After about the second "set" of Engineers left Camp Baker (moving on to bigger and better trees, I assume) we were without a camp engineer for a little while. During which time I stayed in the office waiting for the camp "store" to deliver my new corks, which had been on order for about a month. It had been decided that my (Richard's) old corks were just not doing their job and were a safety concern. So, I had been left in the Engineer's shack waiting the arrival of my new ones. The Engineers hadn't left yet and I had been given the task of calculating elevations on all of our pending logging road notes. They had shown me how to do logging site reports and I had shown them how to calculate elevations (using trig) from their logging road field notes (it had slope and length). That was when I found out that "Engineer" was kind of an honorific title. Their degrees were actually in Forestry. Neither of them had even taken Trig. Anyway, they transferred out a couple of days later and I was left in charge of the office. Dar and them thought Weyerhaeuser might make me the new camp Engineer; but, without a degree in Forestry, I sincerely doubted it. Then, one Monday, Frank showed up.

Frank was about sixty years old and pretty rough around the edges. We hit it off almost immediately. He told a few stories about surveying a tunnel under the bay in San Francisco and I told him a story or two about me. I went on to explain what I'd been doing around the office. He agreed that there was no chance of me becoming an assistant Camp Engineer; but, he figured I could, at least, get a promotion to "head rodman." That was when my education about unions began in earnest. First, we had to advertise the position. That let everyone know that that "slot" had opened up. Immediately twenty or thirty truck drivers applied for the job. They all had years ahead of me in seniority. Frank made a few phone calls and got the list narrowed down to about three. Then Frank went to see the "hold-outs" in person. He told them "I have a guy in mind for this job. You have more seniority and can probably get the job. But, you can't do the job and I'll be your boss. So, I'll be the one deciding how well you're working out." The last one's dropped out (withdrew their bid) and I got the job. It only took about a month. By then my new corks were in. And the union, having reached a stalemate on contract negotiations, had decided to call for a strike. Dar summed it up pretty well (and, in hind-sight, amazingly accurately) when he got the news. "We asked for a quarter, they offered us a dime and we'll end up going back for a nickel.

Here, Frank did something else amazing. (He must have had a lot more pull than I ever imagined.) He got me named "temporary assistant camp engineer." He did this because, as he explained, "strikes don't pay very well. And they pay even worse if you don't have any seniority. You might starve before they end this. This way, you're management and not involved in the strike." So, I got to work right through the strike

I had only been working as a surveyor a couple of months when I got drafted; but, come to think of it, that was not my first experience with the military.

in 1966, I had just graduated high school and, after spending the summer doing summer stock theater in Colorado, I had flown on out to L.A. to stay with my sister and go to college. Stupid. Stupid. First off, tuition was a killer. Secondly, the only job I could find was working with my brother-in-law painting oil derricks. The oil derricks in question were ninety feet high and set on top of a bunch of coke towers (also ninety feet high) in an oil refinery. Of course, I was not a painter; but, a painter's helper. Which meant that my job was to grind off the old paint and the grime with an air-powered sander that weighed forty pounds and packed a heck of a wallop. I decided, while I was suspended 180 feet in the air, hanging by a rusty old "safety belt" and trying to remain seated on a 2" x 6" board while the sander ground away at the paint etc. (occasionally hitting a bolt and trying to take off on it's own and take me with it) that this was not the job for me. I lasted a month or so; but, don't ask me how.

I got the bright idea to enroll in the military. I went to the Air Force recruiting office; but, because of a "police record" (another story) they wouldn't have me and told me to go next door to the Army, "they'll take anybody." So, I went next door and, sure enough, they would take me. Just one thing. I had to pass a test. The test had twenty five questions and, I believe, they all had something to do with nuts and bolts etc. I whizzed through it. The officer also whizzed through grading it and told me I'd missed 24 out of 25. I thought he'd said I got 24 right; so, he had to repeat it for my benefit. I was astounded. They had all seemed so easy! Then he explained to me that the test was designed to see if could follow instructions. In that regard, the test had been an outstanding success. I gave up on the military and L.A. and went back to Topeka.

