Dirt Work (23 page)

Some type of bus, or a cluster of them, passes any point on the road approximately every seven minutes. This is not the pinnacle of pristine, but it is amazing how different it feels than the usual road-bound park experience. No private cars means no parking lots outside of rest areas. No parking lots means no trailheads, and no trailheads means no throngs happily trudging in the same direction. Between buses, after the engine grinds away and leaves you behind, you hear water flowing, or notice the direction of the wind. It's possible, for six minutes, to imagine what it was like here before there was a road, and what it will be like someday, after the road is gone. Once off the bus, you can day-hike anywhere. With a backcountry permit, you can go anywhere and then farther. If, miles out, you turn back toward the band of road where you started, you may be able to pick out a green bus passing, a cloud of dust. But as the quiet draws you in and your route coaxes you forward, you'll forget about the buses. Until you reappear on the road's shoulder to wave down a ride two hours or five days or three weeks later, they'll forget about you.

Minimized traffic protects the visitor experience, but most important, it protects animals, allowing the creatures along the road corridor a semblance of ordinary life. Bears and wolves cross ditch lines, gyrfalcons and rough-legged hawks nest along the cliffs. From a bus on the park road, I have seen a father wolf regurgitating bits of carcass into the mouths of its five pups while the mother lounged in the brush; a bear running upstream in the Toklat River, current pouring over its shoulders; two grizzly cubs in a pullout batting at a traffic pylon; a heavy-antlered moose head breaking the surface of a kettle pond; three jaegers in jet-fighter formation; a wolf pair dividing and conquering a caribou herd, finally picking off the smallest, weakest calf that couldn't run quite fast enough; a fox with a rodent's head in its mouth. Others have seen a bear take down a moose in a river swollen with runoff, a wolf and a bear jockeying over a caribou carcass, a mama bear and three cubs sliding down snowfields, a boreal owl clip a snowshoe hare. On the bus, kids turn from their video games and iPods and watch.
It's like a nature show,
whispers a man from Ohio. Cynics gape. Stoics smile. Loudmouths go quiet, except for one loudmouth announcing how amazing it is.

The Denali road system isn't perfect; as the NPS caves more frequently to corporate tourism, there's great risk that small concessions—to capacity, frequency, cost—will have large repercussions on animal and human communities. Denali's bigwigs reexamine road policy under great pressure from the tourist industry to increase the number of buses allowed on the road per day. But it seems probable that Denali has avoided Yosemite's fate. The optimist in me hopes that people will always have the good sense to protect this place, and feels lucky for what I've received here. The pessimist in me knows that eventually, we kill what we love. The pragmatist in me hands the driver my ticket, takes a seat by the window, and watches, for new owlets in a nest above Igloo Creek, for bears on the braided Teklanika River bar, for the Toklat pack's wolf pups, chasing their own tails, not yet watching for me.

Speaking of wildlife. The first ten minutes in a Bobcat are awkward. The steering handles—or joystick on newer machines—feel strange. The cockpit is cramped. The foot pedals for bucket control are sensitive and prone to accidental activation by an errant boot (Gabe's size 12.5 monsters barely fit upright). Early on, the Bobcat bucks like a mechanical bull with all but the most tentative acceleration. But give it half an hour. By then, you can rocket across the yard, do wheelies, spin 360s, screech to halt. Drive into the sand pile at top speed and mound the bucket heavy, level the load, dump it on a dime.

The best way to learn to run a machine is from a cocky guy who's lived in Alaska for thirty-odd years, who's worked out west, on the Slope, for the mine, up north, on the ice, building the pipeline, the highway, on a fishing boat, for the union. Watch when he drives: where he flicks his wrist, not his arm, how he grips the throttle, loose, like a baseball bat in a pro's hand, not white-knuckled, like yours. Listen to what he says:
Grease the zerks. Did you check the plug? Split your tracks. Make a windrow. Feather it.
If you don't know what he's talking about, listen longer. He'll say it again. Bite your tongue when he calls you honey, sugar, or sweet cakes. He's kidding (mostly). Don't be defensive when he says you're slow, the bucket isn't full enough, you forgot to throttle up before you lifted the arms, you're doing it all wrong. He's right. You are. Don't tell him when you accidentally put unleaded into the gas tank instead of diesel and bugger up the works. Take a deep breath. Change out the fuel filter. Bleed the lines. Believe it: someday you'll do it right. Then he'll tell you,
Way to go, honey!

