Ethics, Rain and Confusion (September 2009)

 Part 3 in a series of unpublished articles that I didn't want to lose into the cracks.  Here we return to S. Fork but a season later, now almost October.

It was great to experience this place in it's wild days.  Today, the habitat will take a long time to recover to what it was.  But what is 1000 years to old Mother Earth?  A millionth less than the breath of a moth.

They called me Hambone in those days, and a few still do.  The Bus Camps were taking on steam...we were also getting more bold with remote locations and bad weather.

I make no apologies for the ramblings of this younger man, but I do support his cause for it is mine as well.

"Ethics, Rain and Confusion"

What a jumbled mess my head is. Maybe it's the stockpile of intoxicants, the change of seasons, or just encroaching madness. Does anyone else feel crazed after spending time without a roof, then returning? Today has been especially powerful, I feel like I'm in a funk. Too many conflicting feelings; perhaps it should be handled in the land of no-thought, where all peace arises. Perhaps the mountains are stained by too much beer. But I do know that merriment and the bond of rekindled friendships touch more than can be defined.

Plans made way in advance crumbled like old wet cracker boxes. As I started my sunny Friday, bright and early with kindergarten delivery, I felt a sense of sadness, alone in a crowd as my kid mingled with the pool of other children. As mercury drops they form and dance as one. Soon fighting traffic and crossing guards, I knew I'd be alone and far removed from this workday bustle. Companionship seemed like a lost ship as I drove further away, high into the bright Old Cascades. For weeks I've studied maps, searched for written history - to only be dropped into the reality of the place, far removed from inkstains and imagination. This was real. A spinning dividing green sea, defining logic or understanding met my gaze as the road lifted like a rocket climbing thousands of feet into this leafy maze. It almost seemed too much to eat as one meal.

Arriving onto the knob-top peak of the world at nearly 5000' encased under deep blue skies, I tacked up an old hubcap and smiled, king of lofty peaks.

The day passed slowly. Funny, some times I feel a deperate need for solitude. This day was different. I felt a strong need for kinship, for connection of a deeper human source. But instead I sat perched in perhaps the lonliest loft in Oregon, biding my time and watching the slow sweep of the second hand on my chipped and well worn Walgreens watch. I amused myself for a spell climbing ridges and chasing ghosts, but dreaded a twisted ankle down the slippery slope of a recovering clearcut. How can a path turn into an impassible tangle? Time, the great void enforcer. None can detangle from the Great Web.

The night fell splendidly, slowly as the finest silk gauze, thin as breath, smoke flowing with temporary form and caressing the hills with the milky glow of starlight.

"Where is everybody?" I thought, spoke, paced and yelled.

Hours pass. "this is most disappointing" I frown, as midnight approaches. Every jet is a VW, every breeze tires on gravel. I note that most flights are heading south with frequency, then taper off as the night progresses. I see Portland twinkling orange in the far off valley, and wonder how the people I care about are doing on this fine lonely night.

Suddenly, the sound of motors pierces the night.  I am bathed by headlights, crabby and reluctant for company once the moment has arrived. I am tired at this point and in no mood for chit chat.

Maps, the wires that hold the current of knowledge have been forgone this vast evening causing a delay in human delivery, but at least everyone arrived safely. It is not an easy path up to South Fork, it's like the road itself is Coyote the Trickster, intent on confusion. "Every road will take you there". Perhaps, but not to this place. It's ridiculous that a road even exists where a helicopter or some sort of buzzard would roost, but it's ordinary in this armor clad world. For a spell at least, until the Earth again folds in like cake batter and all is made new again.

In spite of my mood, it was very good to see my friends in such an unlikely place. We watched the stars dance, and nearly the sun slip from the shadows but the call of slumber was too deep, and well earned by this time.

I am awakened by the tinny dance of raindrops on the thin steel above my head. As promised the rain has arrived, ocean borne clouds streaking and dropping their heavy payload as the new dawn races quickly behind. Suddenly it is daylight, and the mists are howling past. It is time to face the water element head on. Soon I am soaked, but enjoy a hearty breakfast and a hot cup of tea. It is not cold, just wet wet wet and the clouds are hurtling sideways. The boys set up camp a bit down the road from me, so I become the High Count on the hill, overlooking the serfs down below. It is a position I hold with great power and I'm sure they still tremble with fear at my might.

Fortified and with some deliberation we decide to head down the old trail to Memaloose in the rain. With little dogs providing amplification to footfalls, I slowly fall behind as I chop brush on the soggy hillside so the trail can exist as an independent entity. Once again alone, but too busy now to care I slowly make my way down the mountain to the glorious gray lake, veiled in rain and clouds, washed away by the watercolors of the cold earth. Soon, it's time to head back up the hill and we repeat the performance, I lagging behind to clear trees and bushes, history denied root, but this failure quickly extinguished by my mindless chopping. "why do I do this?" I wonder...

