Going Down in Flame

You know how people always want to go down in a ball of fire, finish things in a memorable way...

For my goodbye from Bandelier we set fire to the forest.

I know, I know, this was a prescribed burn, and yes, they have been planning it for the past 5 years. And when I say "we" set the forest on fire, I might be stretching the collective team effort a bit, but nevertheless, the last outfit that Bandelier National Monument dressed up in (especially for me, no matter what you say) was this

My last two days in Bandelier were spent in flames. More like next to flames but definitely in smoke.

The "Unit 9 prescribed burn", as it was officially referred to, has been in the the making for the past few years. The upper parts of Frijoles canyon have not been burned in years, and a lot of fuel had accumulated over the years- fallen branches, dead trees, grass, layers and layers of dry leaves, low brush. These fuels could catch fire from a lightning strike or a forgotten campfire and would set fire to whole canyon. With the steep canyon walls and the winds that get funneled in the canyon, a fire like that could run wild and would be virtually impossible to stop. "We've been sitting on a keg of powder for the past 3 years" was how the burn-boss put it. A prescribed burn is mainly designed to reduce the ground fuels without hitting the living trees. Sound good, doesn't it... Only problem is fire doesn't really behave that way naturally. It burns wherever it goes. That's why the conditions have to be just right- first it's the weather- you don't want it to be too hot and dry because then the risk of the fire going out of control is much greater. On the other hand, if the ground and the ground fuels are too wet, or it's too cold- nothing at all will burn. So summer and winter are out of the question. Wind is a very dangerous thing- the flames will pick up and spread all over, however, you need a little wind to blow the smoke away from the fire and prevent it from settling on site so the crews can keep working and won't be smoked out. The planners of the fire also consider cloud coverage, humidity, air pollution over the nearby communities, the length of the day (you need to be able to put in a good day's work before it gets dark).

Then there is the preparation work. Fire lines are cut and dug through the forest to prevent the fire from spreading, and to contain it to the specific areas. Crews will go in and thin the forest especially in areas that are close to roads. Sometimes dead trees will be cut down and chopped up, and all the dead fall will be piled up to make sure that it all burns and to control the burn. All the archaeological sites and artifacts within the burn area have to be recorded (In Bandelier that's relatively easy, since the park is 90% surveyed as it is), and if there is a danger that they might be damaged from the fire- measures will be taken to protect them- sometimes to the extent of cutting fire lines around them. In our case most of the archaeological sites are prehistoric ruins of small farmhouses- mounds of buried rocky rubble and pottery shards. Fire really didn't pose a danger to those. There are, however, remains of and old wooden bridge over the creek- the remains of an old wagon road that used to run through the park. These needed to be marked and a fire line was cut around them. There is also a historic phone line that hung from trees along the canyon with glass insulators. Dale had to go in and mark all of those trees with flagging tape so they wouldn't be cut down in the thinning process or as part of the fire line. One tree did get cut down accidentally and the glass insulator was cut out of it to save it from the fire.
Once the fire is started, the fire fighters will monitor the burn and make sure it's remaining a surface fire if any tree starts catching fire- they will put it out. Any ground fuels that did not burn through will be piled up to make sure they are totally burned away. If the conditions are right the fire won't climb tree trunks that easily and will keep to the easy stuff like dry grass and the piled up dead fall. According to the experts, you always loose a few trees, but the benefit from clearing the forest floor is much more important.

Of course, this is just the fire itself. You need a medical plan- after all you are going to have firefighters running around in the woods in smoke and fire, you need a traffic plan- the fire and the smoke might effect the roads in the area and the fire engines need to be able to get around. You need a logistics plan- how do you get water and fuel for the fire engines, what are your fire fighters going to eat?

Point of all this is- It's a big deal.

What made it even bigger, in fact, what made it an incredibly bigger deal was the fact that in 2000, a prescribed burn that was started by the National Park Service got out of control and burned down a whole bunch of houses along a number of streets in the town of Los Alamos. The whole of Los Alamos, White rock and the employee housing area in Bandelier had to be evacuated along with many of the National Laboratory facilities. It took them three weeks to put the fire out and it had consumed huge areas in the national park and in the surrounding National forest. The Cerro Grande fire, as it was named (the name of the peak next to which the burn started), was a horrible disaster and quite a milestone (not a good one) in state-federal relations in New Mexico. The superintendent of Bandelier and the chief of resources were forced to retire, along with the head of the fire division, even though the investigation concluded that the fire was started with conditions within the desired range, and was blown out of control by strong winds that developed after the fire was started. Those winds blew the flames up and turned the fire into a crown fire (fire burning on the tree tops and jumping from tree to tree) Once the fire "jumped the line" (flames crossed the fire line outside of the defined area of the prescribed burn) and was defined a wildfire, the local firefighting units called for backup, and a regional fire-boss took over running the show. The fire was then contained but it was this new burn boss, from the regional office, that made the decision to continue the burn. Additionally, most of the houses that burned down were the ones on which the roofs were covered with a layer of pine needles that wasn't cleared for months. Sparks from the burning forest were carried by the winds and landed on the mat of dry needles. Once the roof caught fire- the house was in flames. The local fire department tried spraying down the roofs with their fire hoses- but had little success. In fact, many say that the fire could have been started by a lightning strike or any number of other reasons, and would have still done the same damage.

That is all very nice, but the bottom line is it was National Park Service personal, out of Bandelier national monument who lit the match, so you can imagine what kind of a reaction you get whenever people in the area heard the words "Bandelier" and "Prescribed burn" in the same sentence.

I've been hearing about this prescribed burn since just about my second day in the park. Dale kept telling me that if the fire did end up happening, he would have the opportunity to pull me out of the backcountry and put me to work traffic control- for a real salary, rather than the modest SCA stipend I was supposed to make do with.

It's been on the drawing board for a long time and they've been trying to go for it for the past two years. Because of what happened no one was prepared to take any chances or leave any tiny part of their, excuse me, ass, uncovered. So the conditions had to be nothing short of perfect, and the people had to be nothing less than totally prepared. From the end of the summer on crews were working on cutting fire lines in the forest, dividing the planned "unit 9" into sections and thinning the areas that were close to the roads. It was first scheduled for some time in late September, but the weather turned out to be really wet during the first week of that month and there was no-way anything would burn. Then, when October's chili but sunny and dry weather seemed to be on the right track, massive fires hit California, and a big question mark appeared over the possibility of getting the outside resources- additional fire engines and crews, that the local fire people were counting on in order to cover all bases.
Dale was in charge of traffic control, and had pulled out the plan from last year and updated it. It was quite a big headache for him since, due to how the LE division at Bandelier was already spread thin, he needed to get other law enforcement rangers from other places to come in and work the fire. There are organized ways of putting in orders for additional LE manpower but you need to let the people know ahead of time. With all the question marks, no one could give Dale definite dates until the last minute.

Eventually the date was set for Nov 5. The fires in California were contained, and regional resources were freed, and the weather promised to be within desired parameters.
Dale had me, Joel, Mindy, Matt and Virginia working traffic control and even Carl, the retired chief ranger volunteered to come and help. He also had 4 law enforcement rangers from parks in the region come in to help- working two 12 hour shifts- two rangers at each shift, supervised by a local ranger. This was also the first week of the long awaited new ranger, Dennis. On one hand it was good to have him- since the LE division had been short handed for quite some time now and this was promising to be a busy week, but on the other hand, he needed orientation and the Brian, Dale and Wendy had to take turns riding around with him, showing him around. Monday was supposed to be a day of orientation and preparation for the different crews that were coming in and a test burn was scheduled for that morning. The actual burn was scheduled for Tuesday. On Monday Dale got us all together and gave us a run down on the plan. We were going to close one lane of highway 4, that bordered the park and the burn unit, and have the fire engines and crews working on it. Traffic would be stopped at control points on either end of the burn area, and a pilot car would make runs leading traffic, between those points, on the remaining lane of the highway. We were also going to have a control point ready on forest road 286, a dirt road on the west boundary of the burn unit, in case it got too smoky. Between putting out signs, getting the control points marked and blocking the south lane of the highway, then working all day and closing everything every night when the operation would stop- we were looking at 13 hour shifts. Joel was glad to put in as much work as he could- since that got him one step closer to paying up his loans, but I realized this would make for a very interesting last week since I was scheduled to work all through Thursday and my train was leaving Friday morning, and there would be no time for me to pack up or go through the check out process. Good thing I got all the stuff I didn't want to carry with me and put it in a package. All I had to do was get to the post office and mail it.

