cooler full of dry ice.
When they reached the campground they opened up the tailgate and pulled back the tonneau cover. The cooler had tipped over during the long drive. Dry ice is a solid form of carbon dioxide. Being uncovered the dry ice turned back into a gas and filled up the enclosed space. Two of the three children suffocated to death.
Next we learned of a small plane crash with a fatality in the Templeton/Tunnel Meadows area; now a part of the Golden Trout Wilderness Area. So another body recovery.
The last fatality was around the Labor Day weekend. A group of boy scouts had already summited Mt. Whitney and were on their way down to their camp near Mirror Lake. One of the scouts got separated from the others. It was cold and rainy so hyperthermia was probably a factor. But once again we were called on for search and rescue. The scout was found dead at the bottom of a cliff. He most likely hallucinated and walked straight off the trail and stepped off a rock wall.
That made five deaths that summer. So what about the other thirty-five?
The worst fatality had already happened. In February a DC-3 took off from Hawthorne, Nevada en route to Long Beach, California, my birth city. The plane was known as the “Gambler’s Special” and carried thirty-two passengers and three crew members; pilot, co-pilot, and flight attendant.
It was night, dark with no moon, and the pilot was flying by dead reckoning. However, the crew did not “reckon” with a serious head wind. Most likely thinking they were safe and flying well south of the over 14,000 foot peak of Mt. Whitney, the pilot turned westward. In truth they were north of the mountain and crashed headfirst into a cliff wall. The demolished plane then slid down the steep slope and gradually became completely covered by snowfall after snowfall. The heavy snows that year continued and the “Gambler’s Special” wasn’t spotted until July.
I won’t delve into a lot of the details about the crash site and what a bunch of twenty year old Forest Service employees saw or were subjected to experiencing. Nor will I lower myself to the subsequent stories of millions of dollars supposedly on the plane and never found. There was even a story that the Manson family had found the plane on their own and recovered the “treasure” themselves.
What I remember is a beautiful glacial tarn below the crash site with small birds singing beautiful songs and wildflowers popping out along the edge of this small teal colored lake. If I faced down the valley, everything was as it should be. But if I turned around, there was the plane wreck.
In many ways it was hard to imagine this had been a plane. Except for a large piece of wing and the tail, it was more like metal littered debris. We were searching among the boulders that which did not naturally belong. Our job was to return what we could to the living; the friends and relatives. A deputy reached down and picked up a wallet. As he opened it up the plastic accordion-like holders fell out holding numerous photos of loved ones. Suddenly, it brought back the knowledge that these were human beings. We had forty body bags for the thirty-five victims.
That morning we had been flown up by helicopter and returned at the end of the day in the same manner. After the recovery effort there was lots of food offered to us. No one wanted any, no one was hungry. The next day we returned to our regular work. This was prior to understanding post traumatic stress or the need for any kind of peer counseling. All I could equate this brief experience to, was a little of what those fighting in Vietnam in 1969 must have seen and felt and experienced.
There are still people, according to blogs on the internet, who still hike up to the “Gambler’s Special” crash site today. My only question is why? I never want to go there again.
It was the end of the summer season. After dealing with those forty fatalities, all within our ranger district, I looked forward to returning to “normal”. But Marion Borrell, the assistant district ranger, shattered that feeling abruptly when he pushed open the door to our bunkhouse. A young girl, hiking with her parents on the Mt. Whitney Trail, was lost. We grabbed our gear, postponed dinner, and headed to the trailhead.
To say we were a pessimistic groups of searchers was an understatement. All of our searches this season were not rescues, they were recoveries. We brought out the dead. We were a very quiet group as we started our hike up the trail.
After a little more than two miles of walking our pessimism changed to jubilation. The Mt. Whitney wilderness ranger had sent down a hiker to notify us of the news. The young girl had been found and was fine.
It turned out that once she became separated from her parents she accidentally veered off onto a short spur trail to Lone Pine Lake. Now knowing she was lost, she noticed two backpacks leaning against a tree. She did what most adults would not, she sat down and waited figuring someone would come back to those packs.
What she did was perfect. We all decided to hike up and see her. We wanted to win one this time. And a part of us wanted to make sure it was true. When we met up with her, we told her how proud we were of her. She had used her brains.
The common lesson told to children is to “hug a tree” rather than keep on hiking. This made it easier for rescuers if the lost party stayed in one place. She told us she did one better. “I hugged a backpack,” she said.
