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Thursday, September 11, 2014 5:32:00 PM
a mental health break. a story of a forest service summer hand in the 60's who reminds us how it was, then.
WILDERNESS PATROL
»
Merv, Adios and the Mare
A 19-year-old Merv Coleman sits astride his wayward horse, Adios, trailing his pack horse known simply as the Mare. The shot was taken at Hawks Rest Patrol Cabin with the upper Yellowstone River Valley in background. Fox Park, where Coleman was stationed, is a 13 mile ride to the west of Hawks Rest on the Falcon Creek Trail and over the Continental Divide.
8 hours ago • By Brett French
0
On only his second day as a wilderness patrolman, Merv Coleman’s horse broke its hobble and ran away.
That may have been why the horse was named Adios.
It was 1966. Coleman was only 19 years old, and he was stationed 30 miles deep in the Teton Wilderness.
“I had no fear,” Coleman said. “Naive-ness is bliss sometimes.”
Unable to raise his co-workers at the Blackrock Ranger Station on his two-way radio, Coleman took a ride on his remaining horse to see if he could find Adios. According to his journal he saw two moose, a duck and its duckling, a deer, a chipmunk and stirred up lots of mosquitoes while trying to fish in the trickle that is the headwaters of the Snake River, but no Adios. So he went back to his Fox Park Patrol Cabin and went to bed.
Dream job
Now 68, Coleman began thinking about his stint as a wilderness patrolman as the anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act rolled around. That landmark legislation was signed on Sept. 3, 1964. Fifty years later, he recalled his time spent in the Teton Wilderness as a Colorado State University student working for the Forest Service.
It was a dream summer job that Coleman, who now makes his living as a photographer in Red Lodge, lucked into when the other patrolman had quit. Coleman originally planned to spend that summer at school, but after all of his friends left to work he asked his adviser if there were any jobs available.
“He asked if I could ride a horse,” Coleman said. “I wasn’t really a cowboy but I grew up on a farm in Nebraska and we had horses. So pretty soon I was off to the Tetons to be a wilderness patrolman.”
On June 20, 1966, he arrived at the Blackrock Ranger Station, just outside of Moran, Wyo. That summer, he would be one of three wilderness patrolmen.
“When I first rode up my eyes were big and stayed that way all summer,” Coleman said.
Big and wild
More than 560,000 acres of the Teton Wilderness is located in the Buffalo Ranger District, bordering the southern end of Yellowstone National Park. The district is one of the first formed in one of the first national forests created in 1908.
Wilderness patrol cabins were built throughout the vast mountainous region beginning in the 1920s. They were meant to be about a day’s horseback ride apart and provide shelter, emergency medical supplies, two-way radios and fire gear for the wilderness rangers. Two of the original four cabins were destroyed by fire or neglect. Hawks Rest cabin was torn up by a grizzly bear in the late 1940s and was
rebuilt in 1950. Fox Park was the last to be built in 1958.
To Coleman, arriving eight years later, the two-room Fox Park cabin looked brand new on the inside. On the outside heavy window shutters and an outer door were scoured with grizzly bear claw marks.
“They told me it’s really a secure cabin, it’s mouse-proof,” Coleman recalled. “I told them, ‘It really is a secure cabin, the mice can’t get out.’”
Where’s Adios?
On the third day of his wilderness employment and still shy one horse, Coleman decided he’d better ride the 14 miles to the next closest cabin, at Hawks Rest, to use the two-way radio to check in. He was required to radio the station every day to receive orders, get updates on work or outfitter camps he was supposed to check, and also as a safety measure so the station would know he was still alive.
After chopping through about a mile of downed timber from a fire, Coleman arrived at the Yellowstone River. The water was high and cold, but the trail led up to the river. So he eased his mare into the “ripping” water and hung on as it swam across. Later, he would learn there was a bridge just upstream.
Adios was returned to him a few days later. The horse had ambled all the way north to Heart Lake where an outfitter found him. For the rest of the summer, Adios had chain hobbles to hold him in place.
Trip back
In 2003, Coleman returned to the area with a friend, again riding horses to the Fox Park Patrol Cabin. The cabin looked much the same, but the forest around the cabin had changed dramatically, he said.
