Dirt Work

by Christine Byl

  As added irony, the stock that enabled our work also destroyed it, the impact of a mule hoof exponentially worse than a hiker’s boot. For their unmatched capacity to damage tread, horses and mules have earned the description “four shovels and a stomach,” and we joked that if it weren’t for the mules that carried us to our job, we’d have no work. Still, the thought of banning stock from western trails developed by their passage is sacrilege. There’s a whole culture in the handling of these animals, and the use of them for travel, that few want to see die out.

  Packers may come on strong, but most of them are softies. In Slim’s case, they’d hired a gaddam girl, and he got over it. Despite the gnarled anxiety in my guts while driving to the barn, despite the fact that no one could make me feel like more of an idiot than Slim, I wouldn’t have sacrificed the packers for anything. Ours is a wonderful fucking symbiosis.

  CHAINSAW

  Mechanics The modern chainsaw has an air-cooled two-stroke engine. Fins on the flywheel circulate air, eliminating the heavy radiator system and coolant flush of a four-stroke. A two-stroke engine’s piston makes twice as many power strokes and generates double the horsepower of a four-stroke with comparable displacement. It also spews twice the fumes and noise. A chainsaw with a four-stroke engine would be far quieter, with fewer emissions, but way too big to carry. Such are the physics of compromise.

  Inventor Andreas Stihl, the German engineer who patented the first modern chainsaw, devised his idea while working as a shill for a German sawmill. On sales calls, he encountered loggers in the Black Forest felling and bucking trees with crosscuts; this prompted his design for an electric prototype in 1929 for what would become the first gasoline-powered saw in 1954, both produced by Stihl’s eponymous company. At first, loggers hated the newfangled saw and the men who hawked it, fearing their jobs would become casualties of the mechanized age. But the saw got lighter, faster, and more powerful, and these days, it’s hard to find a sawyer who doesn’t wax a little worshipful for Andreas, or a forest that hasn’t felt the tooth of his innovation.

  Science Combustion requires three components: air, fuel, and spark. Air and fuel pass through filters to get to the engine’s combustion chamber, venturi and carburetor doing their part on the way. Spark comes from the electrical system—ignition switch, wires, pull cord, and the mysterious magneto, a tiny current generator that fires the spark plug. The three basics make a saw run. A clogged filter, improperly gapped spark plug, bad fuel mix, or a loose wire and—nothing. Tick off the possibilities—air, fuel, spark: how troubleshooting begins.

  Teeth All saws, from the oldest one-man pull saw to the latest-model chainsaw, are united by one characteristic: staggered teeth with a cutting edge that cleaves the wood’s grain, and rakers to guide the bite. The origin of the motion has moved from biceps to sprocket and the configuration of the teeth has changed, but the cut is the same—wood removed, chips created, a severing.

  Repairs Carry a saw kit any time you hit the trail. Inside a saw kit, find a minimum of: one combination tool (a screwdriver-wrench, called a “scrench”), an extra spark plug, one round file, one flat file, two bar nuts, old toothbrush, carburetor screwdriver, sharp chain, clean air filter, ear plugs. For hitches, include: sprocket, bearing grease, extra pull cord, fuel filter, e-clip, star wrench. For dropping trees: wedges in a few sizes, hard hat, falling axe.

  Loyalty There’s an argument in woodswork: Husqvarna vs. Stihl, the two most highly regarded professional saws. Like Ford vs. Chevy, the defenders and detractors of each are as strident as politicos or sports fans. Really, they’re both good saws, and it mostly comes down to what you’re familiar with. If your dad drove a Chevy, chances are you will, too. I learned to cut on a Stihl, so it’s my default. Stihl-heads say proudly, “All these years and she’s Stihl running!” But older Stihls without a decompression button are notoriously hard to start. If a Husky fan comes upon you reefing on the pull cord, he’ll scoff, “Stihl yarding on that thing, huh?”

  Chapter 3. Middle Fork: Forest

  (How the woods become a home)

  The Middle Fork of the Flathead River flows east to west, tracing the southern edge of the park and cradling bears, martens, hikers, and trail crews in its mostly unbridged grasp. With Glacier to the north and the Bob Marshall Wilderness to the south, the river splits the region up the middle, a child’s crayoned line across the map. The Middle Fork converges with the North Fork downstream near the town of West Glacier to form the Flathead proper, the South Fork flowing out of the Bob to join up a little ways west in the town of Hungry Horse. The Flathead River routes through Flathead Lake, and makes its way, via the Columbia, to the sea.