The next best moment came when her parents met their daughter at the trailhead. And then the summer season of 1969 was over. What a great feeling.
Mt. Whitney Ranger Station, Lone Pine, CA – 1971-1972
I politicked, I pleaded, I begged. I wanted a different job when I came back to work in the Mt. Whitney Ranger District in 1971. I did not want to be in the front country with the campgrounds, day use areas, and driving to get everywhere. I wanted the back country. I wanted to hike in the wilderness. I wanted to be a wilderness ranger. That season they decided on a brand new position in the Cottonwood Lakes Basin, south of Mt. Whitney, under the watchful mass of 14,026 foot Mt. Langley. The southern most 14,000 foot peak is the backdrop for a basin with over twenty lakes and ponds, Jeffrey pine and Englemann spruce, and the spawning grounds for the golden trout. I was ecstatic. I would be the first wilderness ranger to patrol these lands.
At the time I was in my next to last semester at California State University at Long Beach. I finally declared a major; geography – the study of humans as they relate to the world they inhabit. My professor for physical geography was Dr. Jean Wheeler. She herself had done studies in the wilderness and showed me that a degree in geography could lead me towards my career goals. I felt like I had a direction in my life.
Once a week in the evening, the college started up a non-credit backpacking course. Various topics were presented by different guest speakers on equipment and the art of backpacking. After taking the course I went out and purchased Lowa Civetta hiking boots, The North Face Ibex down sleeping bag, an Ensolite sleeping pad, and a Camp Trails dark green external frame pack. I also purchased a Stetson rancher cowboy hat which I steamed so as to turn the brim down. Better to shield my face from the high altitude sun and create a more Clint Eastwood look rather than a Roy Rogers. That hat would go on with me my next six years as a wilderness ranger as well as on my personal travels and my two years in graduate school at the University of Idaho.
And so in the summer of 1971, I had a coming of age. I was living a dream. I was hiking in one of the most beautiful spots in the Sierra Nevada and I was getting paid to do it. What people planned their vacations or a long weekend to do, I was able to do all summer. The next five years I would be living a life that I wanted to go on forever. But right now, right here in the John Muir Wilderness, I was living and loving my life.
Cottonwood Lakes Basin, John Muir Wilderness, CA – 1971
Prior to starting that first summer as a wilderness ranger in the Cottonwood Lakes Basin, after I had all my gear purchased, there was one thing left.
That one more thing was silver-grey, extremely loving, and had a curly tail. Over the winter I bought a Norwegian elkhound puppy and named her Smokii. When I headed back to Lone Pine that June 1971, she was several months old and ready to start her life as a wilderness dog. My mom bought a dog pack which turned out to be a double godsend. Smokii carried her own dried dog food (learned to put the food first in Ziplock bags after she crossed a stream soaking all her food). And almost everyone I met along the trail commented on her carrying a pack. What a great opener when meeting hikers, as much of the job of a wilderness ranger involved talking to and educating the backcountry user.
My first five day hike into the Cottonwood Lakes Basin was with Smokii on a leash. What a pain holding her the entire five and a half mile hike. I thought, “what the heck”, and took off her leash. She stayed with me the whole time. I never had to use a leash on her while hiking again.
Smokii’s one vice was her love of chasing marmots. The yellow-bellied marmot is like a groundhog of the mountains. They sit on rocks, chirp, and when they feel threatened, they intensify their chirping, rotate their ample bushy tails, and try to dive down into the rocks and to safety.
Smokii loved the chase. In her entire lifetime she only caught one, and then, not sure what to do with it, she let it go unharmed. It was so much fun to watch her perk up her ears when she heard a chirp, and then the folly of her trying to catch one. I would call her back by making a howl like a wolf. She would come running.
Unfortunately, one night as we were hiking under a near full moon, I saw a loping dark movement heading away from the trail we were on. Before I could stop her, Smokii had her first encounter with a porcupine.
I got my flashlight out of my daypack and turned the light on her when she returned to me. All the quills were on her chin and nose. None were in her mouth. She had only tried to sniff the porcupine not attack it. I tried to pull out a quill and she yipped then wouldn’t let me get close to try again. What could I do?
Then I remembered that a Forest Service trail crew was camped out on a section of a trail they were building not far from my base camp. We headed there.
