Smoke smoke everywhere

[John Kasaian]

We took the chairlift up and hiked down China Peak yesterday. We were above the yuck---blue skies and fluffy white clouds and no smoke all the way down to the lodge---2-1/4 miles.

[Drew Wiley]

John, I heard first-person stories about China Charlie from the first county road supervisor in the hills, who passed away about 50 yrs ago - quite a character himself, who lived just 3mi down the old SJ&E RR grade from us. Charlie had a number of unusual expletives, and was married to an Indian gal, but spent all his summers alone on horseback in the headwaters of Big Creek. Last Wed I briefly stopped at the viewpoint at the top of Mammoth Pass and it was so clear I could see down canyon past Kaiser Peak clear to my old porch vista. But just the day before, one could barely make out even Mt Morrison from 395.

[Vaughn]

Radiata has been grown in the Southern Hemisphere since the mid-1800's (NZ - 1859). Who knows, maybe what is being grown in CA has come full circle!

[Drew Wiley]

Indeed, Vaughn. But your dates are way off. Contiguous Gondwanaland was considerably earlier. And "split apart" is technically more correct than "full circle"! Maybe it will all crash together again at the high rate of 3mm a year; but standing around waiting for it to happen might be kinda boring. Up at UCB they have quite a collection of fossilized dinosaur poop. I wonder if the've been able to identify any kinds of seeds in them. Very little of Calif itself is good for radiata farming. Too windy in the correct climate, which is why all the natural ones are small and twisty. I should hunt for a stump or fallen tree in that Drakes Bay grove I described and count the rings. But those probably go back the mid-1800's too, just like the other dairy farms around there. Perhaps there's some local historical documentation. The entire Natl Seashore is still closed for fire mop-up purposes. Of course, some tree DNA testing here n' there could tell quite a story. But I realize you redwood habitat folks of secret Sasquatch ancestry are terrified of DNA research. Nothing to be ashamed of; a little more fur is valuable in winter.

[Vaughn]

My dates are correct. Radiata arrived in Australia in the 1870s and New Zealand in 1859.

More than likely arrived with the Gold Rush from California.

PS -- It would be curious to know who was raising seedlings (or shipping seeds) out of California at the time. A story goes that a planter in Chile (1800s) ordered conifer seeds from CA...he received different than he ordered...he got radiata. (a story from my son...forestry major in Chile when he got the story). Now one of their main commercial tree species.

PS #2 Radiata was declared a noxious weed in South Africa in the 1980s.

Another beautiful day here...about a 35F difference between morning and noon (47 to 81, now dropping a little)...almost fall-like, but that is a ways away. Almost full moon was white last night...yellow the night before.

[Drew Wiley]

Oh gosh. I've lost some of my contacts since retirement. I did stumble into one of them visiting back there a few months ago. He's a decade older than me, and now into hardwood sales, but might remember. So dang much was going on, and I was basically juggling three interwoven careers. The company owner was really smart, and realized that if we were given an incentive to grow our own moonlight incomes parallel to his own priorities, not only would we be haggling less with him about pay, but we in turn would bring him a lot of new business. So all at the same time I might be doing a technical consult or trouble-shooting session for him, I was welcome to promote my own services as a color consultant and architectural photographer. And as far as outdoor opportunities, I was given 6 weeks annual vacation, plus four weeks paid holiday time, which could be accrued or even compensated for in cash if I didn't use up all of it, plus excellent health benefits.
All hell broke loose when old-growth redwood siding became scarce and experiments were beginning in finger-jointed pine and cedar. I can't remember the exact vendor specifics of Radiata siding introduction, since my own very intense purchasing role was in hard lines like equipment, locks, coatings, etc. But it seems that Kelleher first introduced it into mouldings, though my main push with them was for vertical grain fir mouldings (very common need for local restoration work). So I do clearly remember many details and technical issues as even Radiata products improved, but not the dates. All a blur on that front. I also was commuting on weekends to my small ranch in the Sierras, which needed constant attention in terms of maintenance, forest fire prevention, large gardens, etc. Busy, busy, busy, but still squeezed in 12 or 13 LF backpacking trips a year. Now I'd be happy with just one, smoke-free.
Over the years I've become very skeptical of certain forest certifications, or how all kinds of marketing designations have appeared over species which are really quite different, or else, just different cuts of the same thing. We had a botanical expert on staff, the same phD who basically invented the ingredients of all kinds of modern herbicides like RoundUp, and then was shocked to see Dow weaponizing them during the Vietnam war. I really enjoyed break room conversations with him. A superb botanical memory. He had two careers himself the whole time, one there, and another at the University. He never owned a car and commuted on the same bicycle he purchased in the 1940's as a student, and even kept his original umbrella, duct-taped decade after decade. We did discuss radiata among other things. He suffered from all kinds of weird cancers and balance issues due to his herbicide research, but nonetheless kept working into his 80's, when he was stuck by a car on his bicycle and killed four years ago. He lived alone and extremely simply, and it took six month to find his next of kin, someone in Switzerland who didn't even know him, but who suddenly inherited eight million dollars!