So, here I was, a couple of years later and I was drafted. Vietnam was going on; so, there was little doubt in my mind where all this would lead. I tied up my affairs as best I could, said good-by to my wife and got on the bus. Once I arrived in Kansas City, at the processing center, they decided that, since it had been over a year since I'd taken my original physical, that I should take another one. So, me and about a hundred or so other guys stripped down to our skivvies and ran the gauntlet of doctors. A couple of hours later some guy stamped the word "rejected" on my papers. My response was, "REJECTED???!!!" What the hell?! With Vietnam going on, they were taking anyone who could stand up! What could possibly be wrong with me that they didn't want me??!! Did I have a bad heart?! Was I going to die in a couple of months anyway and they didn't want to waste the money to send me to boot camp??!! Of course, when I tried to get some clarification, all I got was "move along." It was probably an hour later, when I found myself in the transportation officer's office, getting a bus ticket back to Topeka, before someone actually took the time to answer my burning question. He glanced over my paperwork and noticed that there was a mention of a rash. Yes. I had a rash on the back of my right knee. While wading through the tall wet grass in the early morning hours I'd been spending as a surveyor, the chemical they used to make "Sta-pressed" levis had, evidently, washed through on my skin and given me a rash. So what? "Well," he explained, "they decided that you're probably allergic to wool." Allergic to wool?? True, I remember that, as a kid, my mom had come up with a pair of woolen long underwear for me one winter. It itched like crazy and I couldn't wear it. I figured it itched for everyone and the word "allergic" never came up. Okay, maybe I'm allergic to wool. What does that have to do with the rainforests of Vietnam? I posed that question to the transportation officer. He told me that the army has wool everything. And it doesn't matter if you're in the arctic or a rainforest, everything is wool. Oh.

In the winter of '73 I "decided" to run off with this young lady to Washington State. I suppose that my life was going too smoothly and, for whatever reason, the idea of running off with my cousin's wife sounded reasonable. It was the dead of winter, almost new year's eve and I shot across Kansas, Colorado, Etc. Etc. (it was dark a lot) as fast as the law would allow. And, maybe, a little more. There had been talk of lowering the speed limit to 55; but, so far, no state in my experience had actually done it. I do remember stopping at a truck stop in Utah because my carburetor was freezing up; but, a couple of shots of something the mechanic had cleared that up and I was on my way again. And, when I crossed the state line into Washington, I noticed a big sign that announced that the speed limit was 55. I continued on at 80. I don't even remember going through the pass (or whatever it was called). I just remember entering the pass and feeling like I was in an up-hill toboggan run. The roads, as well as the slopes of the cuts were all thick with snow. Almost immediately, it seemed, I was through it and coming down clear roads into the river valley. Looking back, I'm sure I must have fallen asleep during that part and should have pulled off. Of course, I was still doing 80 mph (or, maybe 85) when I blew by a highway patrol. I noticed in my rear view mirror that he had turned on his lights and was pulling onto the highway; so, I took my foot off the gas and let the vehicle slow naturally before I pulled off onto the shoulder. I seemed like it took the highway patrolman a full five minutes to get there; but, maybe that was another symptom of the sleep deprivation. I do remember the name of the nearest town, "The Dalles" because I had to come back about ten days later and pay the fine. It took two more tickets to finally pry my foot off the gas.

I had an old high school buddy who lived in Portland and, after checking in with him, I rented an apartment. Then I transferred out to Portland with the Corps of Engineers. There was just one problem. They had no openings in the Survey section; so, they put me in the Drilling section. I knew the drillers from back in Kansas City. They turned up at a lot of our sites to drill core samples and they drove great big drill rigs and Crew cab Dodge power wagons. I worked with them for just one day. I spent the entire day lugging around a fifty gallon drum and building fires in it so they could come over and warm their hands. It was an okay job; but, I wanted to get back into surveying and figured that I could land a job in the private sector almost immediately. "Almost" being the operative word.

