Dark Water and Cold Fire

If you refer to the post, "Buliding Bridges", you will recall we didn't get the poop pumped on Labor Day. So, taking advantage of my third four day week in a row, Thursday night found me on my way back to Loll

This time there was no army of helpers. Only Jody came with me, but all one really needs to succeed in camp is a Jody.

We arrived after dark and found that Clynn Josephson had already been at work. Bill Wangsgard and Junior Shupe had been in camp all day, and while Bill and Junior finished the roof on the Old Office and closed down the water system for the winter, Clynn had pumped the lodge septic.

Their work well done, Bill and Junior headed home, Jody and I passed them in Rexburg, and Clynn took his first truck load to Ashton. By the time we arrived he had already pumped the "High Seat" and cleaned the cans and such out of the Staff KYBO; ready to pump at first light.

Clynn is a miracle for Loll, no one has ever applied the dedication and craft to pumping poop the way Clynn does. Not only has he cleaned up our worst mess for years now, he has taught us how to make it less and manage well what is left.

He navigates his monster truck through the forest, entertains and educates with all sorts of interesting tales, and does so much hard work with amazing skill.

Here the pumper truck goes to work on the Gros Ventur KYBO.


Clynn approved of the condition of the tanks, our little friends the bactee had been hard at work. Here he inspects the summers product before the suction begins.


Clynn's energy and sense of humor make this otherwise horrible job an adventure. He is the most wonderful proof that doing any job well makes it a "good" job. As his pumper truck proclaims, there are plenty of challenges in life, but those who accept the challenge and do the work make the world go round. Thank you Clynn for whirling our problems away.


As our summer's waste disappeared into the belly of Clynn's truck, Jody faced our next big problem. In order to make pumping possible, the departing Camp Staff left the bear boxes out. Now they needed to be put in . I had planned on using the Labor Day crew for this chore, but it wasn't to be. Now all the work fell on Jody and me. Well, mostly on Jody.



At every KYBO there were four or five bear boxes and a pile of fire barrels. Jody muscled them all into place. I recorded the process; that's part of being a good supervisor.



Here, at the Shoshone Kybo, you can see the one Jody has already put inside and four more in view. There is a sixth behind the cabin. He got them all in. Eat your heart out Justin Hansen!


By 10:00 AM we had pumped four more KYBOs and the Whirlaway truck was full. Clynn and I walked back to check out the remaining three. Navajo had really digested well. There was almost nothing in it but a few gallons of water. We headed toward the Lemhi head.

On our way, we encountered our worst fear. The stream that runs by the trail to Sioux was still flowing. The road was blocked. This same stream feeds the little marshy spot, in which we have lost trucks before. Clynn said he would give it a try; "satisfaction guaranteed" is his motto. I remembered how it took three hundred scouts to pull out the truck that got stuck there in 1992, and how the one that got stuck down by Nez Perce cost us more for the semi wrecker hired to pull it out than the pumper-man charged for the pumping. Clynn had no such memories, but I could tell he had his doubts about our success. I suggested we check out the other two KYBOs. Neither were anywhere near half full. Lemhi's was in the best condition of all the heads in camp, and although the Ute KYBO suffers from lack of air, it was not near half full. We decided to put in some more bactee and leave our little pardners to do the work. Clynn was on the road to Ashton by 10:30 AM.

This is the stream between Navajo and Sioux. I have never seen it this high in September.


Jody and I had planned several hours of work to fill the time while Clynn was in Ashton. Now we didn't need to fill the time but "we" still had to do the work. We loaded all the bear boxes and barrel's. Jody put covers on all the KYOB vent tops.

Jody also mowed the grass at the Spring.


Here is the finished roof on the "Old Office". Thanks to Bill and Junior.


One might wonder why anyone would be willing to go to Loll at this time of year for this type of job. Well, if you had ever been there, once the leaves start to turn, you would know.

As the leaves start to turn it as if the forest were filled with a magic fire which illuminates without consuming; colors warm and bright.

