Episode 4 : Communities of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, part 2: an interview with Eric Melson [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:29:06 Debbie Lee: Welcome to the Subway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The University of Idaho, and Washington State University. Part of the project’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make public oral histories documenting the history and people of the subway. Bitterroot wilderness. For more information, please visit our website at SPW lib argue Idaho redo.

00:00:29:08 - 00:00:55:07 Eric Melson: And then I think people, I think people get so much out of being in a wilderness setting once you take away cars and money and telephones. People are different and they are different to each other, I think. And, and, and then they draw on things in themselves that maybe are a little rusty from our crazy life out here now.

00:00:55:09 - 00:01:25:04 Eric Melson: I think the ways that people get along when they’re isolated in a place like that, that they place that they want to be, are really it’s a wonderful thing.

00:01:25:07 - 00:01:52:04 Debbie Lee: Thank you for joining us on the fourth episode of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project. In this episode titled Communities of the South Bitter Wilderness, Part two, we hear from Eric Melson, who is a graduate of Colorado State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Protected area Management and developed a deep passion for wilderness stewardship, a love of wilderness travel, and a strong work ethic.

00:01:52:07 - 00:02:19:09 Debbie Lee: During the fall of 2010, Eric became a full time staff member of the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation, a wilderness stewardship organization. He now leads the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation’s work bringing the Telluride Mountain Film Festival to western Montana and Idaho, as well as leads Volunteer Trail crews, and trains interns in wilderness leadership skills. During the summer months.

00:02:19:12 - 00:02:24:11 Eric Melson: For someone like me, I have fun doing anything like cutting a tree is fun for me, you know? So.

00:02:24:14 - 00:02:27:23 Debbie Lee: So why is cutting the tree fun for you?

00:02:27:25 - 00:02:55:19 Eric Melson: Because it’s a challenge. Because it’s a small puzzle. I mean, it’s you’re using these primitive, as they call them, as they’ve classified them tools, and you’re using manual labor in a non-mechanical way to remove these trees. That way, X amount of pounds, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of pounds. And if you don’t do something right, you have the risk of serious injury.

00:02:55:21 - 00:03:24:28 Eric Melson: You have the risk of damaging a priceless tool. You have, you know, the risk of of damaging the trail even further, of creating more, more degradation to the trail. So it’s all I mean, the whole thing, like when you come up on a tree and realize and thinking through what’s going to happen, you know, looking through it as, uncritically and kind of analyzing where you’re going to put your cuts, how the most efficient way of getting that tree off of there.

00:03:25:00 - 00:03:38:21 Eric Melson: And if it’s a big tree, you know, putting rollers underneath it or doing something that makes it just a little bit easier and just the whole essence of trail clearing and cross cutting trees, I just, I love it. That’s great.

00:03:38:24 - 00:03:50:23 Debbie Lee: So you’ve met, some interesting people on the trail, and I, I know that you actually helped in a rescue of a missing person. Do you want to tell us about that?

00:03:50:26 - 00:04:25:06 Eric Melson: Yeah, it was my intern year, and we had just gotten finished with our wilderness training, our field training with Rob. And, we had we had taken time off. We were in Moose Creek for, for a full hitch doing, trail clearing techniques and talking about, you know, the management plan and the opportunity classes, the administrative side, the whole nine yards, the in-depth kind of field of research, the field, the field learning aspect.

00:04:25:06 - 00:04:50:25 Eric Melson: And we were just leaving. It was the first day we were leaving Moose Creek with a full, full trail crew. We had seven, eight, eight, or nine people, I think 3 or 4 crosscut saws, full trail opening kits. people have shovels and axes and Pulaski and picks hanging off their backpacks are were fully loaded. We’re going out.

00:04:50:25 - 00:05:11:09 Eric Melson: We’re doing 15 miles that day up east moose up the 421 trail. We’re going to go camp and elbow bend. And the goal was to cut out the East Fork Moose Creek all the way to the Clearwater boundary. So we’re on the move, and we’re only maybe 4 or 5 miles from the ranger station, from Moose Creek going up the 421 East Moose Trail.