That was my first experience with unemployment. That was a busy time for the unemployment offices. There was a gas "shortage" and a lot of people were laid off. Of course, I was from "out of state" so, I got to stand in several lines. And, since I was from out of state, my references didn't look too good to a lot of people. We gave up the apartment and moved to Kelso, where my brother, Richard, lived. Richard helped a lot. He lived with his girlfriend; but, for reasons too technical to go into here, also kept an apartment. Since he wasn't using it, we did. I've heard that people in Maine refer to anyone out of state as "from away." Even though they're separated by an entire continent, I think that Maine and Washington are related.

Eventually, I did find work. Weyerhaeuser owns about half the state. I saw some ownership maps and, between them and the state, it looked like a checkerboard. I went to work for Weyerhaeuser. They called me in for an interview because they needed someone to run a T-2 and "Distomat" on their "boundary crew." I was well acquainted with the T-2 and the Distomat. I had operated both of them for the Corps. I thought I knew what to expect on a boundary crew; but, it would be months before I figured out how wrong I was on that. They hired me; but, before I could actually go to work, the position got filled by another man who "had more priority." This was also to be my first real experience with a union. The corps was unionized (sort of) but this was a real union. They didn't care how much I knew about surveying, this other guy had been paying dues. The bosses at Weyerhaeuser didn't want to just cut me loose. They explained that this was common practice with the union. Their guy had to have his chance; but, since most of them were truck drivers, one day in the brush was usually enough to send them back the warmth and comfort of their cab. Then I could have the job. What they didn't tell me was that: a) there was a long list of these "truck drivers" who wanted to try out something other that driving a truck, and b) this particular "somebody" wasn't a truck driver at all; but, one of the rodmen off the boundary crew. But, they sent me to Camp Baker as a rodman on a "camp survey crew."

Working in the mountains of Washington is not the same as working in the wooded hills of Missouri. First off, I needed a pair of "corks." "Corks" are 18" high boots with nails sticking out of the soles. Their purpose is walking on logs. As luck would have it, Richard had spent a short time in the timber with a "gypo" logger. (Gypo means subcontractor. These people didn't actually work for Weyerhaeuser; but, they contracted to haul out a lot of the timber.)

Upon his release from the Navy, Richard had married a local (Washington) girl and settled down to raise a family. Of course, he needed a job and had found work with this gypo logger. He had been working as a "choker setter", standing at the bottom of the slope fastening a cable (choker) around the logs so they could be "yarded" up the hill to a landing. A landing is any flat spot where they could drop and pile up the logs. It also means the pile of logs itself. Also, I should tell you that, when they "fell" the trees, they drop them along the contours of the hill. If you're standing at the bottom of the slope looking up the hill, if looks like you're standing at the bottom of a set of bleachers in an arena. Richard had just hooked up one long and was standing on a log (I'd tell you that the log he was standing on was five or six feet in diameter; but, they all were.) watching the log go up the hill and waiting for the choker to came back down, when he noticed that the landing had broken loose. That means that the pile of logs had shifted and collapsed and they were all tumbling back down the hill -- towards Richard. He was watching one log in particular that was a little bigger than most and was tumbling end over end right towards him. He was watching it because the logs had a tendency to bounce off stumps on their way down the hill and change direction. This one didn't seem to be doing that; so, Richard took off running down the length of the log he was standing on (this would have been at right angles to the avalanche and the correct way to run) when the log did, indeed, hit a stump and changed direction -- towards Richard, of course. It hit the log Richard was running along right under his feet. This knocked him off the log and about fifty out. That, plus the hundred of so feet that he had to go down to hit the ground, meant that Richard landed about two hundred feet away from the point of impact. It messed him up a little -- a broken leg, a few ribs, etc. They took him to town and the doctor sent him home with instructions to stay off his feet for a few weeks. Richard was a young husband with a pregnant wife. He couldn't afford to stay home. So, long before he had a doctor's release, he went back to work. When he got to the job site the foreman could see that he was in no condition to work; but, feeling sorry for him, told him he could stay in the crummy ("crummy" -- any vehicle that carried people to the woods. In this case, a van.) and draw his "show-up" pay. That was all well and good and easy money; but, along about noon, Richard got bored. He got out of the crummy to stretch and walk around the landing a little. He was standing on the edge of the landing watching the others work when someone yelled "look out."