We were missing about 200 plastic traffic cones, but they were ordered from a company and were on their way. At 14:00 we were all scheduled for a briefing at Technical Area 49 (TA49), the joint fire management facility for the park, the national forest and the lab. As we were approaching the entrance station, on our way out, a big semi-truck pulled up from the highway and a moment later Mindy, who was working the entrance station that afternoon, got on the radio and announced "Hey, LE people! there's a big semi here that says he's got 200 traffic cones. Anyone know anything about this?"
Dale got on the radio and told her that since we were approaching the entrance station she should instruct the truck driver to follow us (we needed the cones at TA49 anyway). And so we were all headed up highway 4 at high speed- Dale and Dennis and I in one ranger car, the imported LE rangers following us in two ranger cars and finally a big semi truck with traffic cones- one long law enforcement convoy .We were running a little late so Dale was flooring it and the Semi truck apparently had trouble keeping up, because when we all turned into the gate way to TA49 he didn't see us and kept on along the highway trying to catch up with the convoy that was no-longer there. The first one to notice was Dennis. We were all walking towards the crowd of fire fighters that were already assembled in a half circle for the briefing around a map of Unit 9 that was taped to the outside of a hanger door, when he suddenly said- "Wasn't that truck supposed to follow us in here?!" That caught Dale, who was approaching the circle of rough tough fire fighters in a John Wane stroll, totally off guard. He was wearing a face that said "I was already pissing on forest-fires when you all were still playing with matches in the sand box", and Dennis's question made him change into a "What the fu#$?!!" face. But just for a moment. I don't know if it was more important to Dale that Dennis be in the briefing, or that subconsciously he trusted me more than the young ranger he had only met the day before, but to my surprise he threw the keys over to me and said "Catch up with him, will ya". I didn't need to be asked again, and catching a glimpse of Dennis's disappointed face, I ran to the ranger car and took off. To any of you who have trouble visualizing this, the only difference between a ranger car and a police car (siren, cool lights, assortment of cool toys and everything) is that it has "park ranger" written in green on the side. That and the fact that it's a 4X4 SUV, rather than a Sedan type vehicle. I could see the truck ahead of me on the highway, heading north, but there were two cars between me and him, and he was not noticing me (I'll give him the benefit of blaming the curves, simply since I'll have a better opportunity to call him a moron in a second). We were approaching an intersection, and I was really hoping he would stop there, or at least make the turn towards Loa Alamos, because I new that if he kept going straight and start climbing to the upper regions there would only be a couple of places where he could turn around and they were not obviously noticeable from the highway. On the other hand, I was driving a police car at high speed, so I wasn't totally disappointed when he kept on heading straight towards the climb. The good news was that both cars between us did make the turn into Los Alamos so I was directly behind him now.
As he started climbing the winding curves of highway 4, I tried to get his attention by flashing my headlights, but I guess he was too busy navigating his vessel. "You're in a police car!" I'm sure some of you are thinking, but to my disappointment, there isn't a glowing red lever in the center of the dashboard with the words "Cool police lights" blinking over it in neon. I had no-idea how to turn those on. In the mean time, the subject of my chase had already passed two pullouts where it was possible to turn that big-rig around and was on his way to the last one for about 10 miles. I had to get on the radio and report my predicament to Dale. "Did you try turning on the flashing lights?" he whispered into the radio. "I have no idea how to do that!" I yelled over the static of bad reception and the noise of the struggling truck in front of me. "There is a small red lever on the top left corner of the radio panel. Push it all the way to the right and give me a call if you need anything else." He was whispering again and I realized he was standing in the audience of the briefing that had already started. It took about 5 more minutes of me driving with flashing lights and trying to drive into the view of his rear view mirrors on the winding curves, (the car behind me had no idea what the hell was going on), for us to reach a relatively straight run and for him to notice me and pull over on the narrow shoulder. I was a little disappointed because during that time I figured out how to operate the siren and speaker system, and was about to disturb the serenity of the woods around us with my official voice "You in the Semi, Pull over!"

The driver got out of his cab and said "I guess I passed you. You were going pretty fast". Honestly I couldn't argue with that, but it still didn't explain why he kept going after the intersection. To make it short, I told him to follow me to the nearest pullout where we turned around and headed back to TA49 with constantly making sure he was behind me. The whole adventure only took about 40 minutes so when I finally did park the car there was still an assembled crowd of fire fighters to join. By the giggles and smiles that welcomed my grand entrance I realized that Dale's radio wasn't very quiet when I reported in, and that everyone had witnessed the crash course in "how to turn on the police lights".
The only one that didn't know what was going on was Fred, the chief ranger, who's baffled look bounced from me to Dale to the ranger car. He wasn't annoyed, he just couldn't decide if he wanted to know why his very civilian SCA had just gotten out of the drivers seat of a law enforcement vehicle. I guess he decided not to know, because he turned his head and seemed very interested in the "accommodations for outside crews" part of the briefing.

That night Gumaz, Joel, Kevin Molly and I piled up in Gumaz's car and went down to Santa Fe to hear the Old Crow Medicine Show. Ignition was set for 10am the next morning, and all the traffic people were supposed to be ready for work at 6:30 to start putting out signs and cones on the highway. The show was excellent. During the break I guy got on stage and announced that he was selling tickets for a the Dirty Dozen Brass Band who were playing at the Santa Fe brewing company the next night, for only 9$. Gumaz looked at me and I said- "I'm gonna have to get some sleep!", but at the end of the break I handed him a ticket. We all ended up buying tickets. We were having such a great time that even though we were burning hours of sleep we were all happy to go grab a beer after it. It was really a great night and I laughed and danced like I hadn't done in a while. We all did.

It was pretty cold the next morning when I met Dale and the others at the maintenance yard and we started loading the signs on the truck. Then we drove up to to the highway and started putting them out. I drove the truck, and Tillman, one of the imported LEs, rode in the back and unloaded the signs as we went along. Then came the long proccess of laying out the cones. We spread them out on the side of the road and were going to move them to the middle when right before the fire crews would light. I got to ride in the back of a pickup too. My american expperience wouldn't have been complete without it. At 9:00 Dale went down to TA49 for the morning briefing and we had nothing to do but sit around and wait. 10 minutes later we heard "No Burn" over the radio, and Dale told us all to come down to TA49. When we got out of the cars and joined the circle of fire people, the meteorologist was already half way done explaining about the cold weather and the lack of wind that would lock the smoke cloud in place. It was even colder than when I got up that morning...
Now we just had to collect all the cones back in the trucks (the signs could just lay on the side of the road) and enjoy the free afternoon. I was quite happy about it since I didn't get much sleep the night before and I had volunteered to be the sober driver to the show that evening (Joel did it the first time). So I enjoyed an afternoon nap that day.

Joel Gumaz and I headed out an hour and a half earlier and went to visit Moe who had worked in the park earlier in the season. We hung out, grilled some chicken and made a tray of drumsticks disappear. Then we went to meet Kevin, Molly and Beth at the show. Another great night. Good music, lot's of dancing, and a late night.
The best part of it was that we didn't have to meet that early the next morning, since all the signs were out and the cones were already loaded on the trucks.

Setting up the next morning was quick and painless and by 8:00am the morning comuters on highway4 were driving past a bunch of government employees in orange vests sitting on a fence and doing nothing. As we waved them by, we couldn't help but feeling proud about making them feel good about their tax dollars.