The trail crew seemed to love having Smokii come visit them and always spoiled her in their camp. Now I needed their help. It took three of us to extract the porcupine quills. Two of us held down this fifty pound fighting little devil and wrapped a leather belt around her muzzle so she couldn’t bite. Then the trail crew foreman grabbed his pliers and one-by-one pulled out each of the quills.
When we finished we released her from both belt and our grip. She shook and then rolled on the grass rubbing her muzzle. I thought she’d hate me but she came up to me with a half curled tail acting like she’d done something wrong. I started rubbing her silky ears and scratched her back until her tail starting curling back up and wagged. I had no trouble letting the trail crew spoil her with a few snacks before we started back to our camp.
I’d always heard horror stories how dogs didn’t learn from their past encounters with skunks or porcupines. That very next night Smokii and I were hiking after dinner in the moonlight. And then I saw it. A dark shadow moving in that same loping manner. Another porcupine! Smokii saw it the same instant I did and immediately bolted towards the animal. Before I could yell or scream, “No!” Smokii suddenly stopped dead in her tracks, turned around, and trotted back to me. She never again bothered with porcupines or even with a skunk the first time one crossed our path. So I never denied her the love of marmot chasing.
I have a confession now that the statute of limitations is up and I can’t be prosecuted or lose my job. Smokii traveled with me into Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park where dogs are not allowed. She’s been up to the summit of Mt. Whitney and on a special mission west of New Army Pass into that same national park.
One of the annual Sierra Club outings was a burro pack trip by an outfitter. I ran into the wranglers and several Sierra Clubbers at Long Lake. While I was chatting, Smokii wandered over to some of the burros. She was both curious and a little nervous around them. Just when she had reached a comfort level with them, one of the burros tried to stomp it’s hoof down on her. Smokii happened to turn her head just at that moment. She jumped and avoided the pounding hoof of the light-colored burro.
Norwegian elkhounds were bred in Norway to hunt moose. So actually they could be called a moosehound. Their job was to find a moose, nip at their legs, and drive them back to the hunter without getting clipped by their hooves. A bull moose can weigh 1400 pounds. Most burros weigh 500-700 pounds. So Smokii’s breeding probably helped save her from a serious injury.
I thought that was the end of our burro story. We headed back to our camp by Cottonwood Lake 2 1/2.
The next day, about an hour before sunset, Smokii and I wandered by the Sierra Club campsite on our way back to our base camp. I noticed no burros around so I inquired with one of the burro wranglers as to where they were.
“We let them run loose to graze,” he answered. “Yesterday we noticed a big snow patch up on Army Pass which will keep them from going over the pass.”
I felt a feeling of foreboding. There was a two man trail crew that had taken shovels up that morning and dug a path through the snow to open up the trail. And now I told the wrangler this news.
“Oh no,” he said, “they’ll never stop once they get over they pass!”
I spoke up and volunteered, “Smokii and I will help you. And if you don’t mind, we could use her to chase the burros back. She has a small grudge with one of your four legged beasts.”
The wrangler, in his twenties like I was, thought that sounded like a plan.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
The sun had set and now we hiked past High Lake and started up the steep switchbacks in the near dark. Once on top of New Army Pass we lost any semblance of light. It was at this moment that the wrangler and I both realized our flashlights were back in our camps. So now it was up to Smokii. I told her to find the burros.
The white of Smokii’s curled up tail was all we could use to guide us in the starlight. But Smokii was on the scent of the donkeys. We were descending into the national park when we could hear an occasional bell. Some of the burros luckily had bells tied round their necks.
When we caught up to the burros I told Smokii to go get them. I know we anthropomorphize our animals. We credit them with human traits. But I swear that night, even in the dark, there was a big-ass smile on that elkhound as she drove them back to the national forest side. I have to admit, I had a big-ass smile on my face too, until…
The wrangler and I stopped short of the edge of the eastern edge of the cliff. We felt more than saw an even deeper darkness. The burros had found their way, but we hadn’t found our trail down the pass.
I’d only “officially” been a wilderness ranger for a couple of weeks. But I thought back to 1969, when that young girl separated from her parents on the Mt. Whitney Trail, simply sat down and waited. I had learned from her. I knew the moon would soon rise so I said, “Let’s just sit down and wait.”
In about twenty minutes the large moon lit up the granite rock. There, about fifty yards away, was our trail down. The moon also illuminated the cliff that we nearly walked off to our deaths. It would have been an even deeper darkness if we hadn’t stopped when we did.
We happily descended the trail while Smokii seemed to single out a certain light-colored burro to nip.
