KLAMATH BACKCOUNTRY TRAIL CREW
JUNE 2007 MONTHLY OVERVIEW
Karlson Hubbard, BACKCOUNTRY TRAILS SUPERVISOR

Overview

Oh my did we have a couple of sickly looking new mules show up in camp in June. I mean these guys were malnourished, colicky, and down right stubborn. Their names were Patience and Understanding. We knew we needed these mules as much as old Honesty and Integrity and that we would be better off if they were with us for the rest of the season. So, we set out in June working hard with our two mules, Patience and Understanding, to build them up and get them in shape.
It’s funny how mules can be sort of finicky and noncompliant in the beginning as their way of testing their new handlers to see what they’re made of. Well Patience and Understanding were no different. Man did they kick and jump around and try biting us at first. Hell, some of us even lost our tempers and momentarily refused to even try to work with our new mules. But, our own diligence and growing love of the mountains soon paid off and before we knew it our mules Patience and Understanding were well fed from our grains of commitment and they readily drank from the waters of togetherness that even we the crew drank from. And by the end of June Patience and Understanding were not only ready, but even willing to let each and every one of us on the crew ride them whenever we felt like it or whenever the situation called for it. Yep, by June’s end we all knew how to have Patience and Understanding eat from the palms of our hands and turn in the direction we wanted with the slightest of touch of the reins. They’re good mules – Patience and Understanding – and we worked hard to have them because we know without them we’d still be carrying a whole lot of extra weight. July is just over that ridge in the distance, and well, we’re getting better at packing with our mules, so it’s safe to say we’re moving on nicely.

Curriculum

In the month of June personal journals were no longer personal and personal life experiences were made public with the start of two of our soon-to-be regular classes – “Open Mic Night” and “Your Life’s Story”. Imagine sharing your inner most personal thoughts with a group of people and having to recount the most memorable parts of your life to a whole crew. Well, that’s what we all did in June and as a result we became a tighter knit crew. Ketchup on a $20 steak; crack-head high-rise window washers; a horse for every sibling; drinking moonshine and playing banjo. This is what our lives are full of we discussed.
Then came the Corpsmembers classes which started with tool sharpening and chain saw maintenance followed by a crew discussion on community and essential Backcountry Corpsmember qualities, and add in a fire ecology course. Then throw in an 8 hour rafting and kayaking and surfing trip down the burlesque Klamath River and top it off with a 3 day wilderness survival class and you’ve got one hell of an exciting curriculum for June.

Odds and Ends

There are many, many thanks to give out this month. Thank you to Nena Creasy for being a beautiful, touching part of our season, no matter how short your time with us was. Thank you Max Creasy for (and this is coming from the supervisor) showing our crew the California Lilac, aka the soap plant. Their feet and bodies were cleansed if only for a day or two.
Thank you Alan Vandyver for proving that there are folks in the Forest Service outside of trails who truly value our program, our efforts, and our work.
Thank you Dave Payne and Grant for sharing your passion for the Klamath River by taking us rafting, kayaking, and surfing. Our trip will no doubt be a highlight of our season.
Thank you Amy Schuster for watching camp so our crew as a whole could go rafting. So generous.
Thank you George Heck for your continued efforts as our sponsor and for the 12 pounds of chocolate you gave the supervisor.
Lastly, thank you to the crew. Thanks for always laughing when someone trips or falls. Thanks for eating too much sugar. But most of all, thanks for not letting me eat the poison oak soap when I thought it was chocolate.
One final thanks to the 5 other crews experiencing the mountains. You are all inspirations. You are all kindred spirits feeding our souls the sustenance we need to be strong. Thank you for your caring, gentleness and compassion. You all are the blossoming flowers in our scorched dead desert. There is so much “good energy” in you all that we can’t help but to be good ourselves like an oasis of clean water on a far away distant, desolate planet in another far away galaxy universe.

Quotes

“Ha, Ha, Ha. July? Damn, even Lucipher himself takes a vacation during that wretched month.”                         Finely Baxter – BC Corpsmember 1980

“Well, all be. If it ain’t the folks who chewed up all that poison oak as if it were spinach. Good to see ya.”          Leech McCormick – Old Happy Camp Homesteader we ran into                                           on way out of Fort Goff

“What’s that you say? The Mosquito’s got so full off your blood they’d sit next to you at the fire and take a nap.”             Borris Sterns, some naturalist that stopped by camp.

“How much dirt does the CCC move when the CCC moves dirt? Dump trucks my friend, dump trucks the size of 10 hundred lighthouses on a craggy shoreline.”  
                        Farely “The Plank” Willis – Old Pirate from the northcoast who sang us a                                  song while he was dredging for gold on the Klamath.