Between the Facts

This is the end. This field season, this Sage Grouse season, is now officially over.

Today I helped unload the vehicles on campus, and handed in the vehicle. Today I said goodbye. I said goodbye to those heavy-ass batteries in a final sojourn, a final haul off the trucks and back up to the lab. No more batteries. Hurray hurray!

Today I said goodbye, too, to good ol’ Gingerballs. Goodbye to that monstrous and defective F250 Super Duty. He was with us from the beginning, and with me to the end. I will miss him, that truck. I will miss feeling and looking so comically small in that monstrosity.

Today I said goodbye to a wonderful field season. A season of frustrations and a season of rewards. A fun and amazing season. A season chock full of stories. A good season.

And now, now I enjoy this brief period I have, these too-few days with Brian, before I take off again. In a few days, I begin anew. A new field season in the Sierras. Back to the Spotted Owls.

Ah, good ol’ Cali, how I missed you! It is so nice to be back, so nice to be in Woodland again, here with Brian after 3 months away. It is so nice to be out of the truck and still. It was a long haul to get back here. After all, it’s not even 5pm, early enough to make a run to the pharmacy, and at 7 last night I was still in Hudson, WY. I was determined to get here, you see. I was eager to see them again. My Cali. My Brian.

I made it to Salt Lake City after all, last night. This morning technically. It was after 7 when I left camp, but I drove through the night, just me and Gingerballs among all the Semis, right up to midnight. And I made it to Salt Lake. For five hours I drove, after a long full day, and I crashed the moment I hit the bed, warm and cozy in the same hotel we had stayed in on the way up to Wyoming three months before. Then early the next morning I rose and showered and shaved, I ate a hot breakfast and headed off again.

I drove almost non-stop down I80, only stopping for gas and a very brief lunch in Reno. I drove through Utah and I drove through Nevada and finally I drove into Cali, loving the cruise control and loving the constancy of NPR. Ah, NPR, what would I have done without you? I thank you, for keeping me sane on those radio-barren section of the West.

How different now, to be in the Sacramento area and have so many many options on the radio. Dog Face, I must admit I missed you too.

Yes, it is good to be back.

We’re running late. Very late. Somehow everything is taking a lot longer than we had expected. Than we had hoped. So much for heading out by noon, by 2 or 3 at the latest. It’s already after 6, after all, and we’ve only just dropped off the Trail Bag at the BLM and loaded it up with everything that’s staying behind. We’ve only just dropped off the last of the supplies that Jessica will be taking with her, piling them into her hotel room at the Pronghorn where she’ll be staying until Meat Grinder is fixed. We’ve only just begun to head back up to camp where we will load up the vehicles then finally be on our way.

We’re running very late and been busy busy, and this is my first opportunity to return Brian’s call. It’s my first opportunity to let him know that I haven’t even left Hudson yet, that at this rate it’ll be lucky if I make it to Salt Lake City tonight, that I certainly won’t make it as far as Wendover like I had hoped. So I call him as I’m driving up to camp. I call him, and I’ve just finished leaving him a message when I see the lights. A strobe of red and blue lights are dancing in my rear-view mirror. Shit.

I don’t know how long he’s been behind me. He must have pulled behind me while I was on the phone, while I wasn’t paying good enough attention to the signs. I already know the problem. I must have sped up too soon, accelerating from 45mph to 65mph before I had reached the 65mph zone. I’m usually so good about waiting until I pass the 65mph sign. Why did I have to distract myself now, when things are already running so late?

This isn’t good. It’s the first time I’ve been pulled over and I don’t know how to handle myself. I curse myself as I realize I don’t even have my licence with me. I can see my purse sitting at camp, snuggled up in a pile of my belongings on the bare earth, ready to be packed into the truck when I return. I remember debating whether or not to bring it and deciding against it. I wasn’t driving after all, and it would only be something to lose in the chaos of packing up. I had grabbed my phone out of the purse but had left all the rest behind. Including my licence.