The leaves were still days from their brightest blaze, but here you can see them begin to glow along Lake of the Woods.



They come in every hue of red, orange, and yellow. Like gold and jewels, like the dancing flames of the campfire that catch your eye and force you to stare into the coals. Huckleberries go purple, red, and gold.


Mountain ash take on every imaginable orange. This one blazes like a torch just below the Barlow/Wadman Lodge.


I could not resist enjoying the beauty which, more intense then flowers, a billions leaves provide. Beauty on the individual level that combines in an overwhelming wonder. Think America.


The old dining hall, closed for the winter, is warmed by a flash of mountain ash.


This mountain ash is a golden light on the trial to Nez Perce campsite.


This one, orange and green in perfect contrast, is down by camp Sagwitch.


Once we started home, the road we had passed in the dark the night before burst into wonderful light. Light is color; color is light.


I kept stopping to take pictures. Jody didn't mind; we were in no hurry to leave Loll behind.


No photograph can capture the wonder of the under-story throughout the entire forest. It has been changed into a carpet of color.


Mountain ash so hot it burns, not the physical body, but the soul. There are feelings and there are feelings.


Every look discovers a new wonder.


I wanted to run through the forest. I could hear the call of the Windigo, the call of the wild, the call of fall, the stored up energy of weeks of summer sun in one last farewell to summer joy.


The greens now frame the bright hot hues; the pines, spruce, and fir make ready for the long winter. They seem to warm themselves, one last time, with this magic fire.


Mountain ash, snow berry, and huckleberry splash orange, yellow, and red on the forest floor.


It is almost painful to realize that of all those who love Loll, who revel in the Yellowstone wilderness, and who delight in summer in the Tetons, only a few will ever see this beauty. Of all of our thousands of campers and staff, only those who go to pump the pooh.


The aspens have not gone fully golden yet. They line the road from Indian Lake to the wheat fields of Squirrel. But this "golden bough" was hung, as if set in the forest for Aeneas, a ticket to Paradise.


We took one last look back and there was a hawk. I would love to soar with him, above the gentle blaze of fall, and watch over Loll until the cold fires go to rest beneath the snow.

Almost More Than I Can Bear

At camp, I sleep on the third floor of the beautiful Barlow/Wadman Lodge. Almost everyone else sleeps in tents in the middle of situation one grizzly bear habitat. I feel safe myself, but spend a great deal of time worrying about all those folks in the woods.

I hate knocks on my door in the middle of the night. It always means trouble, a sick camper or staff member, some wrong to right, fights or hi jinks, perhaps a fire, and of course there are always bears.

It was 4:30 AM, Thursday morning, a week and days before the end of camp, when the knock came. I opened the door. It was Bryan Purdy. Bryan's door is closest to the stairs, when those who don't know where to go, come, they always go to his room first.

"You've got a bear." Bryan growled. Why is it always, you've got a bear, you've got this problem or that, you've got a disaster? I guess because I'm the Camp Director. I told him I'd be right down. Leonard was visiting that week, sleeping up in the loft, I called him down; misery loves company. Minutes later we met Bryan in the dark at the kitchen door.

"Where is it?" I asked.

"I forgot to ask." Bryan admitted. At the time, I was not amused. We started our search on the north loop. There were some fishermen heading out of Camp Apache. Leonard asked if they had seen the bear. "Is there a bear?" a leader demanded. "Don't worry." I assured him. Then I took Leonard aside and begged him to not mention bears.

It wasn't until we got to Hopi that we found the blazing campfire and the rattled group of adult leaders who had confronted the bear on their picnic table. We began our investigation.

At first they thought he might have gotten some cookies; maybe a hot dog had been left on the ground. As we pressed for details, I am sure they sensed my "urgency", they concluded that there hadn't been any food out, just an empty cookie wrapper left under the table. "I sure hope so," I said and prayed.

The table was covered with bear tracks; there was bear snot all over the bear boxes, and the Scoutmaster said he thought the bear had pissed on the table. We searched everywhere for the bear. Leonard, Bryan, and I visited every campsite, collecting any scented item we found. Fortunately there were very few. We poked about till first light.