What Richard was "looking out" for was a branch on one of the logs. The branch was only a couple of inches in diameter; but, it was about twenty feet long and, being still attached to the log as it was dragged up the hill, was constantly getting caught on one thing or another, scrapping past the obstacle, then coming loose, only to get caught on something else, etc. It was whipping along pretty good. Just as Richard turned around to see what he was "looking out" for, the branch caught him right across the bridge of the nose. That took some special surgery to re-construct the bones in his cheeks. By the time he was back on his feet he'd found a job in the mill as a boiler tender (what he'd done in the Navy.) But, he still had the boots. (oops! "corks") They had been in his basement and were old and starting to rot; but, they would do until I could draw a paycheck and buy a pair of my own.

The first day that I went to work for Weyerhaeuser I drove to the Weyerhaeuser plant in Kelso to catch the crummy (in this case, a bus) to ride to Camp Baker. In order to arrive at Camp by 7:00 am, The crummy left Kelso at 3:00; so, it was an early get-up. We sat at Kelso for about a half hour, during which time on a couple of other people got on. Then we drove to Longview, Kelso’s sister community across the river. There we sat for another half hour while a couple of more people got on. Then we drove to Castle Rock, about ten miles up the road, where a few more people got on. I had been on the bus for an hour and a half and there were barely a half dozen people on the bus. Then we started up the highway towards the Camp. It was like riding a school bus. Every mile or so along the highway we would stop and pick up one, or, maybe two, people. We barely made it to Camp by 7:00; but, the bus was full when we got there. The next day I slept an hour extra and drove to Castle Rock to “catch the crummy.”

I was directed to the Engineer’s shack, which looked like a caboose sitting on concrete blocks. The inside was crowded with two “engineers” and a three man survey crew. I met Dar, Glenn and Jeff and was introduced to the two engineers but they left in a couple of weeks and I can’t remember their names. The three windows facing east, south and west overlooked three small tables or counters. There were a couple of folding chairs and that was it. I’ve seen contractor’s trailers that were more “furnished” and they move all the time. We left within minutes. The crew was anxious to get out of the “office” and into the field. All four of us crowded into the cab of a Chevy pickup (two wheel drive) and headed out for “road 3200” or something like that. Turns out the logging roads, are all named for the contour elevation that they begin at. We drove for a half hour or so before Dar brought the pick-up to a halt. We were in the midst of a “clear cut.” Which means that all the timber had been logged off the area around us. Except for one little lonely looking patch of timber standing on the slope right next to the truck. That was the reason for our visit. Our days work was to traverse the timber so they could calculate the acres on the timber they had “saved” to stay in compliance with state regulations. Okay. But, first, we had to have our daily game of cards.

After about an hour of cards (gin rummy) it was finally decided that Glenn and I would get out and traverse the timber. We got out and went to the back of the truck where we put on our corks. Then we took a three hundred foot chain and “let it down.” This was all somewhat familiar to me. The "chain" is a steel tape (300' long, of course) that is looped up in a figure-8 and must be let down in the exact same way (only reversed) or it will kink up and, probably, break. A broken chain is a major deal. They are hard to repair and, usually, are more likely to break again. Plan A is, "don't break the chain." We let down the chain and, from a spot "kicked out" at the centerline of the road and the edge of the timber, started up the rather steep hill. We measured the length of the first side of the polygon (it was, generally, a rectangle; but, the sides weren't all that straight.), the bearing of that line was taken from both ends. I shouted out my bearing to Glenn and he wrote it down, along with his (to be averaged) and the slope, which we read from a clinometer (looked like a compass; but, you held it sideways and the "needle" was weighted, not magnetic.) Turned out, all our lines were read that way, with those three elements: bearing, slope distance and slope. We also carried a set of "schriebner's tables" that you could, among many other things, look up from a table, the slope corrections to horizontal for the distances. The first few courses went up the slope. Then we "turned the corner" and started along the "top" of the timber. Glenn told me that the snow piled up along the bottoms of the trees was also covering up a lot of brush that had piled up there first and that the snow was probably pretty deep. He said that, "if I disappear, you'll have to come pull me out of a deep hole." I didn't really believe him. But, a couple of courses later, I looked up from watching the chain slide through my hand (it stopped) to see that Glenn had, indeed, disappeared. I ran up to the hole he had disappeared into and watched him crawl out. It was only a small hole and he didn't need my help. Later, when we rounded another corner and headed down the slope on the third side of the timber, Glenn told me, quite simply, "don't turn loose of the chain. If you do, the chain would end up in a big pile at the bottom." I believed him and I had no intention of turning loose of the chain. But, habit is a strong thing and the very first time he told me to "come ahead" I dropped the chain. It took off like a shot along the top of the wet snow and landed in a spaghetti pile at, and around, Glenn's feet. We got it straightened out without breaking the chain and finished our traverse.