  Like North Fork, the Middle Fork district in the park takes its name from the river, which is fed by creeks that trickle south off the divide. The Middle Fork is home to rapids that rafters love; big, shallow pools where cutthroat trout linger; and eddies meant for summer basking. The creeks bear with them the distant mountains’ argillite, carried to the river bottom, where it is hewn to bright cobbles by the current.

  To access most trails in the Middle Fork, you have to ford the river. There are few bridges in the district, managed as wilderness, and the river separates the road from the trails. You can avoid a crossing by starting at the bridge on the western end of the Boundary Trail in West Glacier, or twenty-five miles upstream at the Walton ranger station, but trail crews can’t afford the time to begin a Middle Fork hitch with a ten-mile hike just to access the trail we’ll be working. We ford the river.

  When you step into the current, wild pulls against your legs, the road, only yards away, as invisible as morning is from lunch. Far from the major tourist hubs, the trails in the Middle Fork are quiet, the sounds of breath and footsteps amplified. Day-hiking potential is limited. The first stretch of each drainage is heavily forested, with few big vistas until you reach the high passes or small lakes 12 to 18 miles in. The average hiker usually goes elsewhere, where the bears are easier to spot and views give more bang for the buck. If Sperry and Granite are the pretty extroverts twirling in the middle of the action, the Middle Fork is the wallflower, subtle but lovely upon close inspection. If you put in the miles, suck it up through bad bugs, boggy tread, and overgrowth, the Middle Fork will offer up the secret heart of the park, a pulse beneath your feet. The tourists who throng the road corridor don’t plow through brush, or dip their toes into glacial runoff. The river keeps out the riffraff.

  Like most of the great loves of my life—mountains, fiction, winter—the chainsaw seduced me with equal parts freedom and danger. I don’t remember chainsaws in my life before trails, though I’m sure my dad had a small one for bucking the limbs that came off backyard oaks in a windstorm. But my first week on the job, when Sherri the shop tech took me to the gravel lot behind the trails sheds and showed me how to start one, I listened.

  Sherri explained my starting options—the standard style, power-head pinched between the knees, one hand on the handle bar, the other on the pull cord; the logroll, where the bar is shoved over a log and the pull cord yanked back; and the ground start, choice of weaklings and fraidy cats, where the saw is placed on the ground, a boot through the handle to pin it in place, and the cord yanked upward. Negligible upper-body strength, slight terror—you can guess which start I chose.

  I still couldn’t do it. It was an old saw, Sherri reassured me. She went to the shed and brought back a newer model; a compression release made the pull start easier. I couldn’t start that one, either. “Keep pulling,” said Sherri, “you’ll get it.” So I pulled. I pulled until my wrists were sore, till the cord handle snapped my knuckles and made my eyes water, till a blister opened up on the meat of my palm. I pulled like my life depended on it, and got only the dull sound of the piston cranking slow, not even enough power to turn the engine over once. Sherri took the saw from me, flicked the on/choke switch, started it on the first try. She shrugged.
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  Back to the saw shed again, Sherri brought me the smallest Stihl, the 026, so much daintier than the 036s typically used for clearing that the guys christened it “The Lady Logger.” I took it, too desperate to be sheepish or critical of the sexism, and I pulled some more. When it finally started, the roar startled me so thoroughly that I almost dropped the saw. I held on tight, stiff-armed, body arched as far as possible from the bar and chain, as if the thing I’d worked so hard to get running now made me want to run. But I didn’t want to run. I wanted to learn how to use the saw to do something besides rev it in a parking lot. I could feel it from the first minute I held it—love. Danger and freedom, right there in my arms.

  East from the confluence with the North Fork to west at Marias Pass, creeks flow south out of the Lewis Range and into the Middle Fork: Rubideau, Lincoln, Harrison, Nyack, Coal, Muir, Park, Ole, Shields, Autumn. Smaller feeder drainages include Pinchot and Elk and Fielding, and myriad tiny blue squiggles on the map. Anything without a name is, on the ground, pretty close to jumpable.