Back on top I marvel at how autumn has become, as witnessed by gentle hues of golden and red in the huckleberry bushes, soon to sleep for another winter. At the lake it is still summer, with a green quilt and ripe berries fat for the picking, but here on top fall dances with the rain.

As clouds begin to part, and the day slowly drops, we cheer momentary breaks of sun, as the glorious orb appears like the moon thru these racecar mists. Alas we are forced to endure the gray until evening approaches. Various whiskeys appear and the fog of my own brain seems to escape out my ears and mingle with the clouds. Great Discussions ensue, "does a man have an ethical duty to project God thru their lifework?" The results are still undetermined. The jury is questionable at best.

As a huge stump is carried like a coffin up the night road, a growling comes from the darkness. No, it is the insane Gypsie scaring the crap out of us. Thank you again for that. A Sasquatch bride sits lonesome this evening, missing their true counterpart.

Sleep comes quick. As another new day approaches, the mists do finally part allowing the splendor of God's Green Earth to explode below in all directions. But it is time to pack and deal with the red dirt encasing everything, red mud ash from eruptions before an atmosphere.

And then the numbing drive home, snaking down miles of pothole roads, into the womb of human creation, the grids snaked out, the streaked peaks fading into the background like a Jr. High lunch, forgotten, eaten, gone but causing an intense self fortification.

These places seem to exist in a dream. My bus is only a lozenge dissolved under the tongue, while my eyes soon dart awake, fearful, full, and facing the light at whatever cost and internal consequence. One can plan and read all about it in various papers and personal anecdotes, but only when the poison pen is destroyed and the viscous paper extinguished can a person truly experience these mysteries of life.

A Mountain to the South (June 2009)

 Hello!  This is a continuation of recent "classic" articles written by yours truly in the watermelon days of summer.  I wanted to get them into circulation before I keel over from too much fun.  Little Eva featured in this story is just about to turn 18 and head off to college.  I still remember this trip so clearly.  Life is ridiculous, isn't it?

I'm also sad to tell you that the forests on these ridges are completely dead for many miles.  They were killed in the fires that swept the Northwest two years ago.  It is a land of complete devastation that is still closed to the public.  It will be very different out there.  But of course, Nature rebuilds at a schedule far greater than our own tiny lives.  Those of us alive today will never know the ancient forests that will return to this wasteland. 

Strap on your pack, don't forget the sunscreen...

"A Mountain to the South"

It was just the lovely Eva and I, up on top of the giant's head we now call a mountain. Yes folks, 3 days with a 5 year old in the wilderness. She is becoming a great camper.

We arrived to clouds swirling past, after traversing the usual potholed post apocalyptic forest service snakeroute, climbing nearly 5000' into the abused-but-still-beautiful Clackamas foothills. I fretted about potential snow, but those fears were unfounded, as only a couple tiny patches still sat in sheltered bowls. This is good news for highcountry camp season - it's open!

So we sat for a while, gathered slimy wood for a meager smoky fire as the clouds shuffled past like puffed ghosts. Eva remarked how we were "breathing clouds" and indeed this was literal, as our exhalations slid down the onramp and flew down the misted freeway.

She went to bed, I stayed up for a spell until the clouds came into camp with reinforcements, dropping a cold wet blanket on the camp and filling me with enough spookies to call it a night and hide under the sheets.

After a long cold night, the new day sun broke through, dragging a blue sky behind like a much loved rag doll. Being a student of history, I took the opportunity to revisit 1910 with newly appointed Ranger Petey and myself. We made plans to hike down to Memaloose Lake and pick up our Forest Service horses, freshly watered and rested. Then, to ride to the Cold Springs ranger station. Of course most of the trails have been abandoned 70 years, the ranger station just a dream in some granddad's craw, and the fire lookout a scattered pile of rusted nails and windowpanes melted into unique blobs...but that did not stop the intrepid rangers on their rounds.

We did hike down to the lake, shining gloriously in the new summer sun. The trail up to the peak of S. Fork Mountain is an original forest service trail, constructed around 1900 but probably older than that. It is not officially maintained (as a sign proudly proclaims at the base of the mountain), but it is in excellent condition regardless. We spent the day chopping brush, and even make it back up to the top in spite of frequent whining. It's hard to be little as 1000' in elevation beckons.

Of course the horses were nowhere to be seen, curse the beureacracy. And once on top, we were dismayed to find the trail to the ranger station nearly obliterated with time, a disturbing fate. What remained of the rangers themselves is still a mystery.