00:05:11:09 - 00:05:33:10 Eric Melson: And we’re in the Three Forks area where were previously known as the Moose Ranches area. And we’re in the meadow, and we’re going up towards that outfitter camp there. And there’s a gentleman walking, south on the trail heading toward Miss Creek. He has a fishing pole and a walking stick, and he’s wearing army fatigue, rain gear. And here I am.

00:05:33:10 - 00:05:52:11 Eric Melson: I’m in the front of the pack and I’m. Hey, what’s going on? How’s the fishing? I see his fishing pole. He says, yeah, well, I haven’t been able to catch anything, so I’ve been eating bugs and berries for the last eight days, and he asks us how far is a road? And here we are in the heart of a 1.3 million acre wilderness area.

00:05:52:11 - 00:06:08:27 Eric Melson: We are right in the center of it, and you know, we think he’s kind of joking. And we’re like, you know, the closest road is probably 30 miles from here. And he just gives us like a solemn nod, okay. And he he plans on keep going and we stopped and he said, well, what’s up with all the planes flying overhead?

00:06:08:28 - 00:06:29:24 Eric Melson: We said, oh, well, there’s Ranger station. And he’s like, Thank God. Like I’ve made it. And now we’re we start questioning him and we’re asking, you know, what has been going on? And he he tells us that he’s been he got turned around a bit. I bet Diablo Peak and the Elk Summit area, he went in Oak Summit and he had enough food for two days.

00:06:29:24 - 00:06:48:16 Eric Melson: He was backpacking. He was on a short weekend trip and he had enough food for two days. He had a backpack with him at that time, but decided that after he got turned around and lost the trail, that the backpack was too heavy so that he he dumped his backpack in the woods and kept like only the essentials.

00:06:48:18 - 00:07:13:22 Eric Melson: So that’s why he only had a tarp, a sleeping bag and a rope and a fishing pole. Thinking that he could fend for himself. We saw him on day ten, so he had been going eight days without a backpack, lost in the middle of a sour, bitter wilderness. And you know, he did the right thing, which was to walk down the stream on a large drainage, and eventually you’re going to hit a larger stream and follow that out.

00:07:13:24 - 00:07:35:24 Eric Melson: And he was on his way down to Moose Creek. So we had an EMT that was on the crew, and the crew leader at that time, decided that they needed to get this guy back to the ranger station. And, the permanent wilderness ranger back at Moose Creek was out on a hitch. She had just left that morning as well, so she was about the same distance.

00:07:35:24 - 00:07:56:27 Eric Melson: We were in the opposite direction. She was going up the Moose Ridge. So we got her on the radio and they decided to meet back up her at the ranger station. So, the EMT and Ian walked this gentleman back down to Moose Creek after we had given him some food. we gave him an orange, and he ate it like an apple peel and everything.

00:07:56:27 - 00:08:13:12 Eric Melson: Just bit right into it. Didn’t care there was a peel on it. Just ate the entire thing. And they got him back to Miss Creek. called the Leo, and sure enough, he was a missing person. He was a tourist, and he wanted to stop in the subway just to do a quick overnight. And he got turned around.

00:08:13:12 - 00:08:33:01 Eric Melson: He got out, he lost the trail in the snow. And you know, that’s what happens in wilderness. Like it’s a big area and it will swallow you up. It does not care. It will swallow you up. And that’s a prime example of just how rugged that terrain is and how isolated and large it is. So that was that was a pretty neat experience for me to say.

00:08:33:01 - 00:08:42:16 Eric Melson: Well, we found a missing person and and just helped this guy and I think he has a newfound respect for for Idaho’s wilderness.

00:08:42:19 - 00:09:11:24 Debbie Lee: Nice. so you’re mentioning Moose Creek, Three Forks area. And, one of the things we’re interested in is just the whole idea of community. And in, in this isolated, fast place, how would you what are the gathering places that you, how do you conceive of the gathering places back there where people find community?