  One of my first days in the Middle Fork resembles my firsts nearly everywhere in Glacier: out of my element, eager to get in, following along quietly until the former state gives way to the latter. This particular day found Reba sick and me shipped off for the day with Brook and his Middle Fork guys to get a jump-start on the heavy clearing in the Coal Creek burn. I knew Brook by reputation only. Thirtysomething, wiry, hyper, and flat-out hilarious, Brook was at the center of some of the most outlandish pranks and stories in the trails canon. He was drawn to drama, calamity, and excess. Brook loved attention. If he was on a search and rescue, he’d end up on the local news, and you could see why. He told a monologue worthy of a one-man show, complete with pantomime and imitations. He teased until the butt of the joke was ready to throttle him, stopped just before he was resented. His crews worked hard, hiked hard, drank hard, laughed hard. I was eager to see him in action.

  On the south side of the river we sat on the rocks, unlacing our shin-high boots. I’d never forded the Middle Fork before, or any river of its size. The guys were loosening their belt buckles and dropping their pants, and though I’d brought sandals for the ford, I hadn’t thought to bring shorts. Four of them stood in clownish boxers at the edge of the river, kicking water at each other, swinging their arms in the cool air. Clearly, I’d have to strip, too. I briefly considered fording in my pants. Stupid. The river was midthigh. The heavy cotton canvas would take all day to dry.

  “We always ford in our underwear,” Brook reassured me. “Don’t think twice about it.” I dropped my pants slowly, pulling my T-shirt down as far as I could. I tucked my rolled-up Carhartts under the top of my backpack. We tied our bootlaces together and slung them over our shoulders. Brook and Mike carried the saws, the rest of the guys the other tools, the unwieldy Dolmars of saw mix knocking against their knees. I had only a shovel in hand, the very least you could carry and still hold your head up. Mike waded in. I hung back as if finishing something, fussed with the straps on my Tevas.

  “Have you done this before?” Brook asked, noting me sidelong, and I shook my head. Posturing was pointless. They’d guess as soon as they saw me stumble through the current. Maybe I’d fall in, drown, even. Brook gave me a quick overview, kindly, with no teasing, and then gestured me to go ahead of him. The icy water at my ankles kept just at bay an awareness that I was walking in my underwear in the middle of a line of strange men. At twenty-three, I was not particularly self-conscious about my body, didn’t “hate my butt,” as was the common refrain. Even so, it was disconcerting. A vulnerable promenade.

  Soon I was in above the knees, and current pushed water waist-high, obscuring clear view of anyone’s rump. I concentrated on facing upstream, one foot placed solid before moving the other, shovel handle triangulated in front of me like the third leg of a tripod. In the thickest part of the current, the water coursed between my toes and I sensed what it would be like to lose my footing and be swept quietly downstream. When the water shallowed, I ran for the bank, where the guys shook water off their legs. We stomped and howled as feeling reentered numb flesh. Brook laced up his boots without putting his pants back on, doing a funny little jig in his logging boots and undies. I glanced around. All of them, the same, no pants. There was a shallower ford of Ole Creek a ways up the trail, and anyway, their boxers were soaked, Brook said, and would dry while they hiked. They nearly convinced me to do it too, those varmints, but I was wise to them, what was necessary, how far they’d push, and I held my own.

  I hid in the brush and shucked my undies, pulled on Carhartts over bare ass, and hung the wet bikinis over the handle of the pulaski strapped to my pack. (Could the proverbial mother ever have guessed, when urging clean underwear, that this scenario, not an unexpected trip to the hospital, might be reason to heed her advice?) I took my place in the middle of the line. I had to laugh at the sight of the sawyer hiking ahead, underwear stuck to his skinny white thighs. I was glad to be covered up, despite the chafe of cotton duck against damp cheeks. No matter how much I liked these guys, no matter how much I longed to be part of the gang, damned if I’d be the story they’d crow out later over beers: We got her to walk in her underwear for hours!

  Al was the oldest of all of us and, at forty-seven, craved a nightly dose of Vitamin I(buprofen) washed down with PBR in order to keep getting up in the morning. Gabe was on Al’s crew his first year, along with a guy named Mick. On Gabe’s twenty-fourth birthday in June, he noticed the age relation: “Hey Al, Mick (twenty-three) plus me (twenty-four) equals you (forty-seven)!” “Don’t ever say that again,” said Al, his handlebar smirking.