[AnalogAngler]

I've followed this forum for a while but rarely post. One of the great things about this forum is that I was curious to know other people's experiences with the fires, and found an interesting discussion about California history and western timber species as well!

I had to evacuate for the "Moc" fire here in California but am now back safe and sound and no damage other than some spoiled food. We are fortunate to have some great people to support us while we were displaced.

It was an interesting experience to try to decide what to take and what to leave. For anyone in fire areas (or other natural disasters, plenty to choose from), highly recommend you make your list of things you want to save long before you need it as it is difficult to keep all your wits while preparing to flee. I thought we were pretty well set but then as we were driving away a couple things came to mind and I was kicking myself for the next few days as we watched the news for updates on the progress of the fire.

A friend provided some guidance for personal items which I found a useful way to consider: Is the person that made/gifted the item it still alive? Could they make/find me another one?

For anyone else displaced by the fires, hope you fare as well as we did; thoughts are with you.

-AnalogAngler

[John Kasaian]

John, I heard first-person stories about China Charlie from the first county road supervisor in the hills, who passed away about 50 yrs ago - quite a character himself, who lived just 3mi down the old SJ&E RR grade from us. Charlie had a number of unusual expletives, and was married to an Indian gal, but spent all his summers alone on horseback in the headwaters of Big Creek. Last Wed I briefly stopped at the viewpoint at the top of Mammoth Pass and it was so clear I could see down canyon past Kaiser Peak clear to my old porch vista. But just the day before, one could barely make out even Mt Morrison from 395.

China Charlie was quite a character, that's for sure!

[Drew Wiley]

Don't have much time to chat now. Enjoying a REAL orange flesh melon for breakfast that I picked up at a farm stand in the Valley on the way home. They think it will be smokey here for quite awhile as the Pt Reyes Woodward Fire smolders. So much smoke that they had to use drones equipped with infrared to assess last nite's report. They have a containment perimeter they think will hold. But about another 1200 acres were affected. It's really hard at this point to know how much of the iconic old growth fir cloud forest at the top might have been lost, because ashfall ignited downhill activity on the other side of the ridge almost to the Pt Reyes visitor center. But no buildings, either private or federal, have been lost in this fire, unlike the catastrophic Mt Vision fire 20yrs ago, which was much hotter due to all the pitchy Bishop pine. The summit forest of Mt Wittenberg is sandwiched between several wide trails accessible to trucks and so forth, so maybe when the smoke lifts, some of it will have survived. But I awoke with a very eerie feeling this morning that my own 8x10 work done over the last 30 yrs might be the only memory of those intricate summit tree tunnels, misty magic, and so forth. I can't think of anyone else who would have seriously photographed it; and certainly never encountered anyone else up there so equipped - on the beach areas yes, but not up in soggy bushwhacking territory. It takes several hundred years to recover that kind of forest, if the ecosystem isn't permanently changed. Most of the moisture in the soil and streams comes from fog collected by the canopies of old-growth trees, and there it is mostly fir rather than redwood. Fortunately, Firtop and its long ridge to the south of Bear Valley was unaffected by this fire, and still has its own substantial cloud forest. But it's hard to imagine that familiar sights I viewed in my ground glass only a month ago might be lost forever for all practical purposes, and that a quantity of prints I "what-if" drymounted this past Spring for sake of posterity might truly have significance for posterity. Life can sure send you a curve ball at times.

[Vaughn]

A lot of the Yolla Bollys are still burning with spot fires and a large fire taking up most of the east side...61 thousand acres, 40% contained (Butte/Tehama Fire). A firefighter died there yesterday...her son is also on the fire.