“In 1936 a fire had burned and there were still a lot of trees falling when I was working,” Coleman said. “But in 2003 it was almost switched around from the ’88 fires. The grown-up forest had now burned, it almost took the cabin. And the areas that were burned when I was there were now mature forest. It had flip-flopped.”
Although he was in the heart of grizzly and black bear country in 1966 and 2003, Coleman said he never saw a bear. In 1966, his ranger said he could take a rifle in with him for security from bears if he wanted, but he wouldn’t let him take a handgun.
“He said the chances of me shooting myself were greater than protecting myself from a bear,” Coleman said.
Cabin chores and grub
To have a cabin in the wilderness and get paid for it may have been the best job Coleman has ever had. In addition to clearing trail, one of his duties was to explore the area and get familiar with the country. Not a bad way to spend a summer.
His diet may have suffered the most. He ate a lot of macaroni and cheese and Spam, although he also baked a chocolate cake and made bread. He said he hasn’t baked since then. A nearby stream provided him with an endless supply of cold, clear water, which back then no one filtered. And when he wasn’t doing other chores there was always wood to chop for the stove.
“A good share of the job was to increase the supply of firewood,” he said.
He recalled that for one two-week period during that summer, he never saw another soul. But he also met some interesting individuals, including a Wilderness Society group and a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who was mapping the region to figure out the best way to map the moon.
Although he was invited back to work the following summer, he had plans to get married, so he declined. He eventually graduated from CSU with a degree in range biology, but then was drafted and joined the Marines where he became a “backseat driver in an F-4 Phantom” II long-range fighter jet. The jet was capable of traveling at about 580 mph – about as far as he could get from the peacefulness, serenity and remoteness of the Teton Wilderness where his main means of transportation was a horse.
Although memories from that great summer job in 1966 are fuzzy, and his journal notes are fairly matter of fact, Coleman still cherishes his young summer in the wilds.
“It was just a tremendous experience,” he said. “I think I really appreciated it.
“It was kind of like when I floated the Grand Canyon, spending 18 days on the river. It was a special trip, but it took me a while to realize how special it was. I think my wilderness trip was special to begin with.”
http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/wilderness-anniversary-sparks-photographer-s-memories-of-summer-job/article_5c67031a-8555-5452-ba5b-f8d71a4363ed.html#ixzz3D2pHXqTq
WILDERNESS PATROL
»
Merv, Adios and the Mare
A 19-year-old Merv Coleman sits astride his wayward horse, Adios, trailing his pack horse known simply as the Mare. The shot was taken at Hawks Rest Patrol Cabin with the upper Yellowstone River Valley in background. Fox Park, where Coleman was stationed, is a 13 mile ride to the west of Hawks Rest on the Falcon Creek Trail and over the Continental Divide.
8 hours ago • By Brett French
0
On only his second day as a wilderness patrolman, Merv Coleman’s horse broke its hobble and ran away.
That may have been why the horse was named Adios.
It was 1966. Coleman was only 19 years old, and he was stationed 30 miles deep in the Teton Wilderness.
“I had no fear,” Coleman said. “Naive-ness is bliss sometimes.”
Unable to raise his co-workers at the Blackrock Ranger Station on his two-way radio, Coleman took a ride on his remaining horse to see if he could find Adios. According to his journal he saw two moose, a duck and its duckling, a deer, a chipmunk and stirred up lots of mosquitoes while trying to fish in the trickle that is the headwaters of the Snake River, but no Adios. So he went back to his Fox Park Patrol Cabin and went to bed.
Dream job
Now 68, Coleman began thinking about his stint as a wilderness patrolman as the anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act rolled around. That landmark legislation was signed on Sept. 3, 1964. Fifty years later, he recalled his time spent in the Teton Wilderness as a Colorado State University student working for the Forest Service.
It was a dream summer job that Coleman, who now makes his living as a photographer in Red Lodge, lucked into when the other patrolman had quit. Coleman originally planned to spend that summer at school, but after all of his friends left to work he asked his adviser if there were any jobs available.
“He asked if I could ride a horse,” Coleman said. “I wasn’t really a cowboy but I grew up on a farm in Nebraska and we had horses. So pretty soon I was off to the Tetons to be a wilderness patrolman.”
On June 20, 1966, he arrived at the Blackrock Ranger Station, just outside of Moran, Wyo. That summer, he would be one of three wilderness patrolmen.
