Klamath River, CA
Elevation: 4,090ft.

One by one the team started to arrive. It was Tuesday night and a somber feeling seemed to float around the stuffy cabin. Packing away clothes and food everyone already seemed tired and injured. My back was aching, my knees were shot and I already missed my warm bed. None of us were ready for Spike 4. Because of the increasing heat wave we were assigned to high elevation fires in southern Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest not too far from Cave Junction, Selma and Grants Pass. Tossing our dirt and sap covered packs into the trucks we assumed our familiar places, powered on the GPSs and gunned it north.

We stopped in Yreka for gas, a printer and a few provisions and headed west on 96. Turning onto an old gravel road we climbed northwards. As we climbed and climbed the dry chaparral mountains gave way to beautiful meadows and vistas unlike anything we had ever seen before. The temperature rose even as the air thinned and we all already began to grow weary from the heat. The road turned to dirt and we followed the ridge of a great valley. Turning out of the forest we came face to face with alpine meadows and mountain tops the likes that haven’t been seen since the Third Age.

I couldn’t believe our luck. With my hand stretched out the window I embraced the warm, sweet scented breeze and really believed Alan had decided to treat us this week. The campsite we planned to stay at was full so we drove further towards our first plot and set up shop in a mining claim campsite surrounded by posted signs that were alarmingly clear that this was a protected area. Strapping on our packs we began our hike. We would tackle the plot as a 6 person team because of time constraints and had chosen a plot that Alan had placed off of a hikeable road. There was no road. It took us almost 2 hours to get to the site because we had to bushwack up a dried out blowdown. Gone were the meadows and flowing hills and gone was much of the energy I had left. By early evening we had reached the polygon.

“Gods help us, for we are lost”. We didn’t get the plot set up until 1600 hours and by that point we were out of energy and I was running low on water. Plowing through the protocols we gassed it with all we had. The sun was no joke even at our higher elevation. I found myself parched yet constantly sweating. The air was thick and heavy and the ground was littered in blown down snags. We made it back to camp with little light left. Bathing in the nearby creek we gathered hungrily around the stove for Lily’s mac and cheese like moths to funeral pyre. It was Day 1.

We awoke with the sun and birds. Something that books make sound amazing but in reality it’s a pain in the ass. It was Day 2 and our last plot in the Quartz Creek Fire. Our hopes weren’t high which made getting ready and gearing up for the day much more bearable.

I suppose I should reiterate what it is exactly that we do. We are a 6 person field crew collecting data for a project studying the effect of climate change on conifer regeneration after high-severity wildfire burns. We are sent to old burn sites of various ages and aridity and collect data on the types of shrubs and trees present. This is the only field season that the grant is able to pay for so it’s important that we get ALL of the projected plots before our contracts run out. Which means no breaks. Packing up our samples we hiked back down to the trucks and headed towards Selma, OR and the famous Biscuit Fire.

It was July 2nd and we were getting dangerously close to the holiday. Camps were getting full for the weekend and people were getting rowdy. The sounds of drunken screams, loud music and barking dogs echoing off the valley walls would be a part of our nights for the next 3 days. Waking up to the sounds of birds and cell phone alarms I peeled back my sticky sleeping bag liner. We weren’t able to make it to a higher elevation that night and had to try to sleep though noise and through a 80º night. The time was 0600 hours.

The Biscuit Fire burned for 5 months straight. Started by dry lightening on July 12, 2002 it burned a total of 500,000 acres of southern Oregon and northern California. You could see the name thing from space. It was a fire so large and long burning that it provided the canvas for a lot of ecological research down the road. It was a fire that rang a tone in the local ecology community akin to 9/11 (but not as tragic), everyone knew what they were doing when the Biscuit Fire started. It was a fire so big that we would spend the rest of the spike collecting data from plots within it.

The next day we had a city break. We returned to Cave Junction to rendezvous with Dunbar Carpenter, a personal friend of Jonathan Thompson (our PI) who was going to volunteer with us the rest of the spike. On the way in we stopped by Dairy Queen for much needed Blizzards. I don’t think I had ever been so happy to see a Dairy Queen in my life. Or people and roads and buildings and AC for that matter. Waiting for the Blizzard, Charles and I filled our nalgenes with water form the soda fountain machine and its sheer coldness gave us headaches but god damn were we happy. I ran to the head before leaving for the ranger station and came face to face with my reflection. I hadn’t seen myself for 3 days and I already looked insane.

