From West by Northwest.org Voices of Spencer Creek Norm's Notebook: A Day Doing Lines By Norm Maxwell Oct 5, 2005 Just another day in the life of a government forest worker. Have been avoiding the dreaded office as I have a bunch of units to lay out not far from here and any time I lurk around the office in the morning, somebody wants me to do something. I had a wonderful day out in the woods ribboning units. A lot of units use creeks as boundaries, and roads too. Sometimes you have to use a compass to run a line up hill and down through the trees and brush. Property line is a pain if your contractors cut on a timber company's side of the line-- they won't be happy. Nobody loses any sleep if your troops pre-commercially thin some of their stuff even if you do "14 by" and they do "12 by" normally. BUT we are now doing stupid Non-Commercial Treatment (NCT) where the crews are going to girdle and leave standing trees that could be harvested and should be left on the stump for five years before commercial thinning. Weyrhauser Co. would not dig this nonsense in their stands (and who could blame them) so the ribboned lines must be dead on. Frequently when you ribbon a line through the woods with your pocket compass, you have old blazes and tin tags and surveyed aluminum posts and red ribbon to verify your bearing. No GPS. I am working in the old Oxbow fire where everything was burned in '65 and so there ain't no blazes or tin tags or anything. The trees are up to 20 inches in diameter and were all planted at the same time after the burnt timber was salvaged. When you cut timber, you have the lines surveyed first but not for NCT. I was not happy. I had to run a half-mile of line with absolutely no references. Like the deaf, dumb and blind kid, I had to play by sense of smell. If I do less than perfect work and Wey Co. timber gets cut, everybody gets to stand around and make wise comments about me not being able to find my ass in a dark room with both hands and a flashlight. At least I have a brass cap section corner to start from. So away I went with my handy dandy Silva (made in Finland) compass. I ribbon through the creek and then up, up and up a horrible knob. I see fragments of some bozo's old orange ribbon 20 feet from mine hanging on limbs and brush. It looks like he was trying to run the same line I am. Do I assume he is better than me? I don't even know for a fact that the orange stuff is supposed to be line. I ignore it and push on. Hold up my compass and box the needle south. Without budging the compass, I look up and fix my eye on a point on some fir limb or vine maple on my compass bearing. I struggle up the steep ground with my worn corks pushing dry dirt down the hill. Sometimes I have to tie ribbon off of line because there is nothing handy on line and the ribbon has to be close enough so that the crew won't charge through a hole and murder Wey Co.'s trees. I backsight on my line, remembering which flagging is off line and compensating for it. I reach the top of the knob, probably a vertical ascent of 400 feet. I look about right when I compare my position to the copy of the paper topo map I carry in my vest. These were made in the fifties and are usually pretty accurate. I start descending now. I don't see any more fragments of orange ribbon. The ground slopes gradually. I run out of ribbon and dig a couple more rolls of blue and tigerstripe out of back of my vest. I could be 500 feet off line and not know it. I run up and down a little ridge that crosses my line, looking for any sort of old survey evidence. I go at least 200 feet up and 200 down from my position. Nothing. No timber differentiation--nada. I continue my line resignedly. I see a glimpse of a road. It looks at about the right angle compared to the aerial photo I cut down and laminated and carry in an inner vest pocket. God knows. I get a couple more rolls of ribbon out of the big pockets on the side of my cammo pants. Back sight, fore sight, tie ribbon. The road gets closer. There is a quarter corner somewhere on the other side of the road. Despite its name, a quarter corner is half a mile from the section corner. I angle closer and closer to the road. I see something in the brush above the ditch line. It is an old red wooden post with battered tin tags on it that proclaim PROPERTY LINE. I am about 2 feet west of it. Somebody nailed a kay (loCAtion) tag on the front of the post with a rusty finishing nail showing where I am, confirming I am on the right line. I'll be dipped in dogdoo. Such accuracy isn't possible with a hand compass. My ribbon line may have weaved east and west of true line but you can't argue with the outcome. I mark the unit corner on the pavement with yellow paint and ribbon up some brush and then clump down the macadam in my worn out Whites. I can feel loose corks driving through the soles and into my feet. I get to my old Expedition and turn it on so I can read the time on the radio. 13:20. I whammo my cold lasagna and hoof it around the big yellow Wey Co. gate and up the overgrown dirt road to the section corner. This time I will head east. I know that the brass cap I started from is actually a closing corner so the true section corner will be about 600 feet up the hill. Same story. Back sight, fore sight, tie ribbon, move ahead. This hill isn't as steep. As I crest the top, I see a fresh pink ribbon dead ahead. Sure enough, somebody tied flagging above the cap. Giant fir bearing trees stand close by, north of line with melted BT tags and newer ones somebody nailed on after the fire. Their bark is still blackened. I press on downhill and come dead on a sixteenth corner where I turn south and ribbon a hundred yards to a gravel road. Oops. I look over a 30 foot rock face to the crushed rock. Damn. I am tired and my feet hurt and I don't want to play Mister Lizard down the cliff. I parallel the road for a while until I can get down with only a moderate jump and a scramble. Clump, clump, clump down the road I go in my worn out boots. I guzzle water at the truck and post a YOU ARE HERE sign before fleeing the scene to the seed orchard. Norm Copyright © 2005 by Norm Maxwell Norm Maxwell is a regular contributor to West By Northwest.org. Norm Maxwell received the 2004 Best of West By Northwest award for his article, The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King. Tens of thousands of readers have "voted" with their mouse by their selection of this story. Visit Norm Maxwell's other pieces about land use, firefighting and life in the country and more at West By Northwest.org. 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