How was I to know I’d be driving back up to camp? How was I to know I’d be pulled over? How, I ask, was I to know that when the officer looked up my name and birthday in the system it wouldn’t come up with anything? Why didn’t it come up with anything? Even he couldn’t explain that to me. It was just my luck that on my first pull-over I wouldn’t have my licence, I wouldn’t come up in the system, and the registration for the rental vehicle in which I ride, for the work vehicle in which I ride, would be expired. Expired! Just my luck.

I don’t get a ticket. The officer is nice and I don’t get a ticket, and yet I can’t help but wonder… If I had had my licence, if I had come up in the system, would I have gotten one? Is the only reason I didn’t get a ticket because he had no way to give me one? Maybe.

Suffice it to say it is a stress and a delay I could have done without. By the time I am packed up and hit the road, I am glad. I am ready to leave Wyoming.

I’m laying on a jagged pile of red rocks, arm slung across my eyes as I soak in the sun. I don’t know why I’m so tired. Perhaps it’s those hot rays stroking my skin, stealing all my energy. Perhaps it’s the effects of the cold going around camp, the one I’ve so far managed to keep mostly at bay thanks to numerous doses of Airborne. Perhaps it’s just the accumulation of three months of early mornings and not enough sleep, all of it finally catching up to me.

At any rate, I probably shouldn’t be just lying her like I am. I should be exploring this rocky playground, this amazing landscape. Castle Gardens, it’s called. Hidden deep in the Gas Hills, the striking rock formations that jut forth in splendid glory across this “garden” are enough to keep me busy for days. The petrogliphs unfortunately aren’t too impressive, surrounded as they are by chain-link fences topped with barbed wire, and marred as they are by modern names and dates and graffiti. But the rocks! Do you have any idea how many photographs Alan and Gail have taken of the rocks? I would be doing the same, if I wasn’t so unusually tired.

So that’s where I am, dozing on some rocks near the parking lot, when Jessica calls to me. She is atop a nearby cliff, looking down at me. “Rebecca, come up here,” she says, simply. Simply but in a very convincing way. I don’t hesitate. I’m up and trudging up the hill, expecting some amazingly worthwhile view. Alas, I’m disappointed when I reach the top. The view is nice, I suppose, but dominated by the large grey slab of the parking lot. But when I turn to Jessica in confusion I see here walking away from me, further up the cliff line. She turns back to me and beacons me to follow.

AH! So it was worthwhile! It wasn’t a view she wanted be to see after all, but this, this pile of sticks lodged in a white-wash coated indentation in the cliff wall. A nest! A raptor nest!

A large raptor too, by the looks of it. The nest is large and well constructed, 2-3 feet in diameter, and laid out along the outer edge of the nest are rabbits. Grey tufts of fur with brown feet sticking out of the end, and nothing at all above the torso. Half rabbits, still red with blood and attracting flies. A feast.

And there, in the inner portion of the nest, obscured in shadow, is a white ball of feathery fluff. There, inside, is a single chick. A raptor chick. A hunter to be. A future master of the skies, resting after a mighty meal.

I’m in awe. Jessica and I lay there for a long time, just watching. I snap a few photos, but mainly I just watch. We will call Alan and Gail up here when we see them, and they, with their fancier cameras with their large lenses can take the worthier photos. Until then, I’ll be content to smile and coo as the fluff ball wakes and begins to chirp. I’ll watch as he wobbles and turns and continues to call. I’ll wonder with Jessica where the mother is, who the mother is: Golden Eagle perhaps? I like the idea. I’ll accept it.

There I lay, laying wide awake on a jagged pile of red rocks on a cliff in Castle Gardens, just a few yards from an active Golden Eagle nest. How perfect is this.

Camp seems so empty now, with just the four of us. Jessica Gail Alan and I. That is all.