Dale was of to the morning breifing and then finally, at 10:30 he called us on the radio and said "We're on. Move those cones to the middle of the road and get ready to stop traffic. I'll be there in 15 minutes". Not long afterwards, the fire engines and crew started arriving and spread out along the highway. Matt and I took one control point, and Joel and Virginia were stopping traffic at the other one. The retired chief ranger was driving the pilot car.
They were going to start the burn at our end, so most of the fire crews were assembling around Mine and Matt's control point. By the time Dale showed up we had a bit of a traffic jam at our end between the line of cars that were waiting to follow the pilot car, and the crowd of fire fighters and engines. He got there right in time to see three big trucks unload 30 convicts from the state prison's fire fighting program. I'm not sure how the tax payers that were waiting in line felt about the pirate-eyed men wearing orange jump suits with "state prison" written on the back, and holding an assortment of tools of destruction- Axes, Pulaskis, shovels and even two Chain saws, all lined up on the side of the road with nothing but a hnadfull of traffic cones to seperate them from the law obiding citizens of Los Alamos county. I have to say that the convicts turned out to be a hard working bunch of fire fighters, helpful and responsible and all the other crews were happy to have them on board.
The moment we were all waiting for came with no trumpets or formal announcement. It just got very smokey very quickly. Though I had never seen anything like it before in my life, my watering eyes washed away the excitement relatively quickly. More than a few fire fighters were nice enough to hide the laughter as I waved them through the control point with tears in my eyes. Only a couple rolled down their window and told me I shouldn't cry, and if it meant so much to me, they would come back later that day to visit me. The rest of the day was pretty boring. We traded spots and took turns driving the pilot car. We exchanged nonsenses over the radio and shared goodies from our packed lunch. The drivers we were stopping gave us a lot less of an attitude than we expected, and except for the occasional "You gonna burn down the town again?!" we were greeted mostly with patience and polite disappointment. The last smartass of the day that gave one of us the "burning the town down" line, recieved the following answer: "Well, it's not on the schedule untill Friday, but since it means so much to you, I'll see what I can do about bumping it ahead. I just hope the weather is right for town-torching tomorrow. You might want to check with me again in the morning". Which one of us it was, is a secret I'll take with me to the grave.
The day ended really late. By the time all torching activities were stopped and the crews all hiked their way out of the forest, is was well and dark outside, and the comuter traffic from Los Alamos out was lined up so far back you couldn't see the end of the line. When we finally opened the road- walking in the middle of the highway, moving traffic cones to the shoulder it was just one long line of cars driving past us. That was also when we found out some worrying news. Gumaz, who got fire certified back in the begining of the season (Joel and I were both SOO envy), was put on the night watch. After all the activities are stopped for the day, and the night chill calms the fire down, one crew is left out to keep an eye on everything. On it's own, there's nothing wrong with working the night shift, but we had planned to have his birthday party and my goodbye party on the following evening, and he would not be able to attend. We had nothing to do but wish him a good night and drive home.
The view, as we were driving home was simply surreal. The moon was just rising and the combination of the smoke and the dying flames from the forest made a ghostly image that no camera could capture.

When we arrived the next morning, for my last day of work, Joel and I set the traffic cones and then walked into what had become a haunted forest. The trees were not harmed, but the ground was all black, and there was smoke everywhere. Here and there there were still the smoldering remains of a downed log that burned all night. One of the dead trees that caught fire the day before burned to the ground throughout the night. Even it's roots burned away, but the ground around them stayed in tact, so you could see the imprint of the roots. Of course neither of us gave up the opportunity to pee on smoldering ashes.

Most of the work for that day was along forest road 289, so the highway stayed open most of the day except for a two hour period when the smoke was making it a little dangerous and we ran the pilot car to make sure everyone was driving slowly enough. Us traffic people were just standing at the control points slowing traffic down and making sure the drivers knew what they were driving into.

Joel got most boring traffic point at graduation flats on the forest road. He could see nothing of the fire action, and very little traffic came through. I think he enjoyed the quiet for a while and was practicing his harmonica skills. He did get some excitement when the hellitach crew used graduation flats as a landing area for their helicopter. On fire fighting scenarios the helicopter is used to deliver fire fighters to remote areas for water dumps. The helitech crew is also very good at directing aircraft water drops. On a prescribed burn, however, apart from their role as good scouts the helitech crew is also in charge of lighting the fire in areas that are hard to access on foot- steep slopes and deep canyons. To do that, they shoot ping pong balls full of fuel at the the area they want to catch fire. Yes, you don't have to read that again. You understood corectly. Ping Pong ball full of fuel. I think that was the moment when Joel made his final decision to become a fire fighter.

There was a lot of action in the forest, that day, and very little action on the road.

We were all very happy when operations for the day were shut down by 5:30 and we didn't have to move the cones in the dark, with anxious-to-get-home drivers zipping by.
We all drove down to the park and were going to meet later at Joel and Gumaz's for my good bye party and Gumaz's birthday party which Gumaz was not going to be able to attend. I was leaving in the morning so I had to check out with Dale first, and give back all of my gear, and get started on cleaning my apartment (Tori was going to check me out of my apartment in the morning). After I showered and packed up all of the leftover food in my fridge I went up to their place and found both Joel and Gumaz there. Gumaz was able to get someone to switch him on the night shift, so it was going to be a full house after all.
It was a great goodbye party. We cooked, like usual, and drank, like usual.
Everyone was tired from a long day of working the fire (Gumaz, Kevin and Beth actually worked fire), and yet, it was still great- there was good cooking, good drinking and a lot of laughs.

Even John Mack, Chief of the resources division, came around to say goodbye, and drank quite well.
Tori got me checked out in the morning. I believe there was a hint of a teer in the side of her eye.
At Noon, Shanon picked me and my backpack up and drove me to the train station in Lamy, not before I said goodbye to everyone, one last time, over the radio.
I don't know what I was expecting, but we had to drive past Santa Fe on I25, then get on a state highway, and finally on a county road. We reached a train station that hasn't changed much since the 1880's, when it was built.
That's when I said goodbye to New Mexico, got on a train, and started my long way home.

A grand finale

Ever since I was little, and my parents started taking us out hiking there were certain things that it was obvious you would carry with you. At first it was just water. You always carried water. Then sandwiches and snacks came in- and made perfect sense. Later on I was allowed to carry a penknife (I don't think I was even allowed to peel oranges with my first Swiss army pen knife). I was also excited about my first compass and I think I almost walked off a ledge because I was too busy looking at it, rather than looking where I was going. As you grow up and your hikes grow longer things get added into the pack- Sandals (for walking in water), warm clothing, a camera, a sleeping bag, a tent...

The army adds a whole list of things I never thought I'd pack- guns and ammo for one, explosives sometimes, but also less deadly things like first aid kits, a stretcher, a shovel, radios and spare batteries and camouflage nets...

After I got out of the army I went through a period of caving and repelling trips (I hope to do I few more of those). That's when I stuffed my pack with a repelling harness, a helmet, a good head lamp and rope. Climbing rope can get pretty heavy. especially when it's wet.
During my three months in the park I have had the opportunity to carry a few things that I never thought I would pack-
Never thought I would carry a 2 meter level- and Gumas made sure I did that.
Never thought I would pack a plunger for a hike- but when my cabin sink got clogged up, Terri from maintenance was nice enough to dig up a bran new mini plunger that fit in my pack pretty snug.
Never hiked with an axe or work gloves before but with all the trail clearing that I did- I got used to that one pretty quickly. Oh, and lets not forget the single-man crosscut saw.

Carrying wooden signs and sign posts and post-diggers was new,
never carried three ceramic water filters, never hiked with a bucket in my hand.
This last week I had the opportunity to add to the list-

Never hiked with an air-pump before... And oars... and an inflatable boat.