Lone Pine, CA – 1971-1972
During the summer of 1971, I was the first wilderness ranger hired to patrol the Cottonwood Lakes Basin of the John Muir Wilderness. Set under the lofty and craggy heights of 14,026 foot Mt. Langley, southern most of the fourteeners in the Sierra Nevada, lay the Cottonwood Lakes; spawning grounds of the golden trout. My job was to backpack the trails throughout this basin, pack up old litter dumps, perform minor trail maintenance, and make contact with all the wilderness users.
The golden trout, California’s state fish, is a subspecies of rainbow trout, native only to California. The fish has beautiful colors and those caught legally and placed in a frying pan have a rich pink color of meat. An eighteen inch golden is considered a large fish. The species, found originally in Golden Trout Creek, was isolated by a volcanic flow that created a natural barrier.
In the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, some goldens were transplanted by pack animals into the Cottonwood Lakes. The California Department of Fish and Game* had been using fish eggs collected from these lakes since 1918, to stock other lakes. However, recently it was found that the golden trout in the lakes had hybridized with rainbows, and are thus not a pure strain. But that is now and does not affect my story of 1971.
During the time I worked there, Cottonwood Lakes No. 1 through No. 4 were closed to any kind of fishing. In those days the lakes were used as spawning grounds. The fish eggs were collected and transported by horse and mule train to the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery, built in 1916, near the town of Independence. So today, if you fly fish some remote location in the Wyoming wilderness and land a golden trout, it’s ancestors probably came from here.
On my patrols I often ran into an energetic and colorful game warden named Vern Brandt. He traveled with his dog as did I with my dog Smokii. Vern had a reputation. If he thought you were poaching , he would go anywhere at anytime to catch you.
Vern was stocky, had a grey-haired crew cut, and not only strictly enforced the wildlife regulations, but had a strong preservationist bent to his personal beliefs. This led to his getting into hot water with the higher ups in the department of fish and game. He was evangelical when it came to his opposition to the proposed Trail Peak Ski Resort near Horseshoe Meadow and the effect it would have on his beloved Cottonwood Lakes Basin and surrounding wilderness.
The Horseshoe Meadow Road switchbacks up the east side of the Sierra Nevada and winds its way climbing 6,000 feet in elevation from Lone Pine, twenty four miles away. It’s purpose originally was to access water and recreation potential in the late 1920’s, but was left unfinished. In the 1960’s, construction started back up to provide access to the proposed ski resort.
Vern wrote a strong letter in opposition to the ski area, but on official California State Department of Fish and Game letterhead. This made it appear as an “official” state condemnation of the proposed ski area. He looked at the proposed development as a personal affront to his wilderness and felt strongly that the ski area would adversely affect wildlife and the natural resources.
The ski area never happened. Later, the Golden Trout Wilderness Area was designated by Congress in 1978, lying contiguous to the John Muir Wilderness. But Vern took a very big and personal hit and was close to being fired. But he wasn’t, and he continued doing his job in only ways Vern could do.
One morning Vern walked over to my camp and asked me to accompany him to the upper end of Cottonwood Lake No. 3. When Vern worked this area he stayed in a small fish and game cabin with his dog. Smokii and I had a Forest Service center pole tent, teepee shaped, next to what I called Cottonwood Lake No. 2 1/2 as our home.
The four of us hiked up the trail where a thick stand of willows grew. Vern handed me his binoculars and asked, “What do you see Jon?” All the willows were standing upright except for three. And those three seemed to move in and out.
“Vern,” I said as I focused, “those look like fishing poles.”
“I do believe you’re right. That’s what I thought too,” replied Vern.
We bushwhacked in through the willows and found three men illegally fishing for golden trout in closed waters. Vern seized their equipment and issued summons to appear in court to be held in the Inyo County Courthouse in Independence.
At the end of the summer season I asked Vern the outcome of his case. He laughed and started telling me, “Jon, all three of them showed up in court.”
“One was a banker, one an airline pilot, and one a land developer. ”
“Anyway, they all pleaded guilty before the judge. But before the judge could render his sentence, these guys started smiling and pulling out their checkbooks like this was no big deal.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
Vern rubbed his crew cut and with an even bigger smile continued, “The judge glanced briefly at me and then leaned back in his chair and said, ‘I hereby fine you each $100’, then paused and added, ‘plus seven days in jail’.”
“I guess those three should have brought their lawyers with them rather than their checkbooks,” Vern said.