Now the end is truly near. From here on out it’s wrapping up loose ends, it’s taking final noise measurements and collecting the last of the speakers and stakes. From here it’s packing and cleaning and getting ready to make the long haul back to California.

Too bad it snowed last night and the road is a muddy treacherous mess, too much so to haul loads back and forth to Lander. Too bad we still don’t know when the trailers will be picked up. Too bad Mud Clogs / Meat Grinder was so terribly damaged by the antelope incident and won’t be fixed until Wednesday at the earliest. As of right now, our departure date(s) are still up in the air.

From here on out, we’re playing it by ear.

The show seems to be getting intolerably sappy. James and Donna. Josie and Harry. Cooper and Catherine. Ed and Norma. Mike and Nadine. Bobby and Shelly. Sap sap sap. Not enough weirdness. Not enough Log Lady or White Lodge or Dancing Midgets or cryptic Giants. Not enough Lynch-ness.

And yet we keep watching. Finish one and on to the next. Then the next. And the next. We have no choice. Jeff and Chris are already gone. They left this afternoon, as soon as we were done disassembling the Monument array and taking group photos in our Thrift-Store Costume-Prom garb up on Monument Pillars. Mike and Will and Scott and Megan leave first thing tomorrow morning. Which means it’s now or never. If they’re going to see Twin Peaks through to the end, it must be tonight.

And ah what a last episode. Perfectly strange, wonderfully full of red curtains and midgets and giants and garble-speak that makes no sense. But how aggravating! How open ended! Even knowing this was how it would be, even knowing the show was cancelled unexpectedly and finished quickly and haphazardly, even so. Why!

Arrrgggg.

My legs are in shock. They haven’t been this exposed all year. They are strikingly white, especially so contrasted as they are against the black of the dress I wear. A little black dress, bought from the thrift store in Lander for $4. Now how’s that for a bargain?

The pink strappy high-heals were $3. The hat, gaudy and awesome with a mesh veil, was $5. $12 total, and I spent more than most. The guys spent less that $5 each. Everything we wear was bought from the thrift store. That was the requirement for our end-of-the-season-costume-party. Fancy-dress-party more like it. Chicken Camp Prom.

All 4 girls are decked out in black dresses. Megan and Gail wear prom-worthy gowns, Gail with straps criss-crossing her back and Megan with rhinestones and a white sash. Jessica’s short black dress is covered by a flashy sequined dress-robe. We stand out in these parts, and get more than a few comments when we visit the Lander Bar dressed as we are.

Even the guys have gone all out. Jeff is suited up in grey with plastic casino bling around his neck, Chris is sporting slacks and a tie, Mike has a Leo worthy sweater and ponytail, and Will’s a flashy cowboy with red shirt and circle glasses and a straw hat. Alan’s wearing a vest over a flashy shirt that would be fitting on Dr. Jacobi, and Scott was the most daring of all, with a poofy vest over a sleeveless shirt and a bucket-like hat. Oh we are quite the sight, to be sure.

We are dressed like this in Lander Bar, sharing our last happy hour in Lander. Then off we go to Hudson for a fancy-dress dinner of steaks at the well known Svilar’s. Then next door to the much-talked-about but never-ventured-into Union Bar, where we find a surprisingly and pleasingly friendly cround, even to us weirdos.

Then finally, the coup de gras, off to the opening of the new Wind River Casino in Riverton. A dry establishment and unfortunately disappointing and slightly depressing, the casino’s slot machines are still largely covered in plastic and non-functional, and the only gaming option is slot machines. No card tables just yet. Which means there’s nothing for it but to blow $10 in the machines then proceed to avoid a guy following Jess and I to take our photo for “prom.”