That was pretty much the template for our day to day routine. All of us would pile into the pick-up and drive out to some spot on the slope and, after a game of cards or dice, we would do our "day's work." If the weather was decent, we might work our way out to some clearing and use a stump for a card table; but, if not (usually not), we would sit crunched up in the truck and rely on the honor system to not read each other's cards. I had been there a few days before we got our first day of sunshine (they didn't call it the "great northwet" for nothing.) Dar said he was getting the "warms." and crawled out on a big log and took a nap in the sun. All of us followed suite. (when in Rome.) "Warm" days in the Northwest, as it turned out, are a lot rarer than "rain" days in the Midwest.

One day we had been up in the "high" county up by Mount St. Helens. I don't remember anyone saying a word about it being a volcano. We were coming back to camp after a day of running cut roads and all of us were crammed into the front seat, as usual, when Dar suddenly jammed on the breaks, shut off the engine and bailed out of the truck. Glenn and Jeff also bailed out and the three of them took off running back up the road. Of course, I bailed out too and gave hot pursuit. They turned and shot into the timber where I eventually caught up with them, all standing on a log and posing for a "Lewis and Clark" picture (hand over eyebrows, peering into the distance.) I asked Jeff, "what are we looking for?" He calmly replied, "a bear. Dar saw a bear." It didn't take long for that to sink in. "What the hell are we doing!?" There's a frigging bear out here and we left a perfectly safe vehicle to come out in the woods and look for him.!?" I promptly returned to the truck. They were not far behind; but, not for the same reason. The bear was, apparently, gone. They found my reaction somewhat amusing. They found several of my reactions amusing.

Another of these was their preference for walking on trees. They never walked on the ground, when there was a tree to be walked on. One day we visited a section corner. I don't know why. Their section corners were impressive. A six-inch steel post that was five feet above the ground. The one we found also was bent over and lying almost flat because a tree had fallen on it. We all had to blaze one of the nearby trees with our "mark." I made mine a bear claw. Not because of the incident in the woods; but, because Barnes means "bear" or, so I had heard. As soon as we had "witnessed" the section corner, we took off up the slope. It was a typical slope with 5' diameter tree trunks scattered about like toothpicks. There's not much topsoil in the mountains and, when the wind blows, it blows down a lot of the poorly anchored trees. Ironically, they call these trees "blow down." We walked on the trees, as if they were wooden sidewalks. But, they're not sidewalks, they are scattered piles of trees, with branches and they're lying on top of one another. So, you are constantly climbing from one tree to another. It's not unusual to be ten or, even twenty feet above the ground. I "climbed" from one tree to another. They hopped. As I struggled along up the slope I noticed hubs driven into cracks in the trees. I asked Dar about this and he told me that those were traverse points for the boundary line crew. The thought of setting up an instrument on these same trees that I was struggling just to walk on staggered my imagination! How in the world did they walk around the instrument to turn the angles? I suddenly realized that, while I knew all about running the equipment, I would have been quite unprepared for the reality of running boundary lines in the timber. At the top of the slope the blow down disappeared and the top of the hill was relatively bare of any trees at all. We had to walk on the ground! It was a welcome return to normalcy to me; but, it bothered everybody else. Halfway across the clearing we came to one lone tree lying on the ground and Glenn, unable to stand walking on the dirt any longer, clambered to the top of the log and walked along it. At the end he was still ten feet above the ground; but, out of log. When he went to jump off the log, however, his cleats caught in the wood and he ended up dangling under the tree (actually, draped over the side of the log) with his head almost five feet above the ground. Then his corks turned loose and he fell. He got up laughing. I called them "squirrels" for walking on trees. They just called me "Missouri".