“When I first rode up my eyes were big and stayed that way all summer,” Coleman said.
Big and wild
More than 560,000 acres of the Teton Wilderness is located in the Buffalo Ranger District, bordering the southern end of Yellowstone National Park. The district is one of the first formed in one of the first national forests created in 1908.
Wilderness patrol cabins were built throughout the vast mountainous region beginning in the 1920s. They were meant to be about a day’s horseback ride apart and provide shelter, emergency medical supplies, two-way radios and fire gear for the wilderness rangers. Two of the original four cabins were destroyed by fire or neglect. Hawks Rest cabin was torn up by a grizzly bear in the late 1940s and was
rebuilt in 1950. Fox Park was the last to be built in 1958.
To Coleman, arriving eight years later, the two-room Fox Park cabin looked brand new on the inside. On the outside heavy window shutters and an outer door were scoured with grizzly bear claw marks.
“They told me it’s really a secure cabin, it’s mouse-proof,” Coleman recalled. “I told them, ‘It really is a secure cabin, the mice can’t get out.’”
Where’s Adios?
On the third day of his wilderness employment and still shy one horse, Coleman decided he’d better ride the 14 miles to the next closest cabin, at Hawks Rest, to use the two-way radio to check in. He was required to radio the station every day to receive orders, get updates on work or outfitter camps he was supposed to check, and also as a safety measure so the station would know he was still alive.
After chopping through about a mile of downed timber from a fire, Coleman arrived at the Yellowstone River. The water was high and cold, but the trail led up to the river. So he eased his mare into the “ripping” water and hung on as it swam across. Later, he would learn there was a bridge just upstream.
Adios was returned to him a few days later. The horse had ambled all the way north to Heart Lake where an outfitter found him. For the rest of the summer, Adios had chain hobbles to hold him in place.
Trip back
In 2003, Coleman returned to the area with a friend, again riding horses to the Fox Park Patrol Cabin. The cabin looked much the same, but the forest around the cabin had changed dramatically, he said.
“In 1936 a fire had burned and there were still a lot of trees falling when I was working,” Coleman said. “But in 2003 it was almost switched around from the ’88 fires. The grown-up forest had now burned, it almost took the cabin. And the areas that were burned when I was there were now mature forest. It had flip-flopped.”
Although he was in the heart of grizzly and black bear country in 1966 and 2003, Coleman said he never saw a bear. In 1966, his ranger said he could take a rifle in with him for security from bears if he wanted, but he wouldn’t let him take a handgun.
“He said the chances of me shooting myself were greater than protecting myself from a bear,” Coleman said.
Cabin chores and grub
To have a cabin in the wilderness and get paid for it may have been the best job Coleman has ever had. In addition to clearing trail, one of his duties was to explore the area and get familiar with the country. Not a bad way to spend a summer.
His diet may have suffered the most. He ate a lot of macaroni and cheese and Spam, although he also baked a chocolate cake and made bread. He said he hasn’t baked since then. A nearby stream provided him with an endless supply of cold, clear water, which back then no one filtered. And when he wasn’t doing other chores there was always wood to chop for the stove.
“A good share of the job was to increase the supply of firewood,” he said.
He recalled that for one two-week period during that summer, he never saw another soul. But he also met some interesting individuals, including a Wilderness Society group and a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who was mapping the region to figure out the best way to map the moon.
Although he was invited back to work the following summer, he had plans to get married, so he declined. He eventually graduated from CSU with a degree in range biology, but then was drafted and joined the Marines where he became a “backseat driver in an F-4 Phantom” II long-range fighter jet. The jet was capable of traveling at about 580 mph – about as far as he could get from the peacefulness, serenity and remoteness of the Teton Wilderness where his main means of transportation was a horse.
Although memories from that great summer job in 1966 are fuzzy, and his journal notes are fairly matter of fact, Coleman still cherishes his young summer in the wilds.
“It was just a tremendous experience,” he said. “I think I really appreciated it.
“It was kind of like when I floated the Grand Canyon, spending 18 days on the river. It was a special trip, but it took me a while to realize how special it was. I think my wilderness trip was special to begin with.”
http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/wilderness-anniversary-sparks-photographer-s-memories-of-summer-job/article_5c67031a-8555-5452-ba5b-f8d71a4363ed.html#ixzz3D2pHXqTq
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