The Old Skills : Forest Rangers Learning to Use Ways of Bygone Era

Here in this remote slice of the High Sierra the U.S. Forest Service has launched a first-of-a-kind, summer-long, turn-back-the-clock training program in which rangers learn and apply the skills of a bygone era.

In keeping with the pristine character of the surroundings, rangers enrolled in a special wilderness school maintain trails and footbridges in the old-fashioned way, without benefit of mechanized equipment. Their implements are deliberately restricted to human-powered tools, so as not to disturb the peace and quiet and the natural setting any more than necessary.

“Too often helicopters fly personnel, heavy equipment, gas-powered rock drills, chain saws, generators and supplies into the wilderness,” said Mike Ketscher, 40, a 20-year veteran of the Forest Service and the on-site superintendent of the school for rangers called “Trailshots.”

Instead of being airlifted miles into the outback, rangers walk to where the work needs to be done. They learn to master “primitive” tools such as two-man crosscut saws called “misery whips,” star drills that carve holes in rocks when slammed with sledge hammers, wedges, digger bars and hand-held winches called “come-alongs,” all carried into the wilderness on the backs of mules.

As Shon Walker rode his horse leading a string of a dozen mules loaded with bridge planking, food and supplies along the steep, winding trail, he scribbled cowboy poetry in his notebook:

“We’re talking bright stars, mules

“And bucking horses that give you the drools. . . .”

The 21-year-old Forest Service packer-poet said he always writes poetry as he leads a mule train. “I do my best work in the saddle,” he said. “You got to be able to feel it before you can write it.”

He started and finished his latest verse, “Packers, East and West,” during the two hours it took to ride five miles from Portal Forebay to Rattlesnake Bridge, crossing the South Fork of the San Joaquin River in this central California High Sierra wilderness.

Hiking ahead of Walker, carrying backpacks weighing 55 to 65 pounds, were 11 U.S. Forest Service rangers from several national forests in the state. Riding behind him was his assistant packer on this trip, Birdie Davenport, 30, a ranger from the Olympic National Forest in Washington.

For the next eight days, as part of the unique wilderness school, the rangers would shore up the 106-foot-long Rattlesnake cable suspension bridge and, along the trails leading to it, rock walls that had been built by Civilian Conservation Corps crews in 1936.

“We are doing a lot of heavy lifting by hand, removing rotted bridge timbers and replacing them with planking carried here from the outside on the backs of mules. We lift heavy boulders and place them in rock walls,” said Manuel Reyes, 25, a wilderness ranger who grew up in Fresno and joined the Forest Service “inspired by years of watching Yogi Bear and Boo Boo on the tube as a kid.”

Wilderness areas in national forests were originally set aside by Congress in 1964 to be protected and preserved in their natural state beyond roads and easy access. No structures are allowed, not even outhouses. Trails and footbridges are permitted, however.

Sierra National Forest, located at elevations from 4,000 to 14,000 feet in the High Sierra roughly between the Sequoia-Kings Canyon and Yosemite national parks, has 582,000 acres of wilderness. The largest sectors are the John Muir and Ansel Adams wilderness areas.

The wilderness patrol was the brainchild of Kirby W. Schwinck, 47, Sierra National Forest district ranger, and Dudley Robertson, 47, the forest’s recreation ranger, whose aim was to preserve the natural setting without intrusions from helicopters, chain saws, power drills and other noisy implements of the present day. Ranger Larry Swan, 36, is the program director.

There is plenty for the patrol to do, the rangers report. Trails are often blocked by falling trees or are washed out when streams overflow. Bridges are damaged by flooding or fires or deteriorate with age.

Return to Old Ways

“The Trailshots program is a new concept to return to the old way of doing things in the wilderness,” Ketscher said. “We have been losing a lot of skills in the forest. Old timers who use crosscut saws, star drills and come-alongs are retiring. That’s why Dudley and Kirby came up with the idea for a training program for rangers from different forests.

“They will take the special skills they’ve learned this summer back to their forest, where they will upgrade back-country wilderness management programs.”

“It takes more time to do it the old way, so labor costs are more,” Ketscher said. “But it’s far more expensive using helicopters and gas-powered tools. In the long run, costs are about the same but we utilize more people. We like that part of it, too.”

Ten rangers from national forests and one ranger from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Mary McMillian, 41, of the Sierra hamlet of Auberry, are enrolled in the premier program from May 17 to Sept. 17 in the Ansel Adams Wilderness.

Instructors conduct 120 hours of classroom sessions, as well as instruction in rappelling and wilderness survival techniques. There are classes in blasting using low-power explosives, care and use of old-fashioned tools, bridge and rock-wall building and repair, wilderness fire management, advanced first aid, cost analysis, cultural resources, bear management and packer techniques.

During the four months, the rangers are spending a total of 85 days in the wilderness renovating bridges and trails. The rangers receive their usual wages--$5.50 to $11 an hour--working 10 hours a day, eight days straight, then having six days off. While the crews are on the job, food, tents, sleeping bags, gloves and mosquito repellent are furnished.

The Trailshot program gets its name from the Hot Shot school, a summer-long, intensive fire-training program in Redding for 20 Forest Service rangers from throughout the nation each year. Hot Shots are the Forest Service’s initial attack, front-line firefighters.

“We hope to establish Trailshots as an annual nationwide Forest Service summer school for wilderness management training with emphasis on keeping helicopters, heavy and gas-powered equipment out of the special areas of the forest throughout the country,” Ketscher said.

They call Bonnie Douglas, 36, of Woodland Hills, the most important person involved in the program. She’s the cook. A UCLA theater arts graduate, she spent 10 summers stationed at a fire lookout tower.

“I got tired of being alone and losing my social skills so I went to culinary school and became a cook,” Douglas explained. As cook at the wilderness school she takes the same training as everyone else.

Pete Hansen, 36, has been a ranger 15 years, three years as a smoke jumper. Ed Saude, 37, and Larry Zellner, 31, are wilderness rangers. Gordon Strawser, 47, the old timer of the bunch, was wounded as a soldier fighting in Vietnam and has been a ranger 10 1/2 years. Shon Walker, the packer-poet, is a cowboy when not working for the Forest Service.

Karen Whitson, 25, a Fullerton High School graduate, became a permanent ranger with the Forest Service two months ago. “This is the first time I have ever backpacked, first time in a wilderness. I love it. Everything is so different. It sure beats having a 9-to-5 desk job.” She worked two years as a seasonal ranger.

Micki Didier, 27, a graduate of Humboldt State University based in Angeles National Forest’s Tujunga district as a firefighter, sees the summer-long program “as a great opportunity for all of us experiencing training never before offered by the Forest Service in wilderness management.” Like the others, Didier volunteered for the Trailshots school.