Remember that Vern was working as a game warden in the 60’s and 70’s during the “hippie” years. He would put on a long hair wig, wear an old plaid shirt, and go out on a lake and start fishing. He’d work his way around to other fishers and start talking.
“Boy, I hope there’s no game warden around today. I forgot to buy a fishing license,” long-haired Vern would mumble while casting out his line.
“Don’t worry,” the other fishermen would reply, ” I ain’t seen one and I don’t have a licence either.”
At this point Vern would pull off his flannel shirt covering his uniform and badge.
Although Vern was cagey, he was fair and did his job with the wildlife in mind. He told me once that some game wardens wait for fishermen to catch way over their limit so they could write a stiffer fine. Not Vern. If someone was fishing in closed waters, he put an immediate stop and issued a citation. He did not wait to let them catch fish which would add to the total fine. It was a lesson in law enforcement I practiced much later in my career. The resource came first.
Vern’s personal car was an old pale green Nash Rambler which he’d use sometimes when he went undercover. He told me one time he was driving down Highway 395 and saw the CHP (California Highway Patrol) officer driving his way. Vern pulled on his wig, stuck his arm out the window, and gave the officer the finger. Vern chuckled and said the officer spun his patrol car around and pulled him over with lights and siren. Vern jumped out and pulled off his wig. Vern says he got the bird right back at him, but with a big smile and a good natured, “I’ll get even with you sometime Vern!”
I used to talk to hikers and fishermen and many had Vern Brandt stories. One Lone Pine local said he’d see Vern drive out of town one direction. Half an hour later Vern would be driving out of town again in that exact same direction. “Where did he come from?” the man said, “and where did he go? You would never know”.
A hiker/fisherman told me he made three separate trips into very remote areas of the southern Sierra Nevada spread out during the summer. And every trip Vern was there and checked his fishing license.
Vern had quite a reputation in the Owens Valley for catching poachers and violators on a regular basis. One day I asked him, while we were waiting out an afternoon thunderstorm drying out in his fish and game cabin, “Has anyone ever gotten away from you?”
Vern told me this story as we sat near the warm stove as the rain pelted down on top the metal roof:
“There were two poachers who time after time eluded all my attempts to catch them. They were after the Tule elk, the smallest of the wapati, and this herd made the Owens Valley their home. These two poachers drove a supercharged pickup truck. Anytime they saw another vehicle in the area they would speed off. I could never get close to them. Man was I frustrated.”
“I was out patrolling early one morning when I spotted the suspect pickup truck off in the distance. Looking through my binoculars I could see they were in the process of field dressing an elk. If I approached in my truck I knew they would escape over the dry playa of Owens lake. It was too far to hike in, plus they would see me even if I tried to crawl all the way as there was no vegetative cover.”
“Next to where I was parked was a freshly cut hay field. It gave me an idea. I started collecting the hay and began covering the front and top of my game and fish truck. I left a spot on my roof where I had a single red light. I cleared away a small opening from which I could watch through my windshield with my binoculars and keep an eye on the poachers. And then I turned on my red light and waited.”
“I watched the two load up the elk in the back of their pickup. Then one of them noticed the hay pile with a red blinking light. He got out his binoculars and looked right at me as I watched him through mine. He slapped the arm of his friend and handed him the binocs. The two repeated the process a couple of times and I could see them talking to each other.”
“After a while their curious nature won out. I sat in the cab of my pickup and couldn’t keep from smiling. Those two drove their supercharged pickup right to my hay pile. Should have seen how surprised they were when the hay pile had a driver’s door open up and were soon introduced to the state judicial system.”
“So in answer to your question has anyone gotten away from me? Almost.”
* (Effective January 1, 2013, the California State Legislature changed the name from “Fish and Game” to “Fish and Wildlife”)
Sawmill Pass, John Muir Wilderness, CA – 1972
In 1972, the US Forest Service designated the 41,000 acre California Bighorn Sheep Zoological Area to study and protect their dwindling numbers. I was looking forward to another season up in the Cottonwood Lakes Basin until the Forest Service decided to place a wilderness ranger to patrol the Shepherd-Baxter-Sawmill Pass areas. I was offered the job and thus became the first wilderness ranger to hike this country of remote, rugged, granite peaks and one of the least visited portions of the John Muir Wilderness. I did not know at the time, but it would be the source of some intense personal experiences.