Another time we went out to a slope that they were still logging. Apparently, a few months before, in the dead of winter, they had flagged a "cut line." That showed the loggers where to stop cutting so that they would leave one of those isolated stands of timber. However, since the snow was several feet deep and they were walking along on the top, all of the flagging was thirty feet up in the trees and not readily visible. So, we had to re-flag it. We left the truck and started out into the timber. Naturally, Dar hopped up on a long and began walking along it. We all followed, with me bringing up the rear. We went from one log to another, zigzagging along and getting progressively higher and higher. I had my eyes on the log immediately under my feet and was too busy planning my next step to notice anything else. We stopped. I looked up from my feet to see what was going on and noticed everyone waiting their turn to skinny down a small tree to the ground. We were at least forty feet up in the air on the end of one tree that was lying against a much smaller tree that was still standing. Dar and the others were giggling aloud over their little joke (on me, of course.) I called them a bunch of squirrels and climbed down the tree. We walked on down the hill (on the dirt) as we picked out bits of flagging and paint some thirty feet up in the trees until we got to the bottom of the hill. We had re-marked the line along the way; so, we were done with this chore. But, as we stepped out of the timber in the clearing, it looked as if we were standing at the bottom of an enormous theater or stadium, with row after row of huge brown bleachers. The bleachers were tree trunks that had been "felled and bucked." Which meant they had been cut down, falling along the contour, or side hill, and had been cut into forty-foot lengths. They were ready to be yarded up the hill; but, needed our line to know how to finish the job. Dar indicated that we would be going up the slope, over the fallen logs. He turned to me and said, "if the slope breaks loose, get behind a stump and stay there. Always know where your next stump is." I took him very seriously. It was not a bad passage, though. We jumped from log to log until we got to the top. And the slope never broke loose.

And there was Green River. One day we were told to go to Green River. I gathered from the conversation that it was far away and in virgin timber. Dar wanted to bring in his camping gear and just go up there and camp for a week. He argued that, by the time we drove up there and back each day, we would have less than an hour of actual working time. He was right; but, they couldn't get it "approved." So, we headed up to Green River. We drove for about two hours before we came to the end of the road -- literally. The road just ended at Green River. There were plans for a bridge; but, first, they had to have it laid out and be ready to take the timber (to pay for the bridge.) No bridge -- just a roaring torrent, maybe fifty feet wide and three feet deep. Dar explained that wading it was out of the question. "One slip and they'll pick you up in Kelso with the ink washed out of your driver's license." Luckily for us, there was a log that had fallen across the river only a hundred feet or so downstream. After a ritual of "cleaning your corks" to be sure that no nasty dirt was sticking to your cleats we crossed the river and headed up the other slope. They had already laid out about a quarter of mile of the logging road past the river; so, we had to hike up to that point to begin our day. We got there about noon. Okay, it was a little before noon; but, we hadn't had our morning card game yet. So we built our fire (another daily ritual was a fire at lunch), Glenn heated up his beans and we played cards until about 12:30. Then we ran out about five or six hundred feet of road. Then it was time to head back. As we headed back, Dar jumped up on a log and started down the hill. Glenn was bringing up the rear this time. This time of year and in the high country, an added advantage to walking the trees was that it got you out of the snow. There was still two or three feet of snow on the ground and it still hung in clumps on the branches overhead. It was one of these clumps that came loose and knocked Glenn clear off the log. Again, he got up grinning. As we continued down the hill, we heard some shouts and were soon joined by the two camp engineers. Dar told them we were on our way out and that was fine with them. They had just needed to get out of the office, evidently. Going down the hill, they decided to have a little axe-throwing contest. Part of "standard equipment" is a "little boy's axe." This is a 3/4 length, single bitted axe. Standing on the hill, looking down, in the general direction of the river crossing, they picked out a cedar. All of them (I excluded myself from the contest) hauled off and slung their axes at the tree. Then we walked down the hill to the tree to judge the contest. I guess it was a tie. All five axes were stuck in the tree -- about fifty feet over our heads. We spent the next twenty minutes or so, taking my axe and throwing it up to dislodge the other axes. I'm sure OSHA would have had a field day with that one. As soon as we got everybody's axe, we walked about fifty feet further and they picked out another tree. Four trees later, we finally got to the river.