The thought of boating down the Rio Grande has been living in the back of my mind since about my second week here. It's a very calm shallow stretch of water, at least the part the borders the park, and all the canyons in the park run into it. Hiking to the Rio is always downhill from everywhere in the park. It always seemed like such a waste to hike up stream after I got to the river. I've discussed the idea with Gumas and Joel and we started looking around at our options. Getting a hold of a kayak didn't seem too difficult- a few people in the park are into boating and would lend us their vessels (especially if they wanted to be invited to the next meal we cooked). If we wanted a bigger boat, Joany's canoe had a scrape through the bottom of it and we thought of negotiating a trade- fixing it in exchange for taking it out. Arranging for someone to pick us up at Cochiti lake didn't seem too complicated- probably wouldn't have cost more than a six pack or two... Putting in posed a bit more of a challenge. The closest vehicle access was on state highway 501, on the way to Santa Fe, but that spot is on Pueblo land and you need to get permission. Not as easy as it sounds. Another option was hiking down the Falls trail from the VC, Three strong guys could handle carrying a canoe down that trail. Like many other things- we talked about it, and talked a little more, and the talk didn't get us much closer to actually doing it. Then, one day about a week and a half ago, I mentioned the idea to Dale, as we were chasing the bear away from the main parking lot. "Brian from veg has an inflatable kayak, you know. He got it for his department when the water level at Cochiti went up a few years back". Later that day I saw Brian walk by and asked him about it. "No problem", he said, "I'll bring it in tomorrow". That was a quicker reply than I thought I'd get. The next day I had a note waiting for me, telling to find Brian and the boat. He had it all packed up in an old outer frame pack, and when he handed me the two oars he asked me with a bit of a smirk on his face: " Just how far were you thinking of hiking with this?". At that point I didn't really feel comfortable telling him that my plans for the whole thing hadn't gone beyond my conversations with Joel and Gumas on a couch in their living room- where, usually after a meal, with each one of us holding a beer in his hand, we would dream up a very lazy float down the river. Heavy big old aluminum-frame backpack were never part of our visions of leisure. Amused as he seemed, Brian did expect an answer so I told him I would hike down the falls trail, put it at the mouth of Frijoles canyon, sail to Capulin Canyon and hike up to the Cabin. He didn't ask how I was going to get it out from the cabin, and I didn't volunteer any information. "The vegetation at the bottom of Capulin is pretty dense, but I'm sure you'll find your way", he said with a grin.
I lifted the pack to test the weight. It wasn't too bad. The frame seemed old but in decent shape, and there was still enough padding on the straps. It was only when I took it to my apartment and saw my regular pack leaning on a the wall that I started having second thoughts. I stripped it down and moved only the essential gear to the other pack- First aid kit, radio and spare batteries, light, warm clothing... oh and water- you always carry water. It was going to be my last trip out to the cabin, and I had to eat up all the supplies that I had accumulated there- so I wasn't packing in any new supplies. I left my book out of it, and voted against taking my university workbook. Then I zipped all the old zippers and tightened the straps and latched the two half-oars on the outside. It looked heavy and uncomfortable. I crawled under it and with only a bit of moaning I lifted myself off the floor and into the straps. "Not too bad" I thought to myself, took it off as fast as I could, and went to bed.

The next morning, after a hefty breakfast, I loaded my load, tightened the waist strap, and headed out, not before I spent a few extra minutes negotiating through the doorway with extra width of the pack and the two oars sticking out from the top of the pack. Like every morning, I did a radio checked-in with the ranger on duty, and gave him my general plan for the day: "This is 451, Good morning. I'll be headed down the falls trail today, then on the river and up Capulin canyon to base camp. Have a good day". There was only a short silence. "You mean ALONG the river..."

"No. I mean ON the river- Floating. Over"
"...OK...have a... good hike...sail"
The hike down the falls trail really wasn't bad. The pack was heavy but bearable. It took about an hour to get down to the river, and the sun was still too low to heat the bank inside the canyon. I spent about half an hour inflating the kayak and strapping my gear in, and right as I was about to push in the sun poked in- so it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

I pushed in and spent about 10 minutes experimenting with the paddles and testing how strong the current was. The water was calm and flat but very shallow the current was steady but not too strong. The only danger was getting suck in the mud in the shallow areas, So the only paddling I did from there was just to steer the kayak to the deeper parts.
It was great! I had hiked along the river before so the scenery was not new to me. But whenever you're hiking there is the sound of your steps and the squeaking of your heavy backpack's straps. With the way I hike there is also the huffing and puffing of the march. It's still quiet like nature should be, but unless you stop- it's not silent. The kayak was. I was half sitting half lying in the sun, floating along and listening. Slowly floating along, going past the cliffs and canyons that I've been climbing in and out of for the past three months. It took almost three hours to float down to Capulin. Three hours of calmness and ease. When I got to my destination, finding a place to get out was a bit of a challenge. I climbed out and up a rocky slope, and found a ledge to deflate the boat on. I also had my lunch as I waited for the boat to dry. Then I folded it all up and stuffed it back in the backpack. I had 8 km ahead of me. All up canyon. Two of which were off trail on a rocky dry stream bed. But first I had to get trough (or around) the vegetation. Well, before that I had to lift the backpack off the ground. "God!!" I mumbled to myself as I heaved and pulled. I didn't remember the pack was that heavy coming down to the river.
I started up and around the dense brush. I had to stay along the slope at the side of the canyon and walked over slide of boulders. Jumping from boulder to boulder with a folded boat on your back really challenges your balance. My walking stick could have come handy at that point but I left it at the apartment, in the "unessential" pile. Finally I got around the vegetation and headed up on the rocky (but at least leveled) creak bed.
Then I reached the park boundary fence, and discovered this fabulous contraption:
Where the park boundary crossed the creek you couldn't build a regular fence because it would get washed away whenever a flash flood would come by. Instead, a metal cable was strung from two strong metal posts on the two banks. wooden planks were hung from the cable and their bottom ends were chained together. This "flood gate" is only anchored to the banks at the top, so when a flood comes the gate, theoretically, lifts up and lets the flood through, and then drops down again to block the way for livestock,

and backcountry rangers with over sized, overweight packs with two oars sticking out from the top. I got so tangled up between the planks and the cable, that I had to get myself out of the straps and crawl under the flood gate dragging my load as I went.
I pressed on. I was seriously dragging my feet through parts of it, but I have to admit, after a while you get used to the extra load pushing you into your own footprints. I was plenty hurting by the time I got to the cabin. I Dropped the pack and suddenly I felt I was floating off the ground.
There were plenty of noddles left from prior trips and even a box of rice, and I had a selection of beans, lentils and peas, so there was no shortness of dinner. Even had "fruit cocktail" for desert.
Since this was my last trip out to the cabin, and I needed to clean up and seal it off for the winter, I stayed put the next day, on house keeping detail. I stocked up on firewood, I cleaned out the stove, I took apart the water filter and packed up the leftover supplies. That's when it dawned on me that I would have a number of extra items to carry on my hike out: The leftover food, my sleeping bag, which has been leaving in a metal box in the cabin for the past three months, the ceramic filters from the water tank and whatever garbage I accumulate. I was only a little sore around the waist from the strap, but the thought of hiking out of Capulin canyon and up to the Dome overlook TH wasn't a warming one. I was distracted from my self pity by three backpackers who came to the cabin looking for advice and ideas for place to go to, but they were soon gone, and I was back to beating myself up for getting myself into this mess. I started cooking dinner earlier than usual that night, and I used more noddles and more beans than usual- anything so wouldn't carry that much. There was still a can of "fruit cocktail" but i stuffed myself so decisively that I just couldn't fit. Since I am the guy that just a couple of weeks ago wrote about the hollow leg condition, you can imagine there was some serious lots of food. I rolled over to bed and fell asleep in front of my wood stove for the last time- stuffed and warm. I woke up the next morning and had lots for breakfast. There was only one bagel left but I smeared an extra thick layer of peanut butter and jelly on it. Anything in order to lighten the load. Also downed the last of the oatmeal and the last onion (I had fried it the night before). Then I started the long good-bye and close up process. Shut the fridge and unplugged the solar panel, emptied all the water containers, unscrewed the sink drain (so there wouldn't be any water left in it to freeze and crack the plumbing) locked all the windows, said good bye to the mice, went to the outhouse for the last time, and packed up all of my trash. The dreaded pack waited patiently for me on the picnic table outside. At 9:50AM I harnessed myself in and set on my way. This time I was smart enough to prepare a good walking stick for the climb. It's one long constant climb all the way from the cabin in Capulin canyon to Dome TH. From 6300 ft to 8200ft. 10 minutes into it I was already huffing and puffing. The pack was heavy. Very heavy. The climb usually takes people about 2 hours. I came down that way a few times, only went up that way once before. It took me an hour and 20 minutes- but I was pushing. This time I planned for a two and a half hour stretch and arranged the pickup according to that. I don't know how I did it. It definitely took some pain (but nothing that lasted). An hour and 35 minutes later I dropped my load at the TH. It was a while before dale was supposed to show up but I didn't care. I pulled out that can of fruit cocktail that had been spared the night before and laid in the sun. When Dale came around the curve I could see his sunglassed-smile turn into a baffled look when he saw me pick up my oar-caped pack and walk over to him. As I started battling the over sized pack to get it into the back seat, taking the oars off, and making room for it, he said "I didn't think you were going to carry it all the way up to here! What's wrong with Cochiti lake? you could have floated all the way down"
I said nothing.
Just as I was about to throw the oars on the top of the pile a jeep came around the curve and stopped next to us. Three camo-wearing, tobacco-chewing, hunters came out (Dome TH is on forest land. Hunting is legal there). "Did you just throw oars into that truck?!" they asked.