But we’re not done yet. Oh no. Just picture this: We’re back at camp and still dressed in our Thrift Store Drags. We’re out in Cornhole Alley where we’ve moved some of our rock speakers, and they are quickly wired up and blasting out dance worthy tunes. We’re in the dark, lit by the dim light of the trailer’s porch light and the strobe light of a headlamp strapped to the stair rail. And we’re dancing. We’re drunk on Bob, a dangerous concoction of Everclear, Gatorade, and Red Bull, and we are dancing unencumbered. We’re having a blast.

This is just what we need: a final crazy night together. A last fun not-goodbye.Tomorrow we loose two crew members. By Thursday it’ll just be four of us. We’ll have goodbyes for real soon enough. Now, now it’s time to have fun. Dress Party Dance Party fun.

I’m half asleep in the back seat of the truck when it happens. I was trying my hardest to stay awake, feeling guilty for Chris who had to drive so early when we’d all rather be sleeping, but it was hard. We left at 4am, Chris Jess and I, heading out to Powerline to do a dose experiment where we bombard a control lek with noise to study the immediate response to such disturbance. It was an early morning to be sure.

I’m drifting in and out, so when I spot it I don’t register it’s significance quickly enough. It’s dark, and I’m drowsy, so at first I think the vague figure on the right-hand shoulder is a dog. But in a mater of moments, as we aproach at 70 mph, the figure reacts. He bolts upright and charges off in fear. Not a dog. A pronghorn.

He heads away from the road at first, but is dissuaded by the fence and at the last moment, just as we’re about to pass, he swerves and charges out in front of the truck. BAM!!!

It all happened in a matter of seconds. Me dozing in the back, a flash on the shoulder, hmm a pronghorn, then BAM! F250 Super Duty meets pronghorn at 70mph. Not good.

I scream. Jessica does too. I’m in shock. I can’t believe what just happened. Oh my god!, i think. I say. Oh my god. I think I say it multiple times. I’m wide awake now. I’m wide wide awake.

That image! The pronghorn veering, his face so close, running so hard, the collision, the pronghorn thrown back. That brief knowing what was going to happen seconds, fractions of seconds before it did. The happening! That slam, the sound and the feel of it! And us, driving straight on. No swerving. No slowing. Chris must not have even seen it. That may have been for the best. Swerving could have been much worse.

It takes us a moment to react. It takes us a moment before we decide we should pull over, take a look at the front at least. The truck feels fine, it’s driving fine, but we should at least check.

Shit. What a scene. It doesn’t look so bad, damage wise. The truck definitely won that one. A bit dented, but not so bad. Except for the splatters of red, the tufts of fur plastered to he side and caught in the grill. I cringe looking at it, thinking of the pronghorn. The poor pronghorn. He hit on the far right front, almost into the side. He changed his direction that late. Alas. He hit the truck right where the sturdy tow loop jutted out of the front. He must have died instantly.

Oh yeah, and we’re leaking radiator fluid. Just our luck. Looks like we won’t be making it out to Powerline after all.

It can’t be later than 5am at this point. It’s still dark. We’re the only vehicle out here. The truck is undrivable.

Now we get to call in a tow. Now we get to wake up Gail to come rescue us. Now we’re out a vehicle again. Now, now Mud Clogs needs a new name. Another incident, another personality revealed.

Chris rechristens him: Meat Grinder.

It seems fitting somehow that this should happen tonight, on this, our last Thursday night out. This, something so typical of the beginning of the field season. It’s like we’ve come full circle.

It’s been snowing. A wet constant snow which has coated the road and made it slick slick, just the way we like it. Yeah. Sure.

Actually it’s not so bad. I’m driving the Durango up the hill to camp with most of the T-town boys, and I’m pleasantly surprised. I was expecting the road to be much worse. Sure there are spots, slippery sections where Dio’s pointless orange warning light flashes on the dash, letting you know she’s lost traction. As if you couldn’t tell. But Dio’s been surprisingly good on the slippery road, for all her other faults. And she does have good tires, unlike the trucks.

We make it back just fine and I am pleased. But it’s not long before we get the call. The other crew wasn’t so lucky.

