Kathy and I have been here over 2 weeks now, we are operating an information booth for visitors. There is also a picnic area with rest rooms that we watch over. A plaque honoring 2 men who lost their lives in a plane crash on October 1, 1992 fighting the Cleveland Fire here stands at the end of the parking lot. There is a larger Information Center further up Ice House Road, which is the major thoroughfare in the Crystal Basin Recreation Area. Eldorado means Land of Gold, the term goes back to the Spanish explorers who tried futilely to discover huge deposits of it. The Gold Rush did eventually occur in this area, but long after the Spanish explorers of the 1500's.
To get right to the exciting stuff that's happened so far:
1. Three Sherriff cars, 1 Highway Patrol and a private SUV gathered here late last Friday. I approached them but couldn't find out what was happening. They were confused about navigating the forest roads and I asked if they were looking for something. " We found it," was the only reply. They then asked if I had road maps of the area which I handed over. Struck me as a bit odd that they didn't have those, but oh well. They might have been looking for a fugitive in the area, but latest news report shows he's still missing.
2. Eight year old boy chopped down a small tree in a campground. Drew the attention of more than a few of the staff, heard about it from one of them later who issued a warning to the boy and got an apology from him. I would cherish that warning for the rest of my life if I were that boy.
3. Campers in an off-limit area. Heard about it on the radio and from one of the 2 staff involved in asking them to leave. The one camper gave them a hard time and tried to tell them the forest and the map they had were 'wrong'. Then he went on a rant about his tax dollars. He and his group eventually packed up and left, but they weren't happy about it.
4. According to one of the Forest Protection Officers, one of the campgrounds will be burned down next year. It has been free but there will be a fee next year, she predicted that irate campers will be upset about the fee. Apparently it's the Wild West there now, no fee and no camp host. Something will change next year.
5. We found a mouse family in the information booth a few days ago. They were in a closed cabinet, had made a crude nest inside a bottle with hardware. We tried to sweep them into a waste bucket but they scattered and went into hiding. We didn't have anything to trap them with so I tried setting up a bucket of water with peanut butter to lure them, left it overnight. That didn't work but they seem to be gone, probably traumatized for life.
That's all the exciting stuff, unless you're interested in the more ordinary aspects of being here, you can stop reading now!
We live on site in a trailer provided by the Forest Service (USFS). It's older but comfortable enough, and so far it has been cool enough so that we don't have to run the a/c. The booth we operate also has a/c and gets warmer from direct sun but we have only used a fan to provide cooling so far. The booth contains maps and information that we hand out. We also write fire permits, for cooking stoves and campfires, which are free and good through the end of the year. We read through a list of common sense rules about fire safety before we hand the permit over. More fire restrictions that could ban fires in undeveloped areas of the forest are expected at some point this summer.
The weather will get warmer, we expect daytime temperatures to get into the 90's eventually. Amazingly there is still snow in the higher elevations. We climbed up to 8,000 feet yesterday on our day off to Twin Lakes in the Desolation Wilderness and encountered snow fields that stopped us from proceeding further. A raging stream of snow melt also prevented us from continuing on a different route. The campground at Wright's Lake where we started our trek was just recently cleared of snow and still hasn't opened yet.
Fire is on our minds, hoping it doesn't happen here, but aware that things will dry up and the risk increase. The fire danger is listed as moderate and there are no fire restrictions now. A small fire caused by a lighting strike occurred the other day and was quickly extinguished by a fire crew. There is also a heliport at the Ranger Station near Pollock Pines and a lookout at Big Hill manned by fire spotter. So hopefully with compliance of fire rules, the vigilance by the fire crews and some luck we can get through the summer ok. A fire a few hundred miles away can send smoke and ash though, that happened last year and could repeat this year.
The visitors that come in for the most part know what they are here for and know how to manage themselves. They are either fishing, birding, camping, hiking, off-roading or boating. There is also the Rubicon Trail, a world famous jeep 'trail' which involves climbing over and around large boulders. These are mostly oversized jeeps and off road vehicles, most being towed by large trailers, we see them constantly going up Ice House Road, and they don't tend to stop at our station. A few other visitors are just checking out the area for the first time (like us) and want to know what it has to offer. The typical visitor we encountered at the National Parks often came in not knowing how to spend their time. "What can I do in x hours here?" was common. The visitor mindsets are vastly different. The visitation in the forest is also a fraction of what Bryce Canyon and Rocky Mountain got. Our busiest day here at Cleveland Corral so far has been 47 vehicles stopping, and we generally talk to less than half of those who stop.
Since Eldorado National Forest is an hour or less from Sacramento, it is considered an 'urban forest'. It is heavily visited by urbanites, also drawing from the Bay area and Central Valley. There are a lot of repeat visitors. Placerville is the next town to the west from Pollock Pines and offers more in restaurants, shopping and services than Pollock Pines. We ventured there one time so far. It has a quaint historic downtown which is basically set up as a tourist mecca. The settlement of the town happened during the Gold Rush years of the mid 1800's. The iconic bell tower from that period still dominates the center of town. U.S. 50 connects through Placerville to Sacramento to the west and to South Lake Tahoe to the east. Much of the traffic on it is heading or coming back from Tahoe, especially on weekends. We were told that it would be all backed up on the Fourth of July, but that never happened. It's still a pretty busy road through this area. Unlike through Nevada where it's dubbed the "Loneliest Road in America".
We have figured out a fair amount of the recreation area here, enough to be helpful to visitors. We've gone on a few of the more popular hikes: Bassi Falls, Twin Lakes, Horsetail Falls and 2 other trails nearby at Sly Recreation Area. Visited a number of the campgrounds and the 3 major reservoirs. Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has several power facilities at the reservoirs and in cooperation with the USFS developed much of the recreation and camping facilities here. My son and his family came for a few days around the Fourth; they came up to Cleveland Corral one day and we went to Sly Rec Area two different days. They came up from San Francisco, which could be close to a 3 hour drive without kids or traffic. I will find out soon for myself.
We have met most of the other staff that we will be working with. All good dedicated people, and a mixture of some young seasonal or temporary workers and some seasoned veterans. Our boss and his boss are recreational officers, not foresters. There are only 2 law enforcement officers and 2 additional Forest Protection Officers. 3 more are in training and desperately needed. The maintenance staff has been most helpful. They got our trailer in pretty good shape, and considering that we came in earlier than they thought we would, things got in good shape soon after our arrival.
My impressions so far are that this area has a lot to offer to a variety of people. It is simply beautiful, between the snow capped mountains, the cold reservoirs, the tall and abundant trees, interesting hiking and fresh mountain streams that I hope to fish in. The good weather and relative lack of bugs are pluses. There will be some issues, not everything will be ideal, I may wither some in the heat, I am missing a lot back home, but will try to stick with a theme we came up with while traveling out here: "whatever it is, it's probably not that important."
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