"There ain't no river up here. Where'd you come from?"

Dale, in kind of a fatherly proud voice, said "He hiked all the way from the river with a boat on his back".

"All the way up to here? What's wrong with Cochiti lake?!"

In the end, there was a turkey sitting on a can of beer...

Since I've come to the park I've been slowly collecting a list of places and routes I wanted to visit. You know, the kind of thing where you hike along a trail and catch a glimpse of a cool looking rock formation on a peak and whisper to yourself- "Before the end of my time here, I'm going to get a picture from the top of that". Since my time here is slowly coming to an end, I thought it was time I started eliminating items off that list. There is a trail along the Rio Grande river, at the southern boundary of the park. The trail is no longer maintained and was abandoned after a very rainy year when the water levels at Cochiti reservoir, down river from us, went way up, and turned the whole southern area of the park into part of the lake. It still appears on the map as a "route", but all the signs were taken out. The thing is, that that route would come in very handy if I wanted to head out to the cabin through the southern part of the park. When I mentioned it to Dale he said it wasn't a good idea at the time because of all the vegetation and the rattle snakes that were still very active at the time in lower, warmer parts of the park. Later on in the season I did walk short bit of it, using an old sign as a machete. This time around, going out to the cabin, Dale and I agreed that it had probably cooled enough to solve most of the rattle snake trouble, so I headed down Frijoles canyon from headquarters towards the river to do the whole Rio route. As I got to the lower parts of Frijoles, when it runs it's final couple of yards before hitting the river, I could see the leftovers from the famous flood that turned this whole valley into a lake. Dead trees and a savanna look in a rocky wide canyon. I made my way to the bank of the river, keeping my eyes open for the old trail, which I thought would be hard to find, since it's been abandoned for so long.
Well, the trail was there, wide and cleared, as if a trail crew had come around no longer than a month ago. As I started walking along the river I came across bullshit. Bull-shit. A nice round dried up cake of it. That rang all sorts of bells in the back of my head. As the story goes, a couple of years ago, a bunch of cattle found their way into the park along the river. They were grazing along the banks and endangering plants that were already endangered enough, and were driving native grass eaters away. The cattle were not branded, and no-one was claiming them (probably to avoid being fined). Park rangers tried different ways of driving them off the park and keeping them out, but the cattle kept coming back. A bunch of cowboys were also called in to round the cattle up- if they could, with the promise that they would get to keep anything they could catch. It seems that the cattle were so wild and aggressive, that whenever contact was made both cowboy and horse suffered the consequences, and by the end of the day the cowboys left the park, empty handed, with pieces of their shattered pride collected in their dusty squished hats.

The only thing left to do was to shoot the cattle, and leave them for nature to take it's course. It was about two days worth of work, and it took care of the problem, but apparently that's something you just don't do in the west. The headline in the local paper that day read "Feds shoot cattle!" and the front page story was not very favorable towards the national park service... It took a while before the park rangers could go to the local bar again without risking getting into a serious fight.
And here I was, strolling down a well cleared trail, that was supposed to be abandoned, or should I say well-grazed trail, trying with all the force of my imagination to think of other animals that might have had the same effect, and knowing, full and well, that Dale was not going to like the news. With this going on in my head I came around a curve, and if there was any chance of a better theory, the two bulls that stopped fighting each other, and were staring at me, well, they put an end to that. They were

not going to stick around to find out what my intentions were, and for the following 20 minutes we played a pretty dumb game. Whenever I came around a curve, there they would be, stare at me for about two seconds and run ahead. In the mean time I reported the presence of the cattle over the radio to Dale, and just like I thought, his voice revealed exactly how happy he was about the whole thing. I, on the other hand, was quite pleased with having a wide leveled trail where I had expected a long bush-whacking trip. Somewhere along the way the bulls picked up a third friend, who seemed to be a little braver than they were, and let me get a lot closer before it ran every time, and it dawned on me that I was slowly cornering three heavy and horned animals with a bad wild temper, and that they had no-where to go between the cliff on one side and the river on the other (I'm sure cows can swim if they have to, but that is an academic SURE, I have. Wild animal tend to behave in an extremely non-academic fashion). They would run from me, until we came to the end of what they considered their territory, or until they stumbled upon something that would be more scary in their eyes than I was and I'd be facing 6 horns, 12 legs, 3 bad tempers backed by a total mas of about a ton and a half. I got off the trail and started climbing the rocks towards the cliff to give them more space to head back past me. I was more in the mood for the well-cleared trail I had left so I had nothing nice to say to the bulls that stopped running but didn't show any sign they understood why I had stopped playing our little chase game. I took quite a bit of insulting including saying bad things about their relatives (basically that had been very tasty with BBQ sauce) for the dumb cows (I called them that too) to decide I wasn't cool anymore and that they didn't want to play with me. They turned around and headed back up the river, past me. The rest of the trip went quite well, and with very little bushwhacking. I found an interesting skull of an elk with non-symmetrical antlers in one of the dry creek beds I crossed, and an old tire that had floated here back when the water levels were high, but that was basically it.
I made it to the cabin by 4 and had plenty of time to get some studying done and have dinner.
The next day I took it easy. I was a chili day, with a cold breeze, but a warm friendly sun was out. I decided to make it another one of the few times I had hiked leisurely. I hiked off the trail to one of the most beautiful lookout points in the park. Another one of those places you mark on your list as- "Have to, before I leave". It's not impressively high, but the hill I climbed ends at a cliff that faces the center area of the park. You can see farther from some of the higher peeks around the park, but this cliff puts you right in the middle of it. You're surrounded by Bandelier. I spent almost an hour just sitting on a rock, under a lone juniper tree, enjoying the sun and the quiet. Recollection. Reflection. Imagination.
When I finally got up I strolled slowly back to the cabin as the setting sun announced the end of a very calm, uneventful day.
You can't have two days like that so I decided to redeem myself for the laziness of the day before by clearing trees off the trail up canyon from the cabin. Some of those trees put up a serious fight and though I spent the whole morning and the better part of the afternoon pushing a very impressive saw back and forth, I only got five of them off the trail. well, I guess I better leave something for the next backcountry ranger. Hikers have been walking over and around these fallen trees for the past few months- I'm sure they'll be able to handle it for a few more.
I came back to the cabin that evening sweaty and tired and decided to treat myself to a shower. Back in the beginning of the season I used to wash with creek water or with the "solar shower master"- basically a large plastic bladder that is hung from a tree and gets heated by the sun.

