One Step Into the Wilderness
( Excerpt from a Manuscript )
I have always appreciated the scene in Wild where Reese Witherspoon depicts Cheryl Strayed’s first steps onto the Pacific Crest Trail. The audience can hear Witherspoon’s new boots crunching the sun-scorched clay. Her eyes, and the camera angle, are fixed on a rickety sign that seems to be the only assurance that she should go forward on the trail head in Campo, California exactly 1,100 miles from her final destination. Surely Strayed didn’t really spend that much time considering how she should put her right foot before the left one, but the scene is perfect. Witherspoon depicts Strayed’s memoir persona for each viewer as if we are considering our trail-head moment.
We always see our steps more clearly after we’ve reached the end. The beginning feels so visceral in the past tense. I can write my story now because the lessons are distilled down and have connection to something bigger than me. I’ve thought a lot about my first steps into the unknown of Utah. And I can assure you, I definitely did not think near enough about what I was doing when I arrived in Manila. Due to this hindsight, I would tell anyone that you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced at least one hapless flight into the wild. And I mean the literal wilderness.
I was recruited to wear the government-issued badge and the high-waisted, sage-green shorts of the US Forest Service straight out of college. Returning from a month teaching debate in China, I gathered all of my crap from my parents’s garage in Colorado and we road tripped out to my posting in Manila, Utah. No way was there, or ever will be, a seasonal employee more excited and committed to her position than I was the Summer of 2013. The day I opened the front door to one of the seasonal-use cabins within the Ashley National Forest was when I plummeted from the nest. Up to that moment I had been safe, cared for, and hovered over by adoring parents and my new fiancé. My trek into the craggy desert of the American West would change all of that. And despite their protests, I was bound and determined to take that hapless flight into the rugged wild of Northeast Utah and Wyoming.
After a tedious six-hour drive crammed into a hot car, with shocked parents and an annoyed fiancé, we arrived to the lake shore cabin that would become my home for the next seven months. My key matched door number two, the middle unit between two other occupied units. First impressions can be tough, but in this story, my neighbors turned out to be exactly who they presented themselves as on the first day. The man, let’s call him Woody, was slouched over in a camping chair vaping, shirtless. The woman, Princess, was bouncing around the hot gravel of the parking area without shoes, or most of her clothing, speaking loudly on her cell. Neither said hello, but Woody and Princess became immediately important to me as they both brought off-roading vehicles. I arrived in Mable, a 1999 two-wheel drive Mercury Sable. How grossly unprepared for the season ahead I was would reveal itself overtime. Looking back I am sure that Woody and Princess weren’t going to waste introductions on a girl who probably wouldn’t make it through her first week on the job.
While I tried to figure out a plan to make those two my friends, my parents and Johnathon sucked in large gulps of air after seeing what was behind door number two. The elements and the animals had used the tiny apartment during the off season. Cobwebs draped like tinsel, leaves cluttered the doorway, and a squirrel had died inside the furnace. My parents began to protest, conjuring up plans to rent me a room at the extended stay hotel in the next town over. I heard none of their comments, and floated out the front door to see the magnificent view of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir just a football field length from my front step. The Rocky Mountains jutted into the deep blue sky and osprey glided inches above the pristine water’s surface. Who cared about the apartment, I wouldn’t be spending much time inside anyways.
Years after this day I learned that Johnathon ushered my parents out of earshot and asked them to let me experience staying in Utah, all of the challenges included. He knew in his heart God would take care of me and that I needed to live “in the wild” no matter if it was a good idea or not. The three of them agreed in solidarity to loose the tether on one of their greatest treasures. I didn’t make it any easier on them by turning them out to drive back to Denver that very afternoon as I scampered down to the shore of the reservoir.
The first weekend in the cabin I busied myself with cleaning and settling in. I road tripped eighty miles to the nearest grocery store to stock up my camper-sized kitchen. I scouted out the movie theater in town. I strolled along the lake and watched the eagles and osprey. I timed my commute to work, seven point two miles and nineteen minutes of time. I did not call home and I did not call Johnathon.
Monday morning I reported for duty after sitting in the car, twenty-three minutes early. My new boss strolled up to the car window and tapped on the glass, “Ready to get started?” Turned out that her living quarters were in the cabin behind the visitor center. She had drank her morning coffee watching me the entire time. Never had she hired such an excitable seasonal so she poured herself an extra cup in preparation. The cherry blush high in my cheekbones didn’t last long once I saw the hall of fame. Wildlife photographs printed in high gloss sheen filled the walls of the office. Our ranger was a skilled photographer, and had been assigned to the Flaming Gorge district for more than fifteen years. It was a beautiful first taste of the summer to come.
The other seasonals, Ken and John, arrived on time thirteen minutes later. Molly, our boss, was amazing from the get go. She had thick, brown braided hair and her front tooth was snagged just enough to distinguish her smile, which she readily offered to everyone with a “well hiya!” I liked her immediately when she started orientation with a private tour of the Ranger Gallery. Her cowgirl boots and flannel also helped. Orientation day ended early, so Molly sent me down the road to the Daggett County Jail for fingerprinting and processing. She winked, “Long as your record is squeaky clean I suspect we will issue you a truck tomorrow. That little Mercury of yours will have to be for personal business on weekends. Meaning stay on the roads, please.”