The next day, when we finally arrived at the river, we discovered that our "bridge" was gone. Evidently, the snow melt had washed it away. Dar and Glenn studied the map for a bit. We were just downstream of the junction of Green River and Miner's creek. Dar figured that, above the junction, both would be more narrow and we could make two shorter crossings, rather than one big crossing. So, we hiked about a half mile up the right bank of Green River, along a very nice trail provided by the State Parks Assoc., to a spot just upstream of the junction. There we found another obliging tree and crossed the river quite easily. Then we walked up between the river and the creek to a place where we could cross Miner's creek very easily. Coming out that afternoon we found our bridge gone. So, we started looking around for a tree we could cut down to make a new bridge. Of course, with little boy's axes, we weren't wanting a really big tree. Just one tall enough to make it across the river. It wasn't just a matter of the height of the tree; but, also of it's proximity to the river. One was selected and cut down. It lacked only a couple of feet making the far bank. The side branches seemed to be holding it in the current; but, the last ten feet of that tree were not much to walk on. Nevertheless, we decided to try it. One by one, we inched out along the small tree until we got as far out on it as we dared and then we jumped for the far bank ( six feet or so.) Of course we all made it; but, we never went back to Green River while I was there.

There was another patch of virgin timber that we worked on. It was closer to Mt. St. Helen, in the high country. Dar explained that the reason it was still standing was because it was mostly vine maple. As such it was only good for paper pulp and, until now, no one wanted to mess with it. I discovered once, while talking to a camp engineer, that the only thing you study to become a camp engineer is trees. They don't study math or physics -- just trees. The degree is actually in forestry. And, the engineer told me, there are only three types of trees. There's Red Fir, Yellow Fir and vine maple. From another angle, there are only two types of trees because a Red Fir is a Yellow Fir that is less than fifteen inches in diameter. So, there's only Douglas firs and everything else. This was everything else.

After our morning card game (in the truck because it was raining) we started our logging road. Dar explained that we were to run up one side of this valley, trying to keep the road somewhere in the middle so a five hundred foot boom would reach the entire slope, uphill and downhill from the road. Then we would cross the small stream and run the road out the other slope for the other side of the valley. We were running along some pretty steep side slopes; but, there wasn't much blow down (vine maple has a better root system). We did come to one big old cedar (still a vine maple because it wasn't a Douglas fir.) that had fallen and was lying pointing straight down the hill. It was a cedar, so all the bark was long-gone. Dar came to the four-foot diameter log, glanced up and down the log, chopped out a foot-hold on the right side of it, took the axe in his left hand and stuck it as far as he could reach up the log. Then he placed his left foot in the notch and, still holding onto his axe, swung his right foot over and across the log, pulling his axe free as he continued on. Glenn followed close behind, as did Jeff. I fully intended to follow suite; but, when I reached the log, I made the mistake of looking. The log looked, for all the world, like a slippery slide into hell. It was smooth and pointed straight at the maw of a gully that, if the sides had been any steeper, would have been a cliff. I lost my nerve. I hiked the fifty feet or so up the hill and around the log. The others were way ahead of me by the time I had regained the path.