Even on sunny days that was quite a chilly experience that left me shivering for an hour afterwards. It's been too cold for the past couple of weeks to even think of that stunt. I had to heat the water in a kettle over the wood stove and then mix it with the right amount of cold water in the shower bladder. I hung the bladder from a hook in the ceiling, in front of the hot stove, then placed a tub under it, and stepped in. The correct ratio of hot and cold water is a bit of a trial and error process, and I nearly burned my self on the first time around. Never the less, I'm sure this was the first (and probably only) hot shower the backcountry cabin has seen, and I enjoyed every minute of it. When it was all done I considered going through the trouble of heating some more water just for the envious expression some of the mice were getting.

I've wanted to see the actual spring at Turkey springs for a while now, and that was my third days destination. I've hiked to that part of the park many times, but since the water in the creek right at the trail crossing is very good, and most of the interesting stuff is actually down stream from there, I hadn't had a reason to go up-stream. Plus, the actual spring is a little ways past the boundary line, on national forest land. This time I gave myself a reason- to see it. The hike up was beautiful but steep. The good part was that there were so many fallen trees all over the place that I walked on them picking the next one up where it had fallen on the log I had just stepped off. In a 30 minute climb I don't think I spent more than 4 minutes on actual ground. The spring was, as could be expected, very small and unimpressive. It had a small patch of pond plants plants growing in the shade of the cottonwood. I did interfere with a family of deer that were drying to get to the water so I didn't stick around for too long. The view made me change my mind about going back, and instead I kept climbing. I headed up the ridge along the boundary fence and the view kept opening up. The boundary line was the most obvious part of the view.

I kept on walking along the fence. It's just a straight line that ignores all topography so I was climbing up and down some pretty cliffy steep slopes, but it was beautiful. The clouds that were coming in, on the other hand, were a lot less beautiful and seemed very determined in their movement. The forecast for that day included a chance of snow towards the late afternoon, and so it wasn't long before I headed down back to my cabin in Capulin canyon. At around 5 that evening I was sitting and reading at my kitchen table (it's actually the only table, used for many things- from writing daily reports to packing up my backpack. I only call it The kitchen table whenever I'm thinking of food, but that is pretty much always). I looked up to the window and could see things falling on the ground, but I couldn't hear the sound of rain. The first snow of the season was falling down all around me in a silence that was only broken by the sound of the wind in the trees. Very little of it actually stuck, but it was still quite amazing, and a little scary for the kid from the middle east that had to hike out the next morning.
The light of the morning revealed a thin layer of frozen snow that was covering the ground. The sun wasn't out yet and the air in the canyon was light and frozen. By the time I finished eating my breakfast and packed up to hike back to HQ I could see the first rays melting the white blanket. It was a chili hike back. Snowy patches were hiding from the sun in the shade of the trees and the rocks. And the mountains over Santa Fe gave me a hint of what it would all look like in a few weeks.That night there was a gathering at Gumas and Joel's house. The official excuse was that Heather was leaving and this was her good bye dinner. Heather is a seasonal fire fighter and her season was over. Her husband, Michael, came down from Idaho, and they were going to drive home together. Honestly, we don't need excuses to gather or have dinner, and since turkey was on the menu, and Thanks giving is a holiday when everyone goes home to their families, and no-one would be around then, the evening was very quickly presented as our early thanks giving dinner. Michael turned to be an extremely friendly and funny guy. Gumas and Joel and I were all standing in the kitchen preparing stuff (no real cooking had started since Heather and Michael were bringing the turkey), when Heather came in, but before she could go past "hey guys, ho..." her husband hurried past her, walked to the middle of the kitchen and with a big smile said- "hi I'm Michael!". Then he pulled out the turkey and said- "Let's cook". It was obvious this was going to be a fun evening. Michael rubbed the turkey with olive oil. Then Gumas suggested pushing slices of lemon underneath it's skin. Then I remembered an idea that Joel had told me about. I took my bear can that was only missing about three sips, and had Joel top it off with bourbon (cheap, rough Kentucky Bourbon). Then we put it in the middle of the pan and sat the turkey on it for about 2 hours in the oven.
There ended up being 9 of us.
Joel's mashed potatoes where creamy and smelled great, Gumas's gravy was unbelievable, My sweet potatoes in the oven came out crispy, and the cherry tomato and pine-nut salad went great on the side, even the pot of soup had people getting up for seconds, but the turkey was by far the highlight of the evening. I have never tasted such a juicy turkey. And considering how dry that meat usually is, all four chefs felt pretty proud about the combined effort. The only thing on the table that was left over in any serious amount was the cranberry sauce. The turkey was just so good on it's own.

Balloon Fiesta

We interrupt our usual broadcast to tell you about a lot of hot air.
Balloon Fiesta is the largest balloon festival in the world. It's a once a year deal in Albuquerque, at about this time of year.
Dale has been telling me about it for the past couple of weeks. According to him "We used to go there every year before the boys got older..." Then, a week ago, I happened to talk to Brian (ranger) and Matt (fee collection). Brian said that they go down there every year- "It's great for the kids!", and Matt, the proud owner of a huge new pickup hooked up to an ever huger new RV, and the proud father of two young boys, couldn't agree more- "It's packed with more people than you'll ever see in your life, and the traffic is horrible- we've stood in line for 2.5 hours on the highway once, and that was just for the parking lot, but since you can see a lot of it from the highway, and we were lucky enough the wind made them drift over us- the boys were pretty occupied and didn't drive us crazy. Really, you should go."
That evening, Molly had mentioned she wanted to go and was looking for someone to tag along for the two hour drive (on a normal day, without any traffic), so the issue of transportation was solved too.
So this is how I found myself heading down towards an event that stood against everything I was ever brought up on- There was an entrance fee involved (additional to the parking fee), a huge crowed and a line to get in. Every person that I spoke to about it said it was "great for the kids" which should have given me every reason to run from it like the plague. I could just see my dad going "Have I thought you nothing??!".
Well let me just start by saying it was great for the kids. Kids of all ages. Including this kid of 26 years of age. The drive down took us exactly two hours. I have to hand to Molly, she did an excellent job passing everyone on the highway. Even though her habit of not trusting the rear view mirror, and actually looking over her shoulder every time she changed lanes did make me feel slightly uneasy for the first hour and fifty minutes. The sign for Balloon fiesta pointed towards exit 254, and the directions Molly had downloaded said exit 253 (the next one). We had a moment of uncertainty, but the lines of cars at the first exit made us vote in favor of Google directions. That ended up being the wiser of choices. We only crawled in a line of traffic for about 10 minutes. We were safely directed through the maze of blocked streets and parking isles by a swarm of, courteous yet firm-expressioned, law enforcement officers from a variety of agencies, most of which were mounted on golf carts, and were finally taxied to a parking spot by a volunteer parking attendant that flagged us with two flashlights as if we were driving a 747. The line for tickets wasn't too bad either.
When we walked out to the field, past the food booths and gift stands (I am never going to be the proud owner of a hat shaped like a hot air balloon. No matter how catchy the slogan might be), Molly and I looked at the endless ocean of people and the three Wells Fargo balloons at the far end and mumbled to each other, as if trying to convince ourselves- "hmm... this is nice...kinda". We walked around for a bit and found an area with a bit less of a crowed and started asking ourselves if we should have brought a Frisbee. There were balloons all around the field, but they were all spread on the ground and the crews were fiddling with them, but didn't seem to be in any haste to get them out of their two dimensional state on the soft, very horizontal bed of grass. This lasted for about half an hour, and just as I was about to offer we walk over to the chainsaw carving tent that was set up at the other end of the field as a side attraction, an over enthused announcer got on the speakers and said "Pilots, you are GO for cold inflation". Suddenly, from all around us came the combined sound of giant industrial fans and the OOhh and Ahh of the crowed. Starting slowly and slowly taking shapes, colorful sheets of nylon material were rising all around us. It started as wide, very moderately-rounded domes slowly gaining height and then they grew limbs and slowly filled the sky line. And it's happening all around you. That's when everyone pulled out their cameras and fired away. The good thing about taking pictures of hot air balloons, especially when they are so close ad all around you, is that very quickly you start pointing your camera up and the crowed is no longer an issue. No one is in your line of sight.
As cool as it was seeing this big inflated tents- these still were crippled creatures- held up by the crews and with their baskets fallen on their side. It wasn't until the speakers shot out "GO for hot inflation" that the balloons started reclaiming their glorious graceful floating ability. Giants of hot air and fabric of all shapes and variations of mainly once size- "big", were rising all around us as the sun was going out of service for the day. It took about twenty minutes for the skyline to fill up with air born giants. Nothing actually left the ground- they don't fly at night, but the balloons were all hovering over the endless crowd of people. I never thought anything could hide sow many people. They all looked like balloons (obviously), except for Darth Veda- Which really looked like the duke of darkness hovering over the crowd.