Midsummer, my crew went west, out to the Wonder Lake gypsy camp at the end of the road. Five of us hitched out to work on a handful of trails between Eilson visitor center and the Wonder Lake campground. These stints were a welcome break from front-country Bobcat-dependent work. I was eager for a work site on steep tundra slopes in full view of Denali's north face. Eager for tread work, the familiar twist of a wooden handle in my palm, the grunt of moving heavy things, the intricate pieced-together pride of rock steps and walls battered against hikers' boots and winter's weight.

Owens was the west-end crew leader, I his second-in-command. He'd been around Denali several summers and the logistics were all new to me, so I was relieved to follow his lead. Following Owens's lead was a hell of a ride. He talked a mile a minute, contradicted himself, interrupted, and gave us all (especially Chip) a rash of shit. Owens was generous: he shared his prized family recipe for smoked salmon, made us biscuits and gravy on the last morning of each hitch, and would offer the shirt off his back. And Owens loved to rant. It was less tendency, more full-on hobby. He had stronger opinions than an AM radio shock jockey and once he got started, his stream-of-consciousness monologues kept him as wired as a handful of amphetamines.

To shitty drivers on the park road:
Don't even try it, pal, I've got the right-of-way, seriously, do people think this is the fuckin' Autobahn with bears? Turn on your lights, jack-off!
On the federal government, particularly then-president W and his minions:
Unbe-fucking-lievable, bunch a idiots, who voted for that moron, they deserve it, that's all they can think to do is elect him again, I oughta move to Timbuktu, Canada's not far enough.
His most vigorous steam was saved for “the bus” out on Stampede Road, and anything to do with it, including Jon Krakauer, tourists on pilgrimages, and rich kids with poor judgment:
Goddamn Alexander Supercreep or whatever his name is, what a dumb bastard,
Into the Wild
, my ass, he died for Chrissake, we oughta blow that bus up before it turns into a monument!
Every rant eventually included his favorite expression of disbelief: “I mean
Jeee-
sus!” Owens moved away for a job Outside, but the phrase remained, homage to his blue-ribbon crankiness, a brand of loveable ornery we'd be lucky if we ever saw again.

The Denali gang was dirty. Dirty uniforms, dirty trucks, a filthy break room, packs that look like they'd been dragged behind the loader, nasty mouths, lunch boxes caked in mud. Four or five people had gas that could clear a room in seconds. Alongside physical filth, sexual innuendo was constant. I learned more explicit slang in three months than I knew in my previous twenty-nine years, and I never considered myself naïve. Any reference to length in inches elicited jokes about penis size. Ordinary words like “box” and “come” earned guffaws even if they were used four times in two minutes. It is sort of funny, the looming double entendre that yanks you to your toes, the sparring that keeps conversation interesting, but also exhausting, as when you gesture at a two-by-four and say “How long is that?” hoping for some answer beside “Longer than his.”

At first, I considered myself a curious onlooker, stunned by this undercurrent of language I had never noticed, laughing from the sidelines. But before long, almost against my wishes, I became champ of the sly off-color remark, a habit so ingrained that I had to stop myself from snorting when a classmate asked for a “hard critique” or snickering at anyone named Dick. Sometimes I'm proud to be shockingly, unexpectedly bawdy. But it's a dubious honor, the repository for the dirtiest jokes, which, retold at the wrong dinner party, get me cold-shouldered faster than a sloppy drunk. “I can't believe she said that,” someone will whisper, and I long for the days when this kind of humor was beneath me. (
Beneath me!
)

Oh, black spruce, you lowest on the totem pole of trees, lovely only in your awkwardness, coniferous underdog. Languid maple, fiery tamarack, curly paper birch, all so much finer than you, black spruce, taiga standby, tree of terrain where trees hardly grow. I should praise your hardiness, I know, toast your tenacity, the strength of your resolve in the face of winters that would kill even the stoutest oak. I should salute you. But spoiled by midwest hardwoods in fall, the match flare of larch on western hills, coastal redwoods tall as sky, I am shallow for color, drama, stature. I can find for you, black spruce, only a slight nod, concession that, ugly or not, you are of this place, while I am only passing through.