  Al also said that day, “Gabe, you’re the workin’ man’s thinker; or is it the thinkin’ man’s worker?” and like the best birthday gifts, it was well chosen, and it fit. Al meant that Gabe sees beneath the surface; he looks twice, points out a thing and makes you see it new. Gabe is contemplative in a job that thrives on movement. He’s an ace at his work, competent, capable, part of the gang, but also somehow beyond the gang, skirting the edges in the quiet: he notices that bird, asks why do it that way, thinks is everyone okay? and of what the world is made.

  Trail crews are full of bright people, PhDs and autodidacts, all kinds of intelligence represented: kinesthetic, spatial, naturalistic. But very few people are the workingman’s thinker. My crewmates rib my ten-dollar words, I talk about books and play trivia games, and still, I am too boisterous, too impulsive to be in that class. Eager for the next thing, I forget to notice this one. But Gabe, he puts his head down, gets the job done, and misses nothing. Like Zen carpenter-monks whose labor was their spiritual practice, Gabe is attentive to his work, and in it, everything else. He moves with a certain stillness, just digging, measuring, just working, and watching.

  The trails season begins in May, with “logging out.” Clearing trails of winter downfall can take months, and is among the most satisfying work we get to do. Long miles, constant cutting, a duet with a beat all its own. A saw team consists of two, the swamper and the sawyer. The sawyer hikes with the saw and saw kit and does the felling, limbing, and bucking, leaving a load of debris behind. The swamper follows the sawyer, carries the gas, bar oil, and a falling axe, and tidies the mayhem in the saw’s wake. A good sawyer can leave behind even a fast swamper in little time. The sawyer’s work is glamorous work, the pace frenetic yet deliberate, but without a swamper, the trail would remain impassable. Swamping is not a technical skill, but it’s the hardest labor on trails, lifting and hauling huge log rounds, dragging limbs through brush, and hiking fast in between, trying not to fall too far behind. A swamper sweats buckets even in cold, and must remain psychologically hardy to follow in the shadow of the sawyer, a nearly impenetrable wall of work always just ahead. Usually swamper and sawyer switch jobs every tank of gas or two. The sawyer will say he’d rather keep cutting if asked, but really, the tradeoff is nice. When the saw disappears, you fall into the quiet smell
of wood, the task of cleanup predictable and important. Absent the aggressive glamour of the chainsaw, work takes on a purposeful cadence, a solo effort metered by the rasp of a dry throat (always thirsty), a growling stomach (always hungry), heart pushed against skin.

  My favorite trails sandwich: soft bakery bread, brown, not too seedy. Heavy mayo coating both slices. Extra-sharp cheddar cheese, sliced thick enough to see your teeth marks in, and deli-cut ham. Pickles separately, added on site. Sandwich double-wrapped and laid at the top of the Tupperware box, protected from saw fumes but not smashed by the apple (Fuji: crisp, not too sweet). At lunch break, potato chips from a Ziploc on top of the ham, then pressed flat with the bread, providing crunch without sog: workingman’s lettuce.

  Any traildog who’s worked more than two seasons has heard the question When are you going to get a real job? In your early twenties, critics will cut you some slack: there’s plenty of time to get serious. Parents smile and indulge, thinking, This, too, shall pass. But linger too long at an eccentric job, and questions begin. Relatives at reunions ask, “So you’re still doing that, huh?” College pals who praised the quirky choice right after graduation begin to drop hints about grad school.

  I couldn’t exactly blame the skeptics. I hadn’t planned this life for myself, and the ins and outs of it still surprised me, too. But while I had firsthand experience to convince me it was right, my folks could only take my word and hope there was more to it than what they saw from the outside: moving every six months, no security, intermittent income, what seemed at best like a tenuous perch on the roost of adulthood. I knew they were proud of me—my dad openly admiring of a job that had me out in the field all day, using my hands—but there was an undercurrent of slight dismay: our daughter, who wanted to be an archaeologist or an NPR correspondent when she grew up, the girl who meant to go on for a graduate philosophy degree, is doing what? Again? My mother asked if I ever thought about being a professor anymore (not really), and if my winter job paid enough (no). An aunt asked if I had health insurance, tsk-ing when I admitted that I did not. The prodding felt rude at times (who asked an investment banker how much she made?), but I knew that beneath the concern lay a persistent hope for my happiness. I wished they could see what I could: happiness too easily confused with orthodoxy.