When I walked into the Mt. Whitney Ranger Station in June, ready to start my seasonal job, I had just completed my Bachelor of Arts in Geography. Ernie DeGraff, my supervisor, had the papers already for me to sign. As I pen in hand I noticed that my pay scale was still listed as a GS-04. I had been a GS-04 since 1969, and Ernie had promised me a GS-05 if I returned in 1972.
“Ernie. You said if I came back I’d be a GS-05. Why does this say I’m a GS-04?” I asked.
He didn’t really answer me. What his reply was, “If you could have seen the number of applicants for these jobs you’d know how lucky you are to get this. But if you don’t want the job just tell me. I can easily find a replacement.”
So what was I supposed to do? It was mid-June. Say I didn’t want the job and be jobless?
So I bit my lip and signed the papers. But I learned a valuable lesson from that experience. I promised myself I would never treat a future employee that I supervised in the way I had been treated. Ever!
Once I was again backpacking in the wilderness, I could care less about my salary or my supervisor. I was hiking in country few visit; a landscape with more bighorn sheep than hikers.
My first adventure of the summer took place on the Sawmill Pass trail. It was June. It was sunny. It was hot. The trailhead begins around 4,500 feet in elevation and climbs a little over 6,700 feet to reach the crest of the pass at 11,347 feet. The trail up was dusty and consisted of mostly sagebrush and manzanita. I stopped for a rest under a sole Jeffrey pine and pretended there was a breeze. As I continued to climb I began to encounter mountain mahogany, but for the most part the trail was treeless. As I continued up a ridge I could hear the sound of Sawmill Creek way down below me.
I was actually fortunate. For later that year this same stretch of trail would take a life. But I had an advantage. DeGraff had horse packed up my single-pole military surplus tent, lantern, fuel, and food supplies earlier in the week to Sawmill Meadows. So all I had to carry was my sleeping bag, clothing, water, and lunch for the day. And oh yes, Ernie always made us carry a shovel so we could “work” the trail as we hiked.
I found a blog on the internet that quoted Ernie, “Every wilderness ranger is issued a walking stick – it’s called a shovel. We don’t keep every side trail in shape for stock use, but we work them enough to keep them walkable and to prevent erosion.
Even with a light backpack, the hike up the Sawmill Trail took it’s toll on me. It’s about a seven mile hike without hitting water. As I said, it’s mostly without shade and it’s a climb.
Later that summer I descended the Sawmill Pass Trail and learned that a few days earlier a young girl had died of heat stroke. She was hiking with a small group and they ran out of water and her body temperature soared upward. The treatment is to get that person to a hospital and in the interim place the person in shade and remove clothing and place wet compresses on the body to reduce temperature. The young girl was not close to any roads, and as I described; there was no shade or water. The girl died on the trail with her mother at her side.
Dog-tired I reached Sawmill Meadow and searched for the cache that contained my food and camp gear. When I literally stumbled onto it I thought to myself, “What the heck happened here?”
My food and gear were scattered on the forest floor. Did backpackers or a horse group vandalize my cache? I picked up a can of my peaches and noticed large punctures on the top and sides of the can. I had a feeling, but it wasn’t confirmed until later than same evening.
Right on the dot at seven o’clock, as I looked down on my Smokey Bear wristwatch, I heard a grunting noise outside my tent.
“Unh, unh, unh,” was the sound.
I unzipped and opened up my tent flap, took a step outside, and there on all fours looking straight at me was a light, honey-colored black bear. “Great!” I said out loud.
I grabbed some pots and pans and started banging them together loudly. The bear leaped off.
Yep, the puncture holes on my peach can belonged to a bear.
I settled back in my tent and after finishing dinner I began reading a book by the light from the lantern. According to Smokey the Bear on my wrist, right at nine o’clock I heard, “Unh, unh, unh'” again. I grabbed the pots and pans and stepped out of my tent. Making clanging noises I watched the same honey-colored bear trot away.
Sound asleep.
“Unh, unh, unh.”
Turned on my flashlight. Eleven o’clock. Again I did my routine with again the same results of the bear leaving. However, I did notice that he seemed more reluctant to leave. When he did, it was at a much slower pace. More like a slow amble away from me. Couldn’t say the beast wasn’t punctual.
Next morning I went off on a day patrol to Sawmill Pass. My job was to look for bighorn sheep and record their numbers and location. None found. And I was to contact any backpackers or other wilderness users to also record their numbers and advise them of the special designation of the area. None found.