As soon as possible, Bryan went down to Hopi and took some pictures. Here is the crime scene.

These bear boxes were our salvation. Years ago I listened as Doug Muir, Ashton District Forest Ranger, talked to our Scout Executive, Harvey Mortensen, about getting bear boxes for Camp Loll. Doug recommended heavy gage steel. Harvey worried they would be too expensive. Couldn't we use three-quarter inch marine plywood? "The bear would eat the boxes along with everything in them," Doug explained. "That seems like an awful big expense," Harvey lamented. "Well," said Doug, "you're the one who will have to call the kid's mom when he's killed by a bear." Loll got its bear boxes.

Perhaps there were food scents on the table. The bear had obviously walked all over it.



The dish pan got a special look.



You can see his palm print on these documents.



And here is one on the troop's fireguard chart

You can see how he tried to open the boxes with his muddy paws. Fortunately there was at least one clip in place.



The suspect cookie wrapper.

It was most gratifying to attend Jacob Mortensen's missionary farewell a few weeks after camp. Jacob is one of three of Harvey's grandsons who worked at Loll this summer. His assigned topic was obedience. He used, as one of his examples, the parable of the bear boxes. He explained how the scouts are taught to put every scented item into the bear box. Although the scouts almost never see a bear, they still obey the rule. "Then," Jacob explained, "when the bear came this summer, he could not get any food, so he went away. Had he gotten food, he could have caused a lot of trouble, hurt some scouts, maybe gotten someone or himself killed. As it was, because everyone obeyed the rules, everyone was safe." A pretty good lesson to be learned by a boy on his way to becoming a man.



This bear had very dirty feet.

He must also have been fairly persistent.

However, there was no way for him to get in.

Everyone was on the look out and during camp inspections some tracks were found. I had some pictures taken. I even took a few myself.

I called the Forest Service at 8:00 AM sharp, and Brandon Burke and Bill Davis asked for some of the pictures. I e-mailed Brandon a few.

We had clear front and back prints. From this front print we were able to determine it was a black bear. One cannot draw a line between the toes and the pad without nicking one or the other.

Brandon called back to request some reference to size. So I took some more pictures including a tape measure. By this time I was a little less concerned.

The hind footprint was shorter than my hand.

Brandon came to camp later in the day. He determined that our visitor had been a yearling cub.

We instituted a bear watch for the rest of the summer. The protocol is: 1) At the end of the day each camp friend will visit their troop, they always do anyway, and check for "bear violations". 2) Each Commissioner also visits each of their camp sits just before bed to make doubly sure. 3) At 4:00 AM, a bear patrol, made up of staff members with lights, walks the entire camp to make their presence known and to "scare away the bear". 4) Then at 5:00 AM Leonard, and I - or the next week, Jody and I - start the generator and walk the camp with lights. We followed this protocol for the rest of the summer, until the last scouts had left and the staff moved into the lodge. We saw no more signs of any bears, but I was still glad to do my sleeping on the third floor of the lodge.

Old Bridge Gone

Jody and Lafe and their families stayed at Camp Loll after all the rest of us had left. They were not idle. The took out the old bridge, no easy task for two men and a boy. That would be Jody, Lafe, and Reagan.

Once the runners were pulled up the real work began. Here Jody contemplates the challenge of moving the great logs and the beams that supported them.

These logs were nothing to sneeze at.

This was a chance for Lafe to use the chainsaw. Won't that be fun.


Abram is like his grandpa - very good at supervising. The beam that Jody is lifting here was once a log in the wall of one of the old KYBO's. Steve Johnson told us how the staff cut them from the forest and took them to the saw mill in Ashton to be quarter cut for the cabins.

The biggest logs were made manageable by determination, hard work, and a chainsaw.

The last bit hauled away.

Now nature will take its course. Soon the lush vegetation of Loll Marsh will cover the scars and surround the new bridge in nature's beauty.