Goodbye, Glacier matriarchy. I was the lone woman field leader in Denali. All told, women made up barely a quarter of the total hire. So, on a crew with four guys, I had to set one ground rule early: I would not hike way off in the brush to take a leak. The boys turned their backs ten feet away from me and watered the weeds, and I would do the same. My crouch was at least that modest, the pants dropped swift, held up around thighs while T-shirt curtained bare ass, pointed into the woods. If I rested chin in hand while I sat, no one guessed I was peeing. If you have a problem with that, I told them, get over it. To their credit, they did. By midseason I could pee a few yards from any of them without a raised eyebrow. One guy came up to talk to me while I was crouched, and I gave him a full set of instructions. He realized his error only when I stood up and fiddled with my belt. Really, how would they dare complain? I am far subtler than they are, grown men the same as little boys, their urine loud on the leaves from up high, that little shake they do when they finish. They know I've got them there.

Kinds of trails trucks: crew-cab, flatbed, stake-side, six-pack, diesel dump, lift-gate, dump bed, dually. Dodge, Ford, Chevy (no foreigners on the government lot). Open bed or canopy-top. Stick shift, automatic, diesel, gasoline. With or without ball hitch (which size?). Half-ton, three-quarters, full-size. Overdrive, PTO. This one hauls the double-axle trailer, that one only the tilt-top. Green, red, gray, taillight out, trailer brakes too tight, third gear lags on the uphill. Ralph's truck—don't borrow without asking. Like
Air Force One
, it must remain on standby for the big man.

Federal seasonals, like most employees, love to grumble: about the boss, the weather, the pay, the feds, the tourists, the guys in whatever division we're not. NPS and USFS have disrespectful nicknames generated from within: the Forest Disservice, Department of Gagriculture, or the Irrational Park Circus, Department of the Inferior. Cross fire is easier, but even in-house, seasonals aren't loyal employees. We happily bite hands that feed. We're fly-by-nights, too curmudgeonly to salute, and if our agency finds us expendable, we don't owe them allegiance, either. Trailwork, in particular, attracts iconoclasts, irreverent personalities who march to their own drummers and truckle to no fools. None of us likes the idea of “working for the man,” and we swear to each other this is the only government job we'd take. Being paid to play in the dirt is worth the compromise, so we plug our noses for the Affidavits of Employment (in which we vow to perform no overt political insurrection) and Uniform Codes and Conduct Agreements (wherein we promise to be a credit to our agency). Once the paperwork's filed, we relapse to errant ways.

The understanding among trails seasonals is that if or when you turn permanent—hired for full-time, year-round work—you become a company man. Fieldwork falls away and desk time takes over; you defend the paperwork you used to lambaste. Once you've entered this realm, you've become “the boss,” and no matter how illustrious your field days, you'll be the target of disgruntled complaints from seasonals who fancy themselves superior to anyone with a job in “The Head Shed.” Ralph hadn't had much crew experience—quickly promoted from road crew laborer to division foreman, he'd never been a traildog, per se; it didn't take long for him to become “the man.” Wear your seat belt, he cajoled. (Who cared if he was right.) Don't ride in the Bobcat bucket, turn in your schedule changes, guys, don't make me be an asshole! (We begged the question: Can you
make
someone be an asshole, or under the right circumstances, does it come out on its own?) The crew rolled eyes behind Ralph's back, and I remembered the refrain our Glacier foreman used to berate ladder climbers: “The further up the tree the monkey climbs, the more of his ass you can see.”

You could practically see my ass on the ground, so big were the holes in my Carhartts, and the uniform remained a contested battle zone. Early on, Ralph turned a blind eye to dirty shirts, an occasional hole in the knee, disintegrating work pants, because he shared our gusto. We worked hard, so we got filthy. Enough said. Trouble is, his supervisor was watching him supervising. (Beware the Chief of Maintenance!) And Ralph exhibited a deskman's clean uniform and an increasing pleasure at power, eye on higher ranks. Field dirt became easier to forget, and soon, when pressure came from above, Ralph passed it on: no holes, white or green T-shirts beneath the gray, no personal belt buckles, keep heads covered with the Park Service cap only, nix the vest over short-sleeved shirts. Wash your clothes, people! If your shirt is covered in oil, buy a new one! (Never mind that the old one was perfectly fine, and a new one would be covered in oil in a week.) Shower once in a while! No holes bigger than a quarter! (He measured.) The crew's favorite rule was printed in the NPS uniform handbook: no visible lump in men's pants. “What about an invisible lump?” I asked, deadpan, in the break room one morning. “You know, like Krusty's?” The room erupted and my face went hot the way it does when I'm funny and I know it.