If I had thought about it a moment I would have changed out of my town clothes. I would have grabbed some gloves, maybe my headlight. Instead i head right back out to the Durango, armed with the truck’s snow chains and a tow rope, and head back down the road.

It’s already a lot worse. It doesn’t take long out here. A few minutes can make a huge difference.

They didn’t make it very far up the road, so it takes me a while to get there. Poor Gingerballs. It seems his 4-wheel-drive still isn’t functioning quite right.

I won’t get into the details. Suffice it to say, we got the truck out, and slowly slowly made it back to camp. But not before we all got very wet and very cold and very muddy. Of course. Right after showers and laundry. In out nice town clothes. Of course.

Full circle then. Muddy road. Malfunctioning 4-wheel-drive, and Dio, to the rescue once again, kicking the Super Duty’s butt.

I guess I still have a thing for my Dio after all. :-) 

This field season has gone by incredibly quickly. It doesn’t feel that long ago that Jessica and I were struggling day after day to access the leks through the unyielding snow, spending hours digging our vehicles out of the snow again and again. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we hauled out all those fake-rock speakers and those cinder-block filled boxes and those heavy-ass batteries. It wasn’t long ago that we laid everything out and wired everything up and got the noise project running. A few months ago, only, when we pounded in all those section stakes and flagged all the routes and viewpoints.

Yet here we are, our normal morning counts officially done, already beginning to disassemble our lek set-ups.

I’d forgotten how heavy and ungainly those massive speakers are. And yet, really, after lugging around those batteries all season, it’s not really even all that bad this time around. And that’s all there is to it. Everything else is fast and easy. There are no spray-painted cans nailed into the ground to locate, just pull out the stakes and tare off the flagging and pile it into the truck. There are no wires to cut and strip and twine together, just peel off the electrical tape, unscrew the wire nuts, and coil up the wires. There are no MP3 players or PDAs to tinker with, no gain to adjust, no wiring harnesses to attach. There is no risk of spending 3+ hours digging the truck out of the snow. No longer.

Even with one last project to set up and impliment, I believe today marks the beginning of the end.

I may be hiking a trail in Wyoming’s Sink’s Canyon State Park, but my mind is in the Sierras. Undeniably.

It is, after all, only a few more weeks before I find myself there again. It is only a few more weeks before I return to Northern California’s coniferous forests, to work for Sheila and Vince and Doug once again, to trudge through those steep forests in the dark of the night, hooting for spotted owls. It is only a few more weeks before I realize just how out of shape I really am.

And so it is that I find myself at the front of the group as we hike up the still somewhat snowy trail to Popo Agie Falls for Chris’ birthday. It is where I need to be: where I’ll feel the most pressure to keep going, to stay ahead, to prove to myself that I’m still okay, I can still do this. Some may argue that I should slow down, look around, enjoy the hike and the views a bit more. I figure I’ll have plenty of time to do that on the way down. No. Best to make the most of the uphill. Best to take advantage of the greatest opportunity for exercise.

After all, I know who I have to keep up with this summer. I’d hate to be the one slowing CBIN and TAND down. Even if it’s inevitable, hard-core runners as they are. I must give it my best. And I must start now.

The first bag sails off to the left and slams into the dirt, forcing up a brief cloud of dust. Another flies by, tossed too low, and ricochets off the board. Jess tosses again, and the blue denim bags wedges itself between the ground and the front of the board. A teabag. Another disappointed groan.

When all eight bags have been tossed, they are gathered up again. The hand-sewn squirrel-food filled bags are stacked in two piles on each upper corner of the slanted red boards. Those too are hand made, the wood sawed and hammered and painted in collaboration by the boys of T-town. The two boards stand across from each other in Cornhole Alley, tilted toward each other, holes cut into the upper end of each. These are the goal, these holes. That is the aim. One point if the bag lands on the board, three if it goes in the yellow-rimmed cornhole.