When it got dark the sky was occasionally lit by the count down burn. All the balloons firing their burners at the same time. Great fun.
After about an hour, they started deflating. A fireworks show was put on, but it did not posses the ability to hide the crowd. Lines and lines of the average consumer-type American fair-fairing families magically produced themselves in front of the food tents, to the sound of the air-force band that was brought in to set the tone for the after party. At that point my up-bringing caught up with me and I was ready to leave. Molly, on the other hand, wanted the experience to last to it's fullest and we joined the herd for nachos and a burger. Can't complain about the quality of the food, but that was hardly the highlight of the evening.
With the crowd, the two-hour drive, the 10$ for parking, 6$ entrance fee, 5$ burger, and the line getting in and out I can still easily say-
It's was great for the kid. This kid.

This week started with another unbelievable photo opportunity. Dale picked me up in the morning and I rode around with him for a few hours before he dropped me off at a trail head.
We are now at the midst of a 2 week break in hunting season. We just finished bow and muzzle loader seasons- those are sporting hunts with hard core dedicated hunters who drive from all around the country to spend a couple of weekends dressed up in camo early in the morning waiting for a bull elk to stroll by them so they can get a clear shot to the heart- cause you usually don't get a second shot with a bow or a muzzle loader. These guys tend to get drunk on whiskey in the evenings. The next hunt coming up is the all American favorite rifle season when all kind of characters will drive from all around the country to walk around the woods (not too far from their pickup) with a loaded rifle in one hand and a beer can in the other. Occasionally they will fire multiple shots into the thick of the woods because something that was bigger than a squirl moved there. Of course, since alcohol is involved, there is always the problem of "open container" so the forest dirt roads become one long stretch of small crushed aluminum Budweiser advertisements. Their new slogan should be: "Bud-light, trashing our forests the American way...".
Even though we are a quiet 2 week period between the seasons, there is still a need for hunting patrol. The Valles Caldera, that borders both park and forest, has it's own hunting seasons going on, and the hunters are walking around the forest, looking for good spots for when the hunt begins (You'd be amazed at how serious some of these guys get about the whole thing). Right now they should only be armed with binoculars, but they all have their arsenal in back window of their pickups and some of them get what is known as Elk fever- once they spot one of those trophy bulls- a red curtain falls in front of them and everything else goes out the window- hunting seasons, park boundaries, permits... they just grab the rifle and start firing away. All of this is to explain why, during a brake in the hunting season, I was waiting for dale to pick me up in the park parking lot at 6:20 am, literally the crack of dawn, with my week's supply stacked snug in my backpack. The first thing we did was drive along the highway to all the different pullouts that the hunters usually park in. We even drove out to the Caldera and checked out a couple of pullouts there, because they were easy to access the park from. This is when we saw this morning image. The morning rays shining onto the Caldera over the road that leads to the park.
With this beautiful sky we drove down one of the dirt roads for a bit, parked the car, and headed up Scooter peak. Dale had spent the better part of the day before in that area, because a surveyor that was working there had reported hearing shots. The obvious assumption was poaching- but neither Dale or Brian couldn't find anything. So the day after we headed up to see if we could spot any unusual bird activity. Poachers don't usually take the whole animal- especially if it's as big as an Elk. Even if they are hunting for meat they usually gut and carve the animal on the spot- leaving a lot of food for the birds, but in most cases these guys are trophy-hunting so they take the head and, maybe, the back strips and leave the rest behind. So no-matter who is doing the hunting, if you come around a day later, the birds have had enough time to gather around whatever leftovers there are, and you can either see the flock or hear the chatter, and that's what we were looking for. We ended up finding nothing, but it was a pretty nice hour to be up on scooter- sun rising and a chilly morning breeze.
After we got down, Dale drove me to the Dome TH. That's the closest TH to the cabin and I've used the trail that goes down from there a few time before (especially when the backpack I was carrying was more on the heavy side). This time, however, we picked a different route for me to drop down along. There used to be a trail that went down from that TH, through national forest land and connected to the park boundary right where Capulin canyon comes into the park. My cabin is in Capulin and it would just be a matter of hiking down along the canyon once I got to the boundary. That forest trail got badly damaged after two major fires (96', 2000'). Burned trees have fallen on it and some of the switchbacks had been washed away in the floods that followed the fires. So for the past 6-7 years, that trail has been abandoned. Last year the rangers did see forest service trail crews working on the trail, and a new sign was installed at the TH, but the work was never finished. Apparently inter-agency communications aren't working so well, because the guys at the park have not been able to get an answer from anyone in the forest regarding what exactly was the plan for this trail. So, in the mean-time, the Bandelier backcountry ranger (that's me) was sent down to see how far along they have come with clearing the trail, and what exactly is the condition of it, all the way down to the park boundary. It's a good idea to be able to tell hikers what to expect, and maybe even put a warning sign at the park boundary, if the trail is in really bad shape, for people headed out of the park. I was eager to check it out because if the trail was in good condition, IT would be the shortest way in and out of from the cabin. The trail was in pretty good condition all the way to the rim of the canyon. When I started down the switchbacks it was obvious that the trail crews have not come this far, but it was still just a matter of stepping over fallen trunks and pushing through overgrowth that needed to be cut back. The lower I dropped into the canyon, the worse it got, though. Parts of the trail have been washed away or totally covered by piles of fallen trees that had pushed one-another down. The challenge wasn't about walking the trail, it was about finding the trail. I've done off trail hiking in these canyons before, and wasn't worried about getting lost(you're in a canyon, headed down canyon...), but I was trying to avoid it for the sake of being able to report about the whole length of the trail. About three quarters of the way down I did make an interesting discovery.
I've told you about the phone lines that ran along the trees (See entry September 12 2007). You can still see the ceramic insulators nailed to trees along the canyon. Here, on the way down, I found the leftovers of a split in the line, and pieces of the copper wire. It's no big archaeological finding, but it was neat to come across. My little finding came with a loss. From that point on, I couldn't find the trail anymore. It's almost like it led to that point where the phone lines split- and that's it. So, I had to go back to the old bushwhacking for the rest of the way down. Once I got to the creek at the bottom of the canyon it was a 15 minute hike to the park boundary, where I met up with the park trail the leads to my cabin.