It seemed that I was alone in the Sawmill Pass area; all except my friend the bear. Every night like clockwork – seven, nine, eleven o’clock – he would wander by my tent and grunt those same grunts each time. Only now, I was forced to also toss sticks and small stones to get him on his way.
Near the end of my week’s patrol I returned to my base camp earlier than usual. It was around three o’clock. There, just a few yards from my tent. was the bruin. I hooped and hollered and waved my hands up and down with my hat in one hand and Ernie’s “walking stick” in my other. This time he took off at a dead run.
Come nightfall I anticipated another sleepless night. Seven o’clock came and went. No visit. Nine o’clock came. No grunts. I thought that maybe the bear was afraid of me after our mid-day encounter. Deep in a sound sleep, I awoke at ten o’clock when I heard the sound of sticks cracking and the familiar grunts.
I quickly jumped out of my down sleeping bag, unzipped the flap, and tried all my scare tactics. I banged the pots and pans. He stood motionless on his four legs. I threw sticks and small stones. Motionless. Just staring.
“Crap,” I thought. “Now what?”
I intensified my noise making and took a few tentative steps towards my furry friend. This was all a new experience for me. They hadn’t taught bear encounters in the backpacking course I took in college. The book and movie “Night of the Grizzlies” had already come out, the story of two women who were separately attacked and killed in Glacier National Park. This was just a black bear; I was safe (it wasn’t until much later in life I learned that black bears tend to eat humans more so than grizzlies).
I was torn wondering if it would have helped to have my dog Smokii with me right now. Would she have helped, or would she have antagonized the bear? My accepting the wilderness ranger position in the bighorn sheep zoological area precluded bringing her with me. The area was closed by the Forest Service to dogs to reduce impacts to the bighorn sheep. So Smokii had stayed behind at the home of my parents in El Toro, California. And seasonal rangers weren’t allowed to carry guns. Bear pepper spray was still a thing of the future. I was coming to an end of my arsenal.
Then the bear slowly turned away from me and walked away. I climbed back into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes.
CRACK! Suddenly I bolted upright. The sound of the snap of a branch on the ground was directly outside my tent. I lit the Coleman lantern, pulled on my pants, and put on my parka. I looked around inside my tent. The only weapon I had was a Pulaski. This is a fire fighting tool with a wood handle and an ax on one side and a digging hoe on the other. I grabbed it, zipped open the tent, grabbed my lantern, and stepped outside.
Suddenly I was almost eye to eye with the creature as he instantly rose up to it’s full height on it’s hind legs. I looked right into it’s deep brown colored eyes, the light-colored under body, the raised paws with claws and thumbs. Thumbs?
Standing before me was a large raccoon. He spun around and took off running when he saw my apparition with lantern in one hand and raised weapon in the other. It’s times like this you’re glad no one else is around.
I half dozed off, half lay awake all night, until the light of day. I fixed my breakfast and declared the victor in the battle of man versus bear. I packed up my backpack with my personal gear and what little food was left. I dismantled my base camp and neatly arranged it next to a tree for Pete Garner to pack out with his mules at a later date. I hoisted the backpack onto my shoulders, tightened my padded waist belt, turned towards the woods where I’d had my numerous encounters and called out in a loud voice, “You win. You are the victor!”
The end of summer in September I took one more trip up the Sawmill Pass Trail. It was not yet fall, but when I reached Sawmill Meadows a beautiful aspen tree had changed into deep orange reds and golden yellows. They are quaking aspens, or “quakies”, and their leaves do just that in the slightest of breezes.
This time I backpacked all my own gear and food. That night I had a bright moon and clear skies covered with stars. Not a cloud in the sky so I slept in my sleeping bag on a sleeping pad atop a ground cloth. It felt around midnight when I awoke to a sound of cracking branches. There, under the moonlight, maybe fifty yards away, was the honey-colored black bear. I raised up from by belly onto my forearms and together we stared at each other. As I pulled myself more upright the bear started to move. At first it looked like he was coming right at me. But then I realized he was actually headed away from me, but keeping his head in my direction the whole time. Then he was gone.
The next morning I walked over to where the bear had been. Unbeknownst to me, hunters had been up before me and killed and gutted a deer. The bear was feeding on the stomach and gut pile left behind. I packed up my gear and moved on up to Sawmill Lake. I decided once and for all to leave Sawmill Meadows to the bear. This was his home, I was the visitor.