It’s Mike and Alan’s turn now, and the air is heavy with their seriousness. Alan lobs one high in a quick motion. The bag slams onto the left side of the board and skirts sideways, falling off the board. Mike grabs a bag in one hand, face still. He brings his hands together and pats the bag, then brings them apart again. Together, pat, apart. Together, pat, apart. Then step and swing and toss. Each of the guys has a set routine, a set method.

The bag soars in a smooth high arc and comes down to smack against the edge of the hole. As if in slow motion it teeters a moment before dropping in. A cheer goes up.

Alan again, tossing high. Perfectly. The bag sails straight into the hole without so much as glancing the edge. A retaliatory cheer. The points cancel out.

A miss and another miss before Mike throws again. Tap. Tap. Step and Toss. The high arc, the moment of truth, and swoosh, into the hole it goes.

This round Mike’s team takes it.

The cafe sits on the corner of First and Main, and, like most of the establishments in Hudson, looks abandoned. A drab faded-red and brown brick block, the building is anything but inviting from the outside. It looks like something unwanted, something discarded. It looks lonely.

Inside, our group takes up nearly half the available space. We’re gathered around a series of tables that have been pushed together in the far northern corner of the cafe. The nearby wall of windows is hidden behind a drape of clothing hung on a line. For sale. On one sweatshirt there is an image of a large sad looking woman, with the words “Wake me when I’m thin.” There are a series of bags with a charismatic smiling elephant, advertising the cafe. There is a frilly mint green apron and towel set that catches Gail’s eye, and a hand-made coloring-book bag complete with individual crayon holders that catches mine. I must admit the place is kind of cute inside. Homey.

It’s very low key. The tables are covered in cheap miss-matched tablecloths, the coffee served in a barrage of quirky mugs with cute of humorous images and messages, the kind of setting you might find in a friend’s kitchen cabinet. The walk-in pantry beside us is wide open, revealing deep shelves stocked with ketchup and tomato sauce and salad dressing. Beside it, covering almost the entire half-wall, is a large American flag, all proud with it’s red white and blue. I stare a while at the display below it. Newspaper clippings and fliers are littered upon it, fraught with photos of young smiling men in desert camo. Young men deployed to Iraq. Local Wyoming women’s sons, dead or gone far away. It upsets the homey feeling of the place, and yet is strangely fitting as well.

The waitress serves us with a frown so deeply engraved across her face that she apears to me to be the very personification of the building’s exterior. I can’t quite tell if she’s tired or stressed, unhappy about our pressence, or if that’s just her general demeaner. I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

We take our time, eating our second breakfast and sipping our coffee while reading the paper of puzzling our way through the Tid-Bit’s crossword. The food, I find, leaves something to be desired. Alas, we could have made better in the Trail Bag. But I smother my omelet in ketchup and enjoy the relaxing gathering anyway. After all, it isn’t every day we go out to eat in Hudson, home of the World’s Fines Food!

…Or so proclaim’s the town’s welcoming sign.

They must have been referring to Svilar’s.

Last night I dreamt of boats. I dreamt of small boats on a big sea, pathetic unstable boats getting battered to shreds by gigantic waves. I dreamt of the unsteady rocking of the sea, without the wet spray and the cold and the salty sea smell. I dreamt only of the hammering and rocking, of the breaking. It was a broken and fretful sleep.

And it’s all because of the wind.

It came out of nowhere, a strong howling wind that seemed to blow in every direction at once. It was an angry wind, a fitful wind, a wind like wailing toddler throwing a tantrum. A toddler with the strength of an adult. The strength of twenty adults. It was that kind of wind. A Wyoming wind.

Lying on the top bunk in the Trail Bag, the gale was amplified substantially. Broadside to the main force as it was, the Trail Bag rocked threateningly. The vents rattled and the cups clanged against eachother and there was no rest in sight for any of us. Fretful with a half sleep, I curled up closer to my pillow and within the relative safety of the alcove created by the built-in cabinet beside the bed. If the trailer tipped, as it constantly felt like it was about to do, I’d be less likely to be tossed from the bunk and crash into the back-breaking board of the bed down wind. At least, that was the hope.

Yet the Trail Bag passed the test. She swayed and boogied in the wind all night long, and on into the morning. But she did not tip. Even if no one got much sleep, even if my dreams were fraught with small ships getting battered by the large dark waves of the pacific, even if the wind was still strong enough in the morning for the Monument Crew to cancel their morning shift and stay in camp. Even so, she did not tip.

No. That, that, was confined to my dreams. 

I’m lounging outside in a red folding camp chair, reading a book through the protective shade of my sunglasses. I can feel my arms and forehead burning, but I don’t care. Even when I go in later to look in the mirror and find that, indeed, I am a bit red in the face, I don’t care. I’m enjoying this sun way too much.

Just three days ago we woke up to three inches of snow at our doorstep. Yet since then the wind has died and the sky has cleared and the sun has shone down with an unexpected force. For three days now it has been not just pleasant but warm. Hot even! It has forced us to pull off those thermals and slide on those shorts and lounge around in tank-tops and flip-flops. It has made us think that sixty degrees can indeed feel like a hundred when you’ve been dealing with the cold for so long.

I know it won’t last long, so I’m soaking in as much of it as I can, while it’s here.

Sun, sun, Mister Golden Sunshine, please shine down on me!

I have my head down, methodically weaving my way slowly back and forth across the lek, scanning the ground for poop. My eyes slide over the pile of long dry white droppings, then move on, hoping for something fresher, greener. I find a solitary dropping, long and grainy like those compressed pellets you feed to pet rabbits. This one is a dark not-quite-moist brown-green with a small tip of minty white, and not five inches away is the black gooey glob of a fresh cecal cast. Bingo.

I tear the perforated seal off the top of the whirl-pack, pull the tabs apart and pop open the small clear bag. Carefully I scoop the poop inside, curl the top of the whirl-pack down dry-bag style, and fold the yellow wire-laced tabs. I label it in Sharpie, estimate the location and fill in the datasheet, then I move on, scanning again.

I’m turning to weave back across the lek after reaching the staked end when I see them. Feathers. Lots and lots of feathers. Black and white feathers, black and brown feathers, tail feathers and down feathers and body feathers. Sage grouse feathers. Including, I soon discover, some clumps. A grouse kill.

My mind jumps back to the previous summer, to the mixed coniferous forests of Eldorado County. It jumps back to Dixie, to the day Sheila and I hiked in, telemetry antennae and receiver in hand, to find our favorite Spotted Owl and capture her to remove her telemetry transmitter. Once again I see the pile of feathers at the base of the snag, the skull camouflaged and eye-less within, the federal band glimmering amid the ruins of Dixie. Once again I hear Sheila’s cries of “No!” and “Why?” and know how what in one instance might bring curiosity and interest can in another cause sorrow and disenchantment instead. It’s different, when you know the animal.

I didn’t know this grouse. He was from Conant Creek North, a lek we counted but didn’t monitor down to the individual. So in this case, I frowned but was intrigued more than I was sad. Especially when I saw the droppings and the tracks scattered around the area. Dog droppings. Coyote. Then I saw the hole and I knew. Definitely coyote.

 And now I’m smiling, because I’m picturing Chuck Palanuck’s Rant Casey, animal fishing. Young and bold and perhaps a bit crazy as well, he’s sticking his bare arms and legs deep inside just such a den, eager for the thrill and the adrenaline of getting bit. Hungry for the rabid bite of a coyote.

I’m betting these grouse aren’t as thrilled as Rant would have been. Not nearly as thrilled as the coyote must be, with this fabulous estate he’s acquired, ripe with plenty of food for the taking just at his doorstep. Nonetheless, Conant Creek North just got a bit more interesting.

