Notes from the Field
Le Conte Canyon, Fresno County
By Christopher Blood
Deep in the Kings Canyon Wilderness, about an hour south of Yosemite, Le Conte Canyon cradles the Middle Fork of the Kings River within its granite shelves and spired towers. Even in my seventh season, it still catches my breath to look out over its expanse. Light begins its dance across the granite backdrop at sunrise, framed by Jeffrey pines, western junipers, and lodgepoles. Foam and mist lift from the river as it hurries down to sea level, rolling over tractor-sized boulders and steep waterfalls. Fallen pine needles spice the air, welcoming me back to the high country, where I work and live with several others in this wild landscape, building and maintaining the trails that will guide travelers through the Sierra wilderness.
We work seasonally, arriving at the first signs of melting snow, soft from winter homes across the country. We are professors on leave for summer, ski bums who ran out of snow, musicians without a particular place to be, or locals who instead of hitching in like many of us, just drive a few minutes up the steep hill to report for duty. We all come in feeling pretty green, shaking off the wintertime blues. Quickly, the days get warmer and the nights shorten as the mountain shelf twists in time to catch the spring equinox.
Still, it is the snow that will dictate our movements during the start of the season. As it melts we are able to climb higher into the mountains and deeper into the wilderness, leaving behind roads, telephones, and running toilets. Our lungs adjust to the elevation, our winter fat is skimmed off, and our hair and beards grow unrestrained. Senses sharpen—our ears can hear the instant a meddlesome bear begins a midnight rummage; our eyes can penetrate the dark, sparing our feet and hands from nighttime catastrophes.
We start low in the canyon and move up slowly. The work is straightforward and honest. We clear the trails of fallen timber blown in from winter storms, blast away boulders from rockslides, and clean out drainages. We are driven more than anything by a curiosity to see what lies ahead of this tree, or that curve in the trail. I’ve watched while a bear and her cub pranced through a sun-filled meadow; I’ve come upon entire camps gone missing, scattered tents and gear swept over ridges during July thundershowers. After a few days back in the forest, we begin to grasp again the larger system at play—petty worries are forgotten, bonds are forged, and the end of every trail feels like home.
This is an excerpt of Issue 2’s Notes from the Field