Mountaineer Memories

Many years ago roughly 1986, I had a default timber sale on the Bighorn National Forest near the famous Medicine Wheel Archeological Site.  A contractor had defaulted his sale and left big Engleman spruce  ( big for Region 2, 20" to 30" DBH trees ) in the form of logs, felled timber with limbs attached and some stumps from trees cut outside the unit. Part of the damage appraisal was also potential timber theft. 

I called up three experience scalers whom are all deceased now, Felix Ortega, (Rio Grande N.F.), John Click (Black Hills N.F.), and Donald Archuleta (San Juan N.F.), for help as I knew it would be a big project to get done before the snow came at that elevation.  I assigned everyone a job to do and went off to measure stumps.  Johnny Click was a hilarious guy and always played pranks.  About 2 hours into the second day of work I heard someone yelling "help", "help me", Both Felix and Donald came to where I was at and said Johnny is calling for help, but it is probably another prank.  When we heard him yell out again we went to where he was working and could not see him but heard him say "I'm here". 

He had been scaling logs that were jack strawed about 8 foot off the ground and had slipped and fell in between them.  We got him pulled back out and he tells us " it's about time you come help me, I was asking the squirrels down here how to get out of here but they did not offer any clues".

Don Martinez
R-2 Timber Measurement Specialist

 

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