The views! Spectacular. One can see many vistas and all local volcanic peaks, as far north as Mt. Rainier and 3 Sisters to the south. At night, the lights of Portland twinkle orange and strange, weird to see littered across the valley as we sit up high among the beargrass and crescent moon.

Nails, however are a very real hazard on this lofty perch. The 1960s were a strange time in our nation's history. Besides the race riots and other colorful adventures already burned into our collective, our penchant for natural resource extraction took a feverhold as many miles of solitary-purpose roads were stabbed into the crumbling highcountry. Historic sites such as backcountry ranger stations and high peak fire lookouts were simply burned to the ground to avoid the bookcost of maintenance. I suppose fire is the great purifier; or at least does a damn good job of rearranging molecules. Even the Indians would seasonally burn their prized hunting grounds and mountain berry fields for their own personal gain. This weird grasping for history seems to create more questions than clarity, but it is an interesting trip to puzzle out how it felt 100 years ago when these magnificent clearcut lands were nothing but miles and miles of ancient wilderness. We are spoilt, the land has been spoiled. But inbetween it's glory in excess as always.

Spending a few days on top of a mountain with just a little one whom I love as much as breath certainly gave me a unique perspective. Although there are moments of pure madness, such as a bottle of OJ dumped all over the camper cabinet and floor, the moments of true love and gentle bliss soaks into consciousness until everything else is swept away in the high wind.

Thoughts On Twin Springs (September 2007)

 I've been going through a lot of old junk, spring cleaning is most important.  In between the sleeping mice I discovered a few essays that I wrote quite a few years ago.  All of the tiny zeros and ones surely have even tinier particles of dust, I'm sure that's how it works, isn't it?

I present to you, a journey to the near past.  I don't know about you, but my personal life is nothing like it was 15 years ago.  I'm a man now, and not really thrilled about the idea of maturity.  Perhaps I was then too; then again I was born at the age of 102.  Fifteen years gone by like they never happened at all.  Just stories to tell.  

Well, first an update: After the hellish fires of 2 years ago, the Clackamas is still closed for "recreation" *whatever that means? Anyway, Highway 224 is open from Estacada to Ripplebrook, where it becomes Forest Service roads.  There, it's closed until further notice for repairs and hazard tree removal.  2 years barred from my beloved lands, it has been difficult to be sure, for a lot of people who love the Old Cascades as much as I do. 

Ironically, the campground where this story takes place has been destroyed by the Forest Service.  Used by Native People for thousands of years, it was later improved in the early 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.  The crews of young men constructed outhouses, fireplaces, picnic tables, and trails.  In the early 2010s the USFS decided to dig deep trenches along the road, preventing the public from entering the historic campground and destroying the wild feeling of the area.  It is most disappointing, for it was a really beautiful place to camp for a few days.  The dappled light is most pleasant, like a green stained glass window that keeps changing colors.  

When these lands reopen: let us remember how sacred they are, and how much it sucks to be kept out of God's Backyard.  Let's not fuck it up with unburied poop piles and mounds of your garbage.  

PACK IT OUT! BURY YOUR WASTE!  Do what's right for the next family that comes along to camp.

Are you ready for this?  Of course you are, it's Sunday afternoon here in gloomy Portland and the spring seems grouchy today.  Let's dream about summertime...just imagine the smell of roasted August forest litter...caramel tea...

"Thoughts on Twin Springs" 

Oh! Once again the tentacles of society had wrapped a stranglehold upon my frame and spirit. One too many idiot-act witnessed from too close had driven me to a numb anger and strange disconnect. I had had enough and desperately needed to flee this manufactured place. At the grocer’s I couldn’t distinguish between sliced ham and canned olives but somehow made it thru the carnival shelves with enough provisions for an Arctic Month. With a heavy head I pointed southeast with bright hopes for this cloud to be extinguished. I would be traveling solo for this trip. It’s important to experience connection with one’s own half; ultimately it’s all we ever have although we do our daily dance with ghosts with names. I was feeling remorse to be without my comrades, but as I was eloquently reminded “shit happens” so I directed no hostility towards their better natures. Instead, I drank fully from the cup of freedom, so little tasted in our geared world.

These mountain roads, these forever free places seem to slip from our grasp like so much sand. They’re never easy to get to these days of artificial barriers and psychic discord that we must swim through to escape the undertow. Don’t forget: George and Rebecca were once free and in love with everything before the claws of empty materialism locked them into their falsely verdant plastic-palace. Each water-filled pothole is merely a signpost telling of the true nature of our Ship of State, each ripped apart forest and mud-bloodied meadow screams volumes. But, destruction and rebirth are more than mere laws to guide; they are everything in this reality we co-create. Otherwise our world-pores would become clogged with so much spent discard. Fires, carnivores, mold, radiation doing it’s invisible dance; they all free us from the stack of so many carcasses so we may venture forth as the new sun drips from the next horizon. But what to make of oil upon water events? Of shredded trash bedecking grand old firs like so many grotesque streamers? Of the very flesh of the earth ripped open to gleefully display her bleeding orange? Yet somehow this is all To Be, for someone to bare sad witness and fill our souls with the coldest empty day of deep winter. However maudlin, it is important to spend time dwelling in these supposed unfortunate acts for they define the divine. Sometimes it’s what we don’t do that defines the purity of our hearts and the strength of our better natures. We are all in this together.

