19 AUG 2016: As I sit at the
Old Santa Fe Trail building’s information desk, doing a volunteer-in-parks
(VIP) gig, I’m reflecting on the 100-years that the National Park Service (NPS)
has been attempting to protect park areas via their legislated mandate "to conserve the
scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to
provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will
leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Considering present expectations of a high-octane
special-effects world, that’s often tough to achieve, for so many lessons from
NPS areas are subtle in nature. Many take years, decades or even generations to
appreciate and understand.
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| Emily Erickson |
It has been many new moons
since I’ve posted anything, even though I’ve thought about various semi-worthy
topics: old resource protection cases, archeological observations, or other non-polarizing
topics (abortion, same-sex marriage,
climate change, income guarantees, gun control, etc. - NOT). So, I’ll just compose
a few updates of some trips here in the southwestern part of the U.S.A. (its been
fairly mundane- no dive trips or exotic destinations):
In May, I flew over to central Arizona: our goddaughter, Emily
Erickson, graduated from the Gilbert Classic Academy (high school) and soon
starts in the nursing program at Grand Canyon University (under scholarship:
way-to-go Emily!). She and her younger brother Andrew were also preparing for a
trip to London, which they did in June I believe (I bet that was blog worthy).
I spent much of June in Arizona at
two wildfires as a Safety Officer. The initial dispatch was to the Juniper Fire
on the Payson/Pleasant Valley Ranger District of the Tonto National Forest (NF).
The Incident Command Post was in Young, AZ, and as some of you might remember
Meme & I used to own some acres in Young that we bought while working in
Tonto Basin (myself at Tonto National Monument & Meme w/ the Forest
Service). It was an interesting assignment, seeing the changes and/or places
that looked pretty much like they had in 1978 (or probably 1938). The fire grew
to about 30,000 acres and achieved many of what are termed “management
objectives.” In other words… it did good. Plus there were no major incidents or
injuries: well maybe one. There was a “Lesson Learned” by a UTV operator (a
Division Supervisor) re: the value of wearing a DOT approved helmet. He was
wearing one (instead of a fire helmet) when his ride flipped. May have saved
his life or great bodily harm. We went through several transitions there, as
the Incident Management Team (IMT) went from a 3 to a 2 back to a 3 during my
tenure. Transitions are always a heads-up/watch-out time (more than usual), too
many tragedies occur during them.
My second “roll” in June was
to the Cedar Fire on the White Mountain/Fort Apache Agency. The fire was
threatening the towns of Show Low, Lakeside-Pinetop and the casino at Hondah.
So, this was a Type I (IMT) fire with many complex issues that come with a
wildland-urban interface incident. I was assigned to work with the two
structural protection groups (north & south), which made for some long
days. It still feels gratifying that I can contribute in some small way,
realizing that any fire could be my last. I used to be a young firefighter/Park
Ranger, now I’m usually “the old guy” (but that in itself can be a walking
safety message). I got to “tie-in” with Mark Harvey, a retired NPS Park Ranger
that lives close to us in Eldorado: he was playing “Mr. Demob” for the
incident. While there we experienced some minor issues, but while we were
headed home (another transition period) there was a crew that had multiple fire
shelter deployments.
July found
me waiting for another assignment: I’ve been asked on numerous occasions “why
aren’t you in California?” Good question, and I can only re-state there seems
little rhyme-or-reason to when the phone rings from “Santa Fe Zone” (our local
interagency dispatcher). So instead, I had to decide between attending my yoga
class at SFCC, or trying to qualify for the Olympic Fantasy Team in “butterfly
walking” followed by a pint of porter for a cool-down period. I selected both-of-the-above.
I also enjoyed a day on the upper Pecos River with a fly fishing guide. Our
catch-n-release adventure landed about 2-dozen rainbow & brown trout, with
the largest being ca. 20” and 3-lbs. No pictures, as I was busy… The month had
much hotter temps than normal, but brought on the cooling monsoonal moisture in
time for our “just about annual” trip to Pacific Beach. As usual, dispatch
called me 2-days before the system showed me as “not available” for a fire
assignment (previous years it has been the day before we left for the coast).
Tough choice, but the Pacific was calling (besides, we had Meme’s retirement
from the Office of the State Engineer. Her last day in the office was the end
of July, with August being an annual leave month). Besides we wanted to catch
up with Meme’s brother Mark & stepbrother Charlie (still flying for Alaska
Airlines), which we were able to do while enjoying the warm sand & surf.
We knew at the end of last
year that the Dept. of Interior’s International Technical Assistance Program
involving our work & efforts in Petra were being shut down. It became final
recently when I was asked to sign a closeout contract document. I’ll miss our
many friends and adventures there, and of course working with retired NPS
Rangers Bill Wade & Bruce McKeeman. My biggest surprise of the summer was
at our locale market (The Agora): at the frozen foods I ran into Nancy Wizner.
We’d worked together at Santa Monica Mountains and she resides in western
Colorado. We are going to stay-in-touch.
The second week of August we finally got up to Red River,
NM (aka “Little Texas”) for a concert by Michael Martin Murphey (MMM). The town
is ca. 8600’ and we stayed in a nice historic room above Texas Reds steakhouse
(same Texas Red as of “Big Iron” fame). The chuck wagon dinner & concert
was held in an amphitheater at an old ranch a couple miles from town (at about
10,000’ – glad we had our hoodies). It was a very casual scene with MMM talking
to some of us pre-concert. Meme made a couple of requests, one of which (“Southwestern
Pilgrimage”) he started off the show singing, after leading in with the
backstory of how it’d been requested by a Lady from Santa Fe and he’d written
it years ago when leaving Austin and its music scene in his rearview mirror for
the wide open spaces and Rocky Mountains. Later in the concert, he made some
conservation comments: noting that the reason they didn’t have a campfire blazing
was the amount of pines around the lake & hillside that had suffered
bug-kill. There were some stringers you could see during daylight. Anyway, he
mentioned the Beaver Creek fire in northern Colorado (Routt NF), close to his
ranch, and even though it was wet, the diseased trees were burning – over
35,000 acres. "Cosmic Cowboy" went down well all around.
Last night a bunch of Meme’s
rock climbing amigos y amigas held a really nice potluck at Wolf’s hacienda off
upper Canyon Road, using her retirement from the State of NM as an excuse. I
think some road trips are in the works. Anyway, that is about it for now, take
care and “be careful out there”…
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