By the time we made it to the creek it was time to head back to the truck; so, Dar took off, wading down the very small creek. In the mountains small creeks become big creeks very quickly. By the time we had gone a couple of hundred feet the creek that we could straddle and that barely got our boots wet was up almost to our knees and Dar, being who he was, jumped up on a log. It even seemed like a good idea to me. Dar started working his way down the stream, going from one log to the next. The rest of us followed along. At some point the tress started getting moss on them; but, we continued along. I, of course, was fully concentrating on my feet and where I was putting them. I watched just enough of Jeff's feet to know where to place my own. We stopped. I looked up to be sure we had all stopped -- not just Jeff. But, we had all stopped. As I lifted my gaze to see why we had stopped I felt like I was in a dream. The only sound was the water in the stream, roaring (yes, roaring) along, probably forty feet below us. The turbulence of the water in the rocks caused a mist to form that hung in the air like a thick morning fog. This, no doubt, nourished the moss that grew so abundantly here, forming a green webbing that hung over the lattice work of logs, completely hiding the very form of the logs that were the ribs of this strange, living thing. If I wasn't so keenly aware of where I was, I might have thought that I was standing in a pasture on a foggy spring morning. Dar began probing the moss for the logs beneath. Of course, he couldn't tell if one was cracked or rotten; but, he felt his way along -- intent now on the bank -- until he reached the bank, with the rest of us following along behind.

What followed was summer -- or, the dry season. The humidity is very high in Washington State and whenever it falls to what most people would consider "normal," it is dry enough to burn. And, burn it does. Mostly from lightning strikes; but, a spark from anything is apt to set it off. That's what the towers are for. Every summer a bunch of people -- mostly students -- head out into the timber to set in those towers for days at a time to watch for fires. Most of them burn themselves out; but, some of the bigger ones need to be put out. One fire in the high country got set by a mechanic's welding torch. They shut down logging operations anytime the humidity falls below a certain mark (I forget the "magic" number) and many of the logging crews (gypos) take this opportunity to repair their equipment. Welding is, of course, a no-no; but, when no one is looking . . . Anyway, somebody touched off a big one on the slopes of Mt. St. Helen. They brought in firefighters from all over. Some of them from as far away as southern California. Big planes were flying over, dropping clouds of pink stuff into the tree tops. The surveyors (me included) were sent out to "run in fire lanes." I guess they expected us to make sure the roads, were nice and straight or could be used later as logging roads. But, the cat-skinners weren't interested in flags. They couldn't see them, anyway for all the smoke. I referred to it all as "the big smoke." There was actually very little fire. We were walking along behind the cat-skinner (bull dozer operator) as he plowed out a path through the timber. It was a stand of second growth -- mostly smaller trees, maybe 6" to 12". What little ground there is was covered with a thick layer of pine needles (okay, Douglas fir needles) and made perfect kindling. The air was filled with a thick smoke; but, as the cat-skinner would bite into the pine needles, they would erupt in flames. Then an entire tree would go up in flames -- almost instantly. We wandered off into the woods to "watch the fire." We came across huge stacks of fire-fighting equipment -- just lying where they had been dumped in anticipation of the fire-fighter's needs. Someone came by and gave us a sack lunch. It was all somewhat surreal.

Our job started a couple of days later. You see, during the fire season we spent all our time traversing "burns." Every time there was a lightning strike they would send us over there to find out how many acres of timber they had lost. It was nasty work. At first I was glad that there were no trees that needed to be walked on; but, after they first day, I would have welcomed the sight of a downed tree -- just to get out of the ashes. We came in every night covered head to toe (literally) with black ash. Frank was a camp Engineer who had come to work a couple of months before. He was the exception to the "camp engineer" template. His dad had worked for Long-Fiber (now Weyerhaeuser) back "in the day." and had mapped all the trails around camp Baker. Frank was a licensed surveyor in Washington, Oregon and California. He and I had hit it off really well; but, he had been "let go" for drinking. (yes, he was a bit of a drinker). He had started his own practice in Longview and had offered me a job. As I thought about traversing this really big "burn" I decided to take him up on his offer.