Dodging these potholes and snaking through these stained but magnificent acres I am soon delivered to my place of rest: a cathedral of noble firs doing their part to recycle ancient basalt lava into dirt and a host of other simple elements. The gentle wind makes the impossible storied branches dance and scatter the jeweled drips from our fond celestial orb as it slips silently westward and down. Untold multihued mushroom caps burst and pop madly through the dense brown duff and leaf litter, only to spread their spores so the snaked miles of invisible mycelium can continue to grow and feed upon what other organisms have deemed waste. Interesting how that works, nothing is wasted in a closed loop beyond imagination. Soon, the stars slip from the shadows. The moon beams like a gleaming pumpkin faced child eager to still seek each new mystery. Each tree joins with the dark to form a net where secret nocturnal affairs take place. What is foreboding is merely a matter of perspective; each creature has been equipped to exist in a very defined set of circumstances.

I am quickly at peace in this place. I am a sponge for all this peace dripping like a thousand Mexican altar candles, flickering and holy by act alone. A man can smash or caress, there alone lies our painful fate. Somehow, the world is born anew each moment.

We, as humans experience failure in every pointless act, because ultimately every act is pointless. It’s impossible to exist as master in these places of constantly unfolding miracle, impossible to hold onto our fragile empty selves in a land were we are smaller than the most insignificant mouse. We exist in various states of denial to dull the knifepoint of pain that randomly stabs us through the loss of something special. Hal remarked how different our world would be if each peak were topped by a shaman silently praying, instead of miles of forested ridges, empty but for a few noxious-spewing mechanisms. But it is all choice: how deep are we willing to look into our pain and insignificance? How will we use these blood lessons after the silent teacher has lectured?

History is just a Japan wind over Nebraska.

“Nothing in nature will harm us if we are not scared and treat her with respect”

-Tom Brown Jr.

My Illinois days and hot Virginia nights haven’t prepared me for this place. But for the first time, perhaps ever I did not feel like an invader into this land. It was really just a matter of intent, to make a stand against my own fears and inadequacies and to realize that I simply belong here and nothing will hurt me if I radiate peace. This changed everything, I felt as peaceful as a monk in a 100 year coma, simply by exercising free will. Strange things began to happen: a tiny mouse stared me down, absolutely fascinated. The world opened up, just for me. Tiny birds flocked and landed right next to me. Maybe it was just a matter of looking, I don’t know. As the sun drifted across the sky like a balloon I roamed the hills alone, seeking history down old trails, looking for magic tied into the rocks and soil. I like old maps - they exist as a snapshot in time, telling of what was considered important during that brief flex in the flux. In 1915 the “Plaza” as this brief flat is called was quite the place to be, an intersection of ancient cross mountain routes, lush springs for man and beast, and the beginnings of the U.S. Forest Service administration including a backcountry ranger station complete with wood stove and crank telephone. 100 years later, all is gone and insignificant except for the old trails. Why they still exist is a mystery in this age of petroleum powered everything; why walk?

An immense fire blackened these ridges around 1900 as by design. Evidence still remains, many blackened stumps peeking out thru the underbrush, and trees no older than 100 years. But again by design a new forest had taken hold, using the same molecule-seed that has drifted on the winds for untold ages. In time it will again be ancient and exhaling, but for now is content to be an adolescent stretching it’s new limbs.

And then, in a blink it’s time to go. My spirit may be forever laced through the ferns and moss covered rocks, but I too am human and must be among my own kind to participate in the damage, splitting so many atoms and dumping so much noxious juice into an unwilling biosphere. Where do we go? How do we stop this machine that threatens to eat us whole? One thing is certain – it is dreadfully fearful to witness a race lose its connection to our source. Unless each of us makes the effort to connect with the natural world we are doomed to eat ourselves whole, like the symbol of the snake consuming it’s own tail in a loop. Twin Springs or Hackensack, it doesn’t matter much in the end. All I know is there is a shortage of reverence in our most holy of places, and we our burning the very bridges that lead to our freedom. All I can do is to encourage every man woman and child to spend at least a day fully aware in a sacred place, and let the lessons speak to you without words. Then, take this basket of fruit home and offer it to your friends. And don’t forget to eat a peach yourself.