THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF THE FOREST RANGER 



elLBERT wrote "The policeman's lot is not a happy one," but the lot 

 of Uncle Sam's forest policemen seems to be both happy and strenuous. 

 What the work of a forest ranger actually means can probably be fully 

 realized only by those who have lived long in the wilderness. The following 

 extract from a narrative of personal experience in the spring of 1911 of two 

 members of the Battlement Mesa National Forest reached American Forestry 

 and is published, because it affords a glimpse into the amount and variety of 

 the work on a national forest to get ready for the busy season. 



"The time of most of the men on the Battlement during January, February 

 and March having been almost entirely taken up with grazing business, reseed- 

 ing and forest investigation work, it became necessary in April to do such repair 

 work on the stations and telephone lines as would put everything in working 

 order for a busy coming field season. We have painting of roofs, ceilings, 

 doors and windows, and oiling of floors to accomplish on two three-room 

 cabins, one at the Park Creek and one at the Big Creek Ranger Station. These 

 stations are located at altitudes of 8,500 and 8,750 feet above sea level, where 

 the snow at this season was from four to five feet deep. 



A telephone line 10 miles long connecting these two stations and thence 

 from the Big Creek station to the Supervisor's office at Collbran, Colorado, had 

 to be repaired. The line from the Park Creek to the Big Creek Ranger station 

 traverses a country ranging from 8,500 to 10,000 feet in altitude. This line 

 was in bad condition from the heavy snows in some places, long stretches being 

 down and buried in the snow. We started carrying supplies on our backs and 

 sometimes hauling it on roughly constructed sleds to our stations, early in 

 April. From the lower snow line where we could go with pack horses to the 

 stations is four to five miles, we found that a. man could pack only about 

 50 pounds to a trip on skis, and it would take an entire day to cover the ten 

 miles. We had bedding, food su})p]ies, paint and oil, in five and one 

 gallon cans, telephone wire, brackets, insulators and tools, aggregating 500 

 pounds per station. By using sleds part of the time we transported the entire 

 load to the station in five days. The sleds were hurriedly constructed and 

 pulled mighty heavy, oftentimes we could not pull them more than a few 

 yards at a time ^\itbout resting. The snow was generally soft and some- 

 times sticky enough to make it impossible to move the sleds while on our 

 skis, without stopping to scrape the frozen snow off from the bottom of runners 

 or skis and greasing them with tallow. When Supervisor Lowell saw the sleds 

 and attempted to pull one he remarked that it would have been as well to have 

 used the ranger station stove with the feet down for transporting the load. 



When we arrived at the stations ice had to be shoveled off from the 

 shingled roofs so that they would dry for j)ainting. The weather was cold and 

 we found it necessary to heat all paint and oil before applying it to the roof. 

 Before painting was attempted we started out to repair the telephone line on 

 skis, carrying with us the necessary wire, brackets, insulators and tools. One 

 of us is an expert on telei)hone repairs, but a new beginner on skis. The other 

 one had had considerable exi>erience on skis and as a telephone pole and tree 

 climber. We were three days repairing the 16 miles of line. In several places 



463 