My very own truck!
Tuesday morning, Molly bestowed on me the keys to a sparkling white pickup, a paper map, and Forest Service badge. I was scheduled to meet the Ashley National Forest smoke jumpers to get my fire card and see a little bit of the landscape where I would be working. The little Ford wove its way through the forest, pines thick at each shoulder. My eyes drank in everything. I couldn’t believe I was living in a place like this!
I slowed now and again to allow a marmot family to cross the road or gawk at the elk descending the mountain top. Molly had instructed me to find my way around; the meeting with the smoke jumpers wasn’t until after lunch. Stationed in Dutch John, on the other side of the expansive reservoir, was a permanent team of five fire fighters and three times the number of summer seasonals to the station at the visitor’s center. Their primary task was to handle all of the brush clearing, trail maintenance, and wildfire prevention. Prior to my arrival I’d imagined a high-tech, well-equipped station house with state of the art gear and shiny green fire trucks. The Ashley National Forest is about 1.4 million acres of land to be managed. But, as I descended the valley into Dutch John I found a gas station, a ranch-style home, and an old bunk house.
At the gas station there was a sign posted that said, “Yep, you made it to Dutch John!” On the paper map, the firestation was circled and highlighted along Highway 191 where I was. But no one was around, and my phone was out of service. While I studied the lines and tried to make sense of the orientation, a sharp rap on my window made me jump out of my skin. Two burly faced men peered at me through thick reflective sunglasses. They wore the dark green flannels issued by the Forest Service, so I hesitantly rolled my window down.
“Hey newb, did ya eat?”
The bunk house had a wide common room with a dilapidated foosball table and ancient box TV. The fire team was a ragtag group of men and women distinct only by their shade of sunburnt. They all had one matching feature in their sunglass tan. Wide strips of white flanked their temples and the pale circles around their eyes made them appear very alert. It was hard to look each of them directly in the eyes without smirking, so I kept my head down. A bagged loaf of Wonderbread and cold cuts lay out on the long picnic table. Each member of the team stuck their sooty hand in to get bread, meats, and cheese.
My appetite could wait until dinner after work, so I hung back trying to hide the fact I had brought a notebook and pen with me to this very informal working lunch. One of the larger women in the group slapped me on the shoulder and advised, “Fuel up.” There were physicals happening after lunch.
The physical exam was a strenuous two-mile mountain hike shouldering a fifty-pound pack. I had prepped casually for it in the weeks before my arrival so I wasn’t too concerned. Especially since we were given one hour to complete the hike. After skipping lunch, I shouldered my pack, laced my boots, and drank some cool water.
The pack seemed a little heavier than I expected but it would become nothing more of a nuisance once I got used to it. We walked across the road to the trail head and began the climb. I side stepped the slower seasonals and cut a path to the front. I longed for some space near the front to set my stride and do some thinking. The pack kept pulling at my neck despite my adjusting the straps for a more comfortable fit. I walked at a comfortable pace for about thirty minutes noticing the other newbies behind me were socializing and falling farther behind. My pedometer said I was at the one mile mark but my breath was ragged and sharp. The incline before me felt really steep, and my back was on fire.
I shifted the pack once more and heard a clatter coming from inside. I knew before I even took the pack off it was full of rocks. How could I have missed them stuffing my bag full of extra weight? Looking at our group, we should have easily been able to hike two miles in an hour. My coworkers were still a ways down the hill. Their packs must have had the extra weight, too. Anger flared inside my gut thinking about the smug, sunburnt faces of the veteran smoke jumpers. They had all so quickly shrugged me off during lunch. I’d show them!
I pulled the two largest rocks out of my pack and held one in each hand. The pedometer indicated I was just shy of one and half miles. I shrugged the shoulder straps into a comfortable position and marched the rest of the distance. As I made it to the clearing in the tree line where the trail head marker was, I saw the crew all standing around waiting. The pleasure at anticipating our exhausted postures and sick bellies radiated from them. How could they possibly been so mean to haze us our second day on the job?
My ego was raging, and in a rare moment of clarity I realized this same trick had probably happened to them their first physical. They weren’t trying to be mean or hateful, they were demanding we walk in their shoes, shoulder their weights, and know them. Two miles and I was now part of a tradition that bonded all of us together. I couldn’t blow this one. I checked my ego and stepped behind a tree to tuck the two stones back into the pockets they came from. I sat down and waited for the rest of the team so we could walk out together, puffing and sweating our our exertion.
A few weeks as the Forest’s Permit Compliance Officer, I navigated the dirt roads and switchbacks of the Ashley National Forest like I belonged there. My teammates called me over the radio, and I even responded to a very small brush fire near a campground site. My job was to check up on all the various permit holders within the boundaries of the Ashley National Forest. I assessed pipelines, evaluated grazing lands, checked residential cabins, and surveyed campgrounds. Every day at seven thirty am I dashed into the office snagged my paperwork and permits and jiggled my keys at my boss to let her know I was leaving. I loved those early mornings racing the sunrise into the tree line. I loved bumping down the dirt roads to reach a tucked away campground. My heart soared whenever I had to hike to a remote cabin or drive extra miles to a well for its compliance check. Each day was mine to know the land and protect it.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this teaser from my first nonfiction manuscript. More to come! Until then, these were a few books that I connected with during my time in Vernal, Utah:
