Seven Times Twenty Makes One Hundred Forty

The girls came along for yesterday's firewood run. I told them to wait in the truck while I felled a couple of trees. The first, a 12-inch blue spruce, went as planned. The second, a 12-inch cottonwood, was hollow in the middle and broke off while I cut it, falling directly into the middle of the creek. So, instead of two nice trees to buck and load, I had just one, . . ., and an old top that someone had left, and a dead oak stem, and a broken juniper, and on and on. The girls started loading the truck, but it was one of those days where we were picking and plucking, one six inch stick at a time. It was going to take us all day to fill the truck.

About that time, I decided to take a whack at the butt end of an old Douglas fir that someone had felled and left laying on the hillside above the truck. It was 21 inches in diameter, nine or ten feet long, and wedged between some boulders. I could see why they had left it. Because my saw has a 16 inch bar, I had to cut half of it from one side, and then go around and cut the other half from the other side. I got one round off without hitting a rock, and Valerie rolled it down to the truck. I almost quit there, but decided to try the other end. Fortunately, it broke off before I got to the bottom, so I didn't have to risk hitting a rock on that one. At that point, the log was small enough—six or seven feet—that I could pick up one end and flip it over. I only strained three muscles doing it, and it put the log out into the open, away from the boulders. I was able to make four more cuts, rolling the log to avoid cutting all the way to the ground, and voila, we had seven rounds to put on the truck. It was all I could do to lift each one, but when I was done the truck was FULL. It had turned out to be a good morning after all.

When we got home, I put one of those rounds on my chopping block. I split the whole thing just to see what it would yield. I got 20 pieces of firewood out of one round. I didn't split all seven rounds, but, by my math, that would make 140 chunks of firewood. Each morning when I get up, I burn four or five chunks of wood to warm the house before the girls get out of bed. Without complicating this post by including too many lengthy calculations, I would say that our seven disks of 21 inch Doug fir will give us about one month of warm mornings.

Labyrinth Canyon

Whenever we are floating, with our cell phones and car keys, overtaken by parties of yuppies with the latest in high tech gear, I can't help but think about JWP. He launched from Green River, Wyoming in 1869 with nothing but the shirt on his back and no hope of help from AirMed. By the time he reached the mouth of the Virgin River, he had been given up for dead. He had been on the river for months and had not tasted a single burger from Ray's Tavern or ridden for a mile in a Subaru. Yet, despite the seeming hardship, he did it all again in 1871.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and do the trip the way he did it, but I have to admit that when the Chev started on Sunday morning and hauled us two thousand feet to the top of Horsethief Canyon, I was glad we didn't have to walk. I guess I'm as soft as anyone. In fact, it was luxury the whole way. We had brats on the breach near Dellenbaugh's Butte, curry across the river from June's Bottom, ravioli at Spring Canyon Point, and home-made chili at Cottonwood Bottom.

And the weather . . . sparkling from start to finish. Which is not how Major Powell and the boys found it in 1871. For them, it was cold and wet. They strung tarps upon oars and built bonfires to warm up. But, really, I need to let Dellenbaugh tell the story of Labyrinth Canyon. He does it better than I ever could, and gives you a feel for it that is unsurpassed.

"No sooner had I arrived at the camp than the sky which was leaden and low began to drop its burden upon us. Packing up could not be done till the rain slackened, and we sheltered ourselves as well as we could. As we waited a deep roaring sound from not far off presently fell on our ears and we were puzzled to explain it till an examination showed a recently dry gulch filled with a muddy torrent which leaped the low cliff into the river, a sullen cascade. The San Rafael, too, was a booming flood. We packed the boats as soon as we could and ran down about two miles and a half to where the first boat was. Cliffs bordered the river again, 50 to 100 feet high, then 200 or 300, and we saw we were in the beginning of the next canyon called from its winding course, Labyrinth. Over these straight walls hundreds of beautiful cascades born of the rain were plunging into the river. They were of all sizes, all heights, and almost all colours, chocolate, amber, and red predominating. The rocky walls, mainly of a low purplish-red tint, were cut into by the river till the outside curves of the bends were perpendicular and sometimes slightly more than perpendicular, so that some of the cascades fell clear without a break. The acres of bare rock composing the surface of the land on both sides collected the rain as does the roof of a house, and the rills and rivulets rapidly uniting soon formed veritable floods of considerable proportions seeking the bosom of the river. This seemed the most fantastic region we had yet encountered. Buttes, pinnacles, turrets, spires, castles, gulches, alcoves, canyons and canyons, all hewn, 'as the years of eternity roll' out of the verdureless labyrinth of solid rock, made us feel more than ever a sense of intruding into a forbidden realm, and having permanently parted from the world we formerly knew."

Click here for pictures.

The Demise of Highway 14

When I posted on Friday, October 7, I noted that southern Utah had received its first snowfall of the season. What I didn't mention is that it was a major winter storm with lots of moisture. Well, sometime during that night, State Highway 14 over Cedar Mountain was wiped out by a landslide. This is a very narrow part of the roadway going up the canyon where there has been evidence of slumping and sloughing before. In this picture, the highway enters at the bottom right corner, and exits towards the upper left in the shadow of the cliff. The big blob that fills the middle of the picture is earth and forest and mountain. It has relocated itself to where the highway used to be.

As you might have guessed, State Highway 14 is currently closed. This is what the Utah Department of Transportation has to say about it: "Employees are working to address safety concerns and assess repair options." Um. Is that bureaucratese for "we-got-no-freaking-clue?" I'm no road engineer, so perhaps I am over-reacting, but when an entire mountain-side pushes half a mile of highway two hundred feet down the slope and into the river, is repair an option?

Identifying the Blues

The Utah State Tree is the blue spruce (Picea pungens). As a result, you'd think that it would be common within Utah and easy to identify. Well, I'm not sure. In southern Utah, hundreds of thousands of acres are composed of Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) only, not a blue spruce to be found. For that reason, whenever I see a spruce tree out of the corner of my eye, I assume that it is an Engelmann. That can, of course, lead to some acute embarrassment because sometimes I'm wrong. So, here is the question: How can you tell, with a passing glance, whether your spruces are blue or Engelmannii? If I have time to examine the cones, I think I can get it right, but how about during a drive-by? Any tips? (Hint: In this picture, the blue spruce cone is on top, the Engelmann spruce cone is on the bottom.)

First Snow

Working at 9400 feet in the foothills of Colorado, I wasn't surprised to be snowed on yesterday. It was, however, a bit of a shock to hear that the girls were shoveling snow at The Homestead. OK, maybe not shoveling, but they got snow in southern Utah, too. When I left there a few days ago it was still topping out in the low 80s, so it's been quite a turn around. While I'm glad it is cooler, I'd like the snow to wait until I have all my firewood in.

View from the Office

This week the office view is of Pike's Peak. We're working along the Rampart Road just north of Chipita Park. We're supposed to be planning group selections for a mix of ponderosa pine, limber pine, Douglas fir, and aspen. This would, on the other hand, be a good place for slashing and burning. The stands are still relatively open, and a moderate fire would set back the shade tolerant advanced regeneration (Douglas fir and some Engelmann spruce) while preserving the legacy pines and stimulating aspen sprouting. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find a window for smoking 1,000 acres within view of 600,000 people, so broadcast burning may not be a realistic option. That leaves group selection. Oh well, it beats a week sitting at the desk.