00:09:11:26 - 00:09:50:24 Eric Melson: I would say the the main gathering places that I know of in the Solway Bitterroot are obviously the first one being Moose Creek, which is the prime ranger station and administrative site back there. the other ones are probably horse camp, just because they use it on the Clearwater as a base for trail crew operations. sheer, and then the lookouts, of course, but those aren’t really gathering places, I wouldn’t say, but the the community at Moose Creek is something completely unique that I had never experienced in my life before going back in there.

00:09:50:26 - 00:10:12:16 Eric Melson: And, you know, Rob was talking about it in the beginning of the season, and we actually him and I had the chance to fly back there, which was cheating at that time. And we flew back there with Bob Shoemaker, just to see it before we hiked in, just to kind of get an idea of the structures and the layout and stuff and, and the history.

00:10:12:18 - 00:10:35:29 Eric Melson: And when we hiked in, it not only felt like we earned the right to be there, but you’re just immersed in this family and you’re you’re taking it in the sense it is an administrative site. And they run research projects and trail crews and volunteers. And, you know, Mick so it Bitterroot Foundation, I mean, it’s a busy place.

00:10:36:01 - 00:11:06:00 Eric Melson: It’s a busy place. But that is what makes it so great is that everyone’s back there for the same reason. And everyone back there once they, they, they want the wilderness to remain as wild as possible. And the only reason that they’re back there and using that site is so that they can access these extremely remote areas. And I don’t think nearly any of the work would get done if Moose Creek wasn’t there.

00:11:06:00 - 00:11:33:02 Eric Melson: And the family, like I was saying, it’s it’s completely unique and I, I, I long to go there every season. I really do. It’s it’s amazing. I mean, you wake up early in the morning and there’s a packer who’s been up since three, four in the morning. He’s got a pot of the darkest jet fuel, coffee on the stove, and he’s kicked back in a chair sitting by the fire.

00:11:33:04 - 00:11:52:13 Eric Melson: And he’s he’s just sitting there and, you know, you walk in and he grumbles something through his mustache, and you go over and get a cup of coffee and your, your, your eyes are all foggy and people start trickling in and you sit down and maybe play a game of cribbage with the other packer who happens to be there.

00:11:52:16 - 00:12:24:15 Eric Melson: And then the ranger comes in and everyone, oh, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Pancakes start getting fried up. You know dishes are done. And then you’re out in the field taking down fence and working all day. And you’re sweating and your back hurts and you, you know, even though the airplanes are flying in and it’s just this unique like a melting pot, you get so many different user groups in there and there’s just a buzz, there’s an energy, and people are excited to be back in the place of their love.

00:12:24:17 - 00:12:30:22 Eric Melson: And that’s just the best feeling ever, because you can’t replace that with anything. You can’t find that anywhere.

00:12:30:24 - 00:12:37:01 Debbie Lee: So that’s a very different experience than a homecoming in the front country.

00:12:37:04 - 00:13:00:26 Eric Melson: Absolutely. Because it’s so the front country is easy. You drive to your home, you know, you’re you ride a bike or whatever. It’s just so it’s it’s it’s what you expect. And going, I don’t know, getting back into Moose Creek, for one thing, you earn it. I mean, you walk back there under your own power carrying tools and doing work along the way.

00:13:00:28 - 00:13:30:15 Eric Melson: And when you get back there, not only is it like a sense of accomplishment, but it’s just this, I don’t know. It’s it’s that primordial. Your senses are heightened when you’re back there and you, you become an animal again, even though you’re at this administrative site. It’s there’s just something about it, you know, like, you just take you slow down and you appreciate things, and you just become aware of your surroundings and where you are.

00:13:30:15 - 00:13:53:00 Eric Melson: And it doesn’t even compare to being in a city because you have gridded streets. You get back there. And it’s just such a simpler form of life, and it really is like taking a step back in time and getting back to the roots of, of our existence as a species. And a part of this community of life.

00:13:53:02 - 00:14:20:05 Debbie Lee: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Idaho, and Washington State University. The project coordinator is Debbie Lee, recorded and produced by Aaron Jepson.