Episode 11
A Snowball's Chance in Tahiti
Lat: 48º09’24.8” N, Lon: 123º45’11.0” W
Near Joyce, Washington
“Next year, I’m spending January in Tahiti,” Gary would say. This lament was repeated on each and every day of each and every of January—thirteen in all--that I spent with Gary on the crew. And, while working on a cadastral survey crew was my dream job, it must be said there were days when field conditions were less than ideal. Gary hated winter in general and January and snow in particular, with good reason. As the “gunner,” he had to operate our optical theodolite (a Wild T-2 or a Kern DKM-2) in the often dim and dark forest. Poor lighting and cold hands made target acquisition and note keeping difficult. Often, he’d have to shine a flashlight across the instrument’s objective lens in order to make out the crosshairs or use one to get light into the circles to take readings.
Those cold, dark and snowy days invariably had him dreaming of sitting on the beach of some warm, South Pacific isle. All of this invited abuse from the rest of us. While Gary was dreaming of warm days on sun-drenched, palm-shaded beaches, we’d be stockpiling snowballs, whenever snow was available, which we used to pull him back, kicking and screaming, to the here and now.
The winter of ’77-78 found us working on a job northwest of Joyce, Washington. State land in this area had been scoured by glaciers during the last ice age. The retreating glaciers left behind narrow, parallel low-lying troughs and accompanying moraines, Presently, the troughs are crabapple swamps and the slightly higher moraines are forested. It was a good thing it was winter, as the swamps were frozen and therefor much easier to cross, but we had got some snow that winter, which had Gary pining for warmer climes.
It was a below freezing late afternoon—unusual this close to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, even in January. We had successfully recovered the southwest corner of Section 19 and were done for the day. The hike through the woods back to the truck was easy since the swamps were frozen. Approaching the Travelall, we entered the snow covered meadow where we’d left the truck. Now, through past experience, Gary knew that George and I would be sorely tempted to fashion icy projectiles with the snow at our feet—but he had a plan! Rushing headlong for the truck, he got in way ahead of us and quickly locked all the passenger doors, safe from a snowy assault.
George and I took this in as we moseyed up to the rig. Gary, as snug as a tortoise in his armored shell regarded us serenely. Like most crew rigs, our International Travelall was equipped with a roll bar and metal screen divider that was, in the event of a roll-over or other mishap, supposed to keep the vehicle’s occupants separated from flying tools and equipment. Ours also had barn-style doors at the rear of the vehicle for access to the equipment compartment. Without a word, George and I opened the unlocked back doors of Fortress International Harvester. There was no escape. Soon, poor Gary was engulfed in an exquisite blizzard of crystalline iciness. As snowballs impacted the metal screen divider, they exploded, fragmenting into billions of frozen particles as thick as bird shot. Our assault was mercifully brief, but I’ve always wondered why he didn’t just start the rig and leave us miscreants stranded there in the frozen meadow.
From the “First Tour" at DNR, 1976-1979