Rain, rain, go away!

Last week, I went with my new partners, Mike and Gregg, to the Bison Range to do some prep work for a prescribed fire that they are planning on burning in September.

Actually, we didn’t work at the Bison Range at all. We just stayed there for a night, then continued north to Swan Lake/Swan River National Wildlife Refuge. This might not seem significant, but let me sum up the Bison Range like this: Bison and dead grass. Period.

Boy, that would have been boring.

For you Michigan people, I can describe the Swan Lake area as sortof like Northern Michigan, but with bigger mountains. Pines and lakes and rivers - it was beautiful! And just a little bit south of Glacier National Park. Definitely going to stop there on my way home!

What kind of work did we do? Well, the first day I went on a boat ride with a guy that works there to survey for eagle nests. Rough life, huh? J We took the boat up the river and found the 20-yr old nest that had just been taken over by a Canada goose, but couldn’t find the new nest that the eagles had made. We needed to find these nests so that we could fireproof them. Yeah that’s right, I said FIREPROOF them. We cut down everything in a 20 foot radius around this nest so that the fire doesn’t burn it down.

Mike hopped in the tractor and mowed grass. It’s supposed to form a firebreak, but by the time they actually burn, it will probably have grown back. Go figure. But that’s the idea, at least. While he did that, Gregg and I scouted out ahead on an ATV and moved logs that were in the tractor’s way. Boats, ATVs, eagles, and chainsaws. It was a good time! J

While I was out on the boat the first day, there were two smokes that we could see from the lake. Ends up that Justin, a Flathead NF firefighter that I had met in Darby, works out of Swan Lake, and he stopped to talk to the guys and see if we wanted to help them out. Unfortunately, since myself and the other guy weren’t there, we didn’t end up getting to help them. After that, it rained. So much for smoke chasing!

One evening, we went into Big Fork for dinner - it was a welcome treat after staying at the ghetto-8 motel in Condon (it might look nice on the outside, but no AC on an 85 degree day… yuck!) and eating at the same restaurant for every meal. We go into this bar and it just seemed a little… different. As we were eating our meals and watching what was goingon around us, we realized… it’s a gay bar. Ha! No wonder nobody seemed to even notice me but did seem to fancy Gregg a little bit!

So that’s that. We did our part and now hopefully I will get to go back and help burn in September. We also stopped at the Smokejumper base in Missoula so I could finally meet my FMO (fire management officer) who was the one who hired me but I hadn’t actually met yet.

We got back to Red Rock Lakes on Friday night, but had to get up around 4 am to make a 3 hr trip to take Mike to the Bozeman airport so he could go back to Mississippi. Once we got that done with, Gregg and I decided to check out downtown, then drove to West Yellowstone for lunch. With nothing better to do, we adventured into Yellowstone National Park and do a quick drive-through.

That’s when it started raining.

It rained all afternoon, then into the evening. In the middle of the night, lightning flashed and sheets of rain hammered on the windows and roof.

So much for a fire season!

Well, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it’s definitely been a slow fire season (for better or worse).

The next morning, the clouds encircled our Centennial valley and loomed over the mountains, hiding the peaks. Grey and nasty, but never intruded into the valley until later that evening. I think it rained Sunday also. That evening while running, I could finally see the top of Jefferson mountain.

All white! The first snow in the peaks that I have seen this summer. Actually, the snow just finally started melting off today - it’s been cooler lately, highs around 60 degrees, so it’s no surprise the snow lasted this long up at 10,000 ft.

I can’t remember if it rained Monday, but it was just raining here a few minutes ago.

I did talk to my FMO and he said that because of all this rain we’re getting, he is going to try and send Gregg and I “out of the region”. I am not sure what that means exactly, except that it would be cool if we could get out of here for at least a little bit and maybe get on one more fire. Sweetness all around!

In the meantime, we went grocery shopping and made that annoying 1 ½ hr drive to Dillon. At least we got to get jiggy with the CD player in another employee’s truck. When we got back, I had a package waiting for me from the UPS man - my new DVDs, Deliverance and The Boondock Saints! Woo hoo, something to keep me busy this week! ;)