Having Dunbar on the team was a breath of fresh air. He wasn’t the old, crusty, bitter old forester we thought we was going to be instead he was a cheerful, light-hearted PhD who loved to climb, wore a straw hat and never had anything negative to say. I gotta admit he was the new face and the positive push we needed.

Day 4 came. To birds again. But this time it came to us after a sleepless night. Drunken townies blasted music and shot fireworks until 0200 at least and like clockwork the sun comes out and the birds start singing at 0500. It took a lot to get into the truck that day. Clothes still soaked and sour from 3 sweaty days. My favorite boots had started losing chunks of their soles to the rugged terrain and the right boot had its side blown out from all the skirting we did on these steep slopes and without the side support it felt like a worn out clown shoe. My face and lips were burnt and my eyes were weary from staring at a bright white data sheet all day and the poison oak was starting to set in. Looking out over the farm fields on the way to the day’s plot I began to think about Laurie again and things never seemed so far away.

Hiking into the plot we were surprised at how open it was. All around us were the stumps of cleared trees - evidence of the severe logging that happened after the fire. In the distance we could see where our polygon lie and it didn’t look much worse. The slope was steep and the ground was sheer but our hope rose with each step.

Getting to the plot we couldn’t believe our luck! The shrubs stood no more than 2 meters and there was no poison oak in sight! “Alan akbar!” A praise to our wrathful god we would start to use more as the spike continued.

But a wrathful god he is. Though that night was filled with relief, laughter and our neighbor’s fireworks it would be first and last of easy days for me. From Day 5 till the end it was hell days. Situated at Josephine Campground we set up shop for the last time. It was from here that we would tackle the next half of the spike. It was here that good food, good music and good laughter was had. It was here that our spirits recovered each night and it was here that I realized that despite all the pain and abject suffering I was feeling at these plots I was in the mountains working with earth every day and sleeping under its stars at night. I was out here with the best crew anyone could have the honor of working with and damn it it’s better than 1,000 good days in an office.

But what good would a journey of tests and beauty and loss be without a hard last day? Climbing into our trusty F250 I assumed the navigator’s seat and grabbed the 1996 forest service map, the only map we had that covered the township ranges of our plots. The GPS flashed to life and off we were for BIS-12. Following Alan’s instructions (Alan akbar!) we kept on a forest road until it merged with a smaller one that would put us on a ridge above our plot. It should be a reasonably pleasant hike down. And then the road ended.

Classic Alan. Gearing up we prepared for the little-over-a-kilometer hike down. Looking around us we could see down into the valley into Selma and, as pointed out by Matt, could just make out the Siskiyou Field Institute. Looking at the sloping hills and low shrubs around us I had high hopes for the plot. But not until mid-day would we learn that we would all leave pieces of our souls in that plot.

As we descended lower and lower the amount of Tan Oak and hidden snags began to increase. It became difficult to walk and soon we had to grab and pull ourselves through the terrain any way we could. Unfortunately the dominant tree was Tan Oak (Lithocarpus densiflorus). The powder from the Tan Oaks became too much. We all hated Tan Oak. It was just a part of the vegetation that grew in this area but never before had we been in such a dense forest of it. It seemed to be the dominant tree and its fiberglass-like powder seemed to fill the air.

Descending into our plot it only got worse. Alan (Alan akbar!) had managed to find a polygon void of the small shrubs of the surrounding area and was instead nearly 75% filled with ripe, powdery Tan Oak.

For the most part we had all stopped wearing our bandanas. 1 because of the intense heat and the need to breathe and 2 because the amount of Tan Oak in our plots were usually a bearable amount. Wrapping my handkerchief around my face I loaded up on data sheets and water and tackled the plot like a silverback in a fiberglass factory.

Wiping the dust and sweat off of my face I could feel the burning in my throat and eyes. It was like asbestos met fiberglass met pollen met pepper spray. It was bad shit. Looking over at Matt and Kim I saw Matt dead-eyed staring into the plot.

“Do you think we’re gonna die in here?”

No Matthew. We will die but not today.

That night we ate like kings. I cooked up my famous couscous and curry (with 3 vegetables this time and tomatoes on the side) and Kim busted out red wine she had been saving. I don’t think a pot of curry had ever been drained so quickly. As the sun began to set a surreal orange overtook the campsite. It got suddenly brighter until it got so absurdly bright it was like the day had restarted. Matt called it Alpenglow. It was my first one and no picture I took could do it justice. It was just one of those moments that one had to hold on to. And then let go.

Until next time my friends.

Chris