The pain is sharp and hot on my knees, and I spring back and up to my feet in a moment of reflexive instinct laced with the realization of what I had just done. My knees and lower legs are a spiky pin-cushion of cactus spines. I look down at where I had just been kneeling and sure enough there’s the culprit: a small patch of the prickly plant, nestled right in front of the bag I had just lowered myself in front of to pack up. Shit. I had done it again.

I stood there for a moment, cursing myself and attempting unsuccessfully to pull the miniscule spines out of my leg with my cold cumbersome fingers. No luck. I had, of course, just cut off all my nails in preparation for that afternoon of bouldering, and the bare flesh of my fingertips were just no good at grasping onto those short fragile spines. The larger ones I was able to dislodge easily enough, but they weren’t the problem. Those large bulky spines were too thick to pierce through my myriad layers. The small ones were another story. They had no problem slinking their way through the microscopic gaps in the cloth to jab into my bare skin below four layers of clothing. That’s right, four layers.

There was nothing I could do about it where I was. Jessica, after all, was still in her blind on the lek below me, and I, well, I would have to strip myself down to get to those spines. What could I do here anyway, with my useless fingers and four layers, five if you count my skin, to extract those spines from? No. I would have to wait until I was back at camp.

It wasn’t a fun ATV ride back, but at least I had been IDing at a nearby lek, and at least the incident had happened at the end, when I was packing up to leave anyway. Nevertheless, with my knees bent and snug against the jostling ATV, with the spine-ridden layers pulled tighter against my leg and the needles forcing their way ever deeper into my flesh, it was all I could do to ignore the sharp pain and focus on the ride.

Back at camp, after delicately stripping off each layer, I came face to face with my two knees coated in long fine spikes. It was as dense and regular as leg hair, and looked like it too, except for its light almost reddish complexion. I spent a quarter of an hour carefully extracting them with a pair tweezers. Removing all traces of those spines from the entwining threads of my four leg layers took at least twice as long. When I was done, I had an impressive pile on the table in front of me.

I smile. It looks like I had just shaved. A raw and painful razor-burn shave.

This morning, we awoke to find three inches of fresh powdery snow coating Camp Davis. Snow that had been pushed back into arching piles by the opening doors of Man Camp and the office trailer. Snow that was blanketing Cornhole Alley and obscuring the planks marking its perimeter. Snow coating the trucks so they looked clean and white again. Snow soft and wet and ready to melt in the day’s sun in order to muddy up the roads and make driving on them hell once again.

Sure enough, while I stood at the lookout overlooking Government Slide Draw, the sun went to work on the snow. By the time I started heading down the hill toward the freeway, the dirt road I was on was soft and yielding and slippery again. It demanded caution. It demanded 4-wheel-drive.

I haven’t had to use 4-wheel-drive in over a month.

I wasn’t looking forward to driving back up the Hudson-Atlantic road. This was a road, back in February, that was dripping malice. This was a road that thought nothing of sliding us into the flanking ditches, or forcing us to chug along slowly while cutting massive winding ruts into its soft back. This was a road that we had to work around, scheduling our tasks so we’d do most of our driving in the early morning or late evening when the treacherous mud had frozen to a more drivable solid. This was a road that had violent mood-swings, pleasant and hard as concrete one moment then slippery and untrustworthy the next. It was like it was on PMS.

Yet to my surprise, by the time I worked my way back up to camp, the road was fine. More than fine. Much better than the road out of Government Slide Draw had been.

So tell me this…what is the reason? Time or Distance? A few hours or a few miles? Had this road gotten less snow in the first place, a factor of location? Or was that extra hour in Lander enough for the sun not only to melt all that snow but also dry the mud and tame that ornery road?

Either way, I guess it just confirms what Sue and Stan have told us: If you don’t like the weather in Wyoming, just wait five minutes, or drive five miles.