That night Gumas was supposed to come out to the cabin. He had asked me to help out with collecting data from erosion bridges on one of the mesas. His partner, Caroline, had hurt her knee and wasn't able to go on any long hikes anymore. I got the cabin at around 2pm and had some time to do my school work. I was going to wait for Gumas to start making dinner. I got all of my reading done, and even finished the questions at the end of the chapter and Gumas was a no-show. It was getting late and dusky at this point so put the water up and started cooking beans (that takes about 2 hour anyway), and still, no Gumas in sight. Right when I was about to get on the radio and call him to see what was going on I heard voices approaching and Gumas showed up. And he brought Joel along. And Joel brought a bottle of whiskey. That was a pleasant surprise. Apparently Caroline, the wounded partner, was supposed to drive them to the TH, and she was late. Very very late. They had no problems hiking down, it was just a difficulty getting started. Along side the bottle of whiskey they also brought tortellini and sauce, summer-sausage, yellow cheese and cream cheese and other bits and pieces of nutrition. It was easy for me to forgive their delay. I already had the beans going and between the hot dogs that i added to them, and the pasta, we had quite a pile of food. It was a hefty amount- but it stood no chance in the face of the three of us, and we each even had a can of "fruit cocktail" for desert. Between dinner and the card game that followed- the bottle of whiskey stood less chance than the food, and the only reason I still have the bottle standing in the cabin, with a thin layer of liquid in the bottom, is because Joel didn't want to have to hike back with it. I think this is a good place to tell you about an interesting, almost alarming, anatomical phenomena that I have noticed out here. I don't know if it's the thin air, or some ancient Indian spirit that drifts around on these mesas... but something is emptying the inside of my leg. Now, I know, most of you are sitting there right now trying to imagine how that is surgically possible, and some of you are just getting flashbacks from the last horror movie that you've have seen, but I mean it. I've developed a hollow leg. There is no other explanation to the amounts of food I've been able to consume- in one sitting or along a 24 hour period. This isn't hunger. Hunger can't keep up with this. It's just that whenever I stop whatever I'm doing (including if what I'm doing is eating a hefty meal) and take a moment to enjoy the scenery, or take a breath of fresh mountain air, the first thought that comes to mind is "hmm... I could eat right now". I could be washing the pot that was full of noddles just 20 minutes ago, the fry pan that housed 6 hot dogs and the bowl that now holds nothing but a few licked streaks and the scent of the pile beans that used to live in it, and a warm fuzzy feeling comes along- "If there was anymore, right now, I'd kill it too..." my body seems to be saying.
Judging by what we did to that poor pile of food, and the bottle of whiskey, and the canned fruit, I suspect that Joel and Gumas suffer from the same condition, though perhaps not to the same degree. I should ask them. There could be an important medical discovery here.

We were sitting outside and watching the stars when the rain came to signal us it was time to do the dishes, but considering that three people make a cabin pretty warm and cozy, we rolled into our cots and went to sleep very much on the content side.
The next morning we woke up, had an impressive breakfast (not as impressive as dinner, but enough to crowd the table), washed it down with coffee that was dark and thick enough to make a horse shoe float in it (this one isn't mine. I stole it from Joel) and set out. We were headed down Capulin, almost all the way to the river and then we were going to head up one of the mesas- where the erosion bridges were, along an old Indian trail. We had a long day ahead of us so I set a lively pace. The rain that had fallen the night before was hanging on the grass and leaves along the trail and by the time we made our first stop at Painted Cave, about 6 kilometers down the canyon, we were pretty wet from the knees down. (Thanks to the great treatment my shoes have been getting, my feet stayed dry- in case any of you were worried) The sun hadn't come up enough at that point to heat up the canyon so we made it a short shivering stop and pressed on.

Out of the three of us, Joel is the newest addition to the park, and he has done the least hiking in the backcountry. He really got a kick out of climbing the old Indian trail. You cant see it from a distance, and really, you are still climbing the same steep cliffy slope. It's just that most of the loose little rocks have been cleared out of the way and in some places you can still put your foot down on a ledge that was once a carved stair. It helps you get to the top of the mesa without tripping over loose rocks and scraping your hands. We had twelve sites to record on that mesa and four more sites across a steep dry canyon.
An erosion bridge is just two pegs stuck in the ground, leveled in height. We hiked in with a long level with ten holes along the length of it, in fixed intervals. The level is set between the two pegs and an aluminum arrow-pole is put through the holes, one at a time. Then, the distance from level to the ground is measured along the pole. As these measurements have been taken once a year for the past 15 years, you can get an idea of how much the soil between the two pegs has eroded over time. We also had to take soil samples at each site and record information like the slope and direction of the wash and the depth of the layer of soil. Between the three of us it didn't take much time to take the readings and write them down. The problem was the soil samples. You're all thinking of a test tube. So was I. Gumas pulled out large Ziploc bags and made Joel fill them up with about 2-3 pounds of dirt. One bag doesn't sound bad, but we had 16 sites in total. that's quite a bit of dirt. Since I wasn't hiking out with them that day, there was no point in me carrying the samples. I helped as much as I could by carrying the level and much of the water, but they were still heavier than I was and were going to get heavier before the day ended.
We had lunch when we finished the first mesa and crossed the canyon to the last four sites. This time there was no Indian trail to help us out so it was more of a roll down, and a carefull pathfinding job up. We took turns scouting for next steady spot to step on.
When all the measurements were taken and Gumas and Joel's packs were all loaded up with the dirt that was needed back in the labs we headed for the nearest trail and started our long hike up along the mesa. Not before Gumas made a new friend.

When we reached the junction where I was to leave them, we stopped to rest. Gumas and I engaged in a debate about bachelor recipes (hollow leg, remember?). Food that did not make friends or even associate with words like "aroma", "saute ", "marinade" or "simmer", but was more likely to be graded by phrases like- "quick", "tons of it", and the ultimate-"a drunk monkey could do it". Joel didn't contribute his educated opinion to our conversation. He was not happy about his load of dirt and his backpack was not fitted well. knowing he had about three hours still ahead of him, I'm sure didn't help.

It only took me about 45 minutes to make it back to the cabin and start working on dinner. It took another three hours from when my eyes started watering from chopping the first onion until I heard them on the radio reporting they were back at HQ. Looking at the leftover whiskey I had, I took a moment to think nice, fond thoughts about them both. The sky was totally clear that night, and a chill moved in. This was the first time it got really cold. The next morning, when I headed out, I could get away with wearing a short sleeve shirt because I was sweating up the steep trail to Turkey Springs, but I had to put my work gloves on because the dry chilled air was biting my fingertips. I had been out that way several times before, and I like that part of the park. This time I was trying to find a cliff with petroglifs that Dale had told me about. I got to Turkey Springs, went down the canyon, and up to the ruins of San Miguel Pueblo. Then I went down a small wash on the other side, that was supposed to end at a cliff over another canyon. The rock art was supposed to be on the side of that wash at that cliff, but I couldn't find anything. I kept on walking along that ledge and enjoyed the view- but still no rock art. I figured I was on the wrong ledge, so I took off my pack, tied a rope to it and climbed onto the ledge above me, pulling my pack up under me. After all that effort- no petroglifs. Then it was just the long hike home. A disappointing day for backcountry ranger Limon.

There had been two big fallen trees that I had had my eye on for quite some time blocking the trail at lower Capulin. They seemed too big for one man to tackle so I kept them for when someone else would be out at the cabin with me. I thought I'd have Gumas and Joel for another night- but they hiked out with their dirt filled packs. So for a grand finale for this stint I decided to take them on. I packed my long saw, an axe and a couple of plastic wedges and cleared my schedule for the day. I was prepared to spend the whole day out there chopping away, if that's what it took. It didn't.

It took a lot of work. I huffed and I puffed and my arms and back were already aching by the time I got done with the first one, but each cut took me about half an hour- and I had four. Two for each tree.
So at the end of it, when I got back to the cabin I had all of the afternoon to write down my home work assignment nice and neet and get it ready to be sent overseas. I got quite a bit done. Is the pen mightier than the axe after all?

I hiked out on monday. I only met one hiker on my way out and she was on a day hike. I got back to the visitor center and found it was packed with visitors and low on staff. Culombus day. I had no idea. I borrowed one of the abandoned park vehicles and went grocerie shopping and bought a whole chicken, a large aluminum pan and box of rock salt (Kosher salt). Any of you who know where this is going also know that I showed Gumas the undesputid all time champion of bachelor recepies- Chicken and Salt in the oven. Six people ate well that night, and licked their fingers. Sure, Gumas had salmon and potatos going too, but it was only the chicken that was torn to pieces and eaten as finger food without cutlury or plates. A hole chicken... Oh and this isn't a guy thing- two women were part of this band of savages.