I’m grateful for the nice compliments I received for the first story I posted here about the paint horse. Encouraged, I thought I would offer this one as well.

I made reference to Chet Smith while telling the last story. Here’s a bit more about him.
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Chet: Hero, Mentor, Teacher, Friend

I started my Forest Service career as a GS-3 seasonal on the Ashley in NE Utah. Fortune smiles on the unworthy; I had a friend who was working as the Customer Service Representative in Duchesne and she recommended me when they were looking to put a second person into Grandaddy Basin in what was then called the High Uintas Primitive Area (Wilderness designation in 1984).

The Uinta Mountains are unique in that they are the only mountain range in the continental United States with an east - west orientation. Spectacularly beautiful, the Uintas were heavily glaciated and roughly 500 lakes are part of the legacy of that period of geologic history.

I was neither a college graduate at this time, nor was I particularly handy. I could ride—adequately, and do little else without a great deal of supervision. There’s an Ian Tyson song, The Old Double Diamond, and the singer admits:
“When I first hired on the old Double Diamond
I was a damn poor excuse for a man
Never learned how to aim when my spirit was tame
Couldn’t see all the cards in my hand.”

That was me. The fortune I spoke about though was the group of men (all men the first couple years) that I worked with on the district. There were a few like me, college aged and from outside the state of Utah. The core of the summer crew, however, were local ranchers in what is called “Tabby Valley.” I lived at an administrative site called Stockmore, located in Tabby Valley where the N Fork of the Duchesne River enters the Valley. Tabby Valley is named for the farming/ranching community of Tabiona, about 40 miles northwest of Duchesne.

The ranchers all seemed willing to work with what they were given. I’d like to think I’ve always had a good attitude and a willingness to keep my mouth shut and my ears open. They taught me a lot, but nobody taught me more than Chet.

Chet had been the Wilderness ranger in Grandaddy Basin for, I think, about 10 years. He was a cowboy, a packer, a teller of tales. He had been asking for help in Grandaddy for a few years and the district finally had money in the high country recreation budget to accommodate him. He was also anticipating an end to the Wilderness job, “I’ve had enough campin’ out,” he said to me on a couple of occasions.

Chet taught me how to shoe horses. He said, “You shoe what you ride on this outfit. I’ll do more than my father did for me,” he said. “I’ll show you how.“ He did too. Patiently showing me how to trim a foot straight and not to be fooled into following the hoof wall down at the quarters leaving a divot in the hoof wall. He showed me the white line and how to fit a shoe to it. He showed me how to work with a horse that didn’t want to cooperate, to stay low for the horse’s comfort, to bend the nails over immediately so a horse couldn’t jerk a nail through your hand. Finally, he taught me to how to properly clinch the nails so that the shoe would most likely stay on for the 6 or 7 weeks between shoeings.

He taught me how to pack horses and mules. Chet knew several different hitches, but he relied on the simple box hitch. We rarely had significant top packs and the box was more than adequate for most of the packing we did. He taught me how to properly pull the slack on a box hitch to raise the panniers or pack boxes, or bales of hay, away from the sides of the animal. Even the simple box hitch is somewhat of an art though, raise the load too much and the load becomes unstable and applies side-to-side pressure on the withers and can sore up the kidney area. Don’t raise it enough and the load can chafe the front legs of the animal, and dig into its flanks.

He introduced me to sourdough. Every morning in camp we started the day with sourdough hotcakes. The grey jays would sit in the trees outside the door of the tent, hoping there would be a few leftover hotcakes. I still have my sourdough starter from all those years ago. Sourdough is a Sunday, rather than an everyday ritual, but it’s been ongoing for more years than I care to think about.

My biggest regret is never recording Chet. He was a gifted storyteller and could spin a tale that pulled you in deep. Some of the stories were even true. If there’s a phrase that remember him for it’s, “Well, that’s fer god-damn shor” (each word separated by a brief pause). He would punctuate his tales with this, emphasize a point, or agree with something I said. Then he’d look out from under the brim of his hat and give a quick grin.

If you asked him a direct question about…anything, he would evade and not answer. If you kept your mouth shut and just listened, he would tell you everything you needed to know, and then some. He was my hero, my mentor, my teacher (not quite the same thing), and my friend.

After I had been on the district for a couple of years, he did give up “campin’ out,” and quit going up into the high country. We built a new warehouse in Duchesne one summer and he took responsibility for managing it. I took my wife (then girlfriend) to meet Chet at the warehouse. He said to her, “I like to think of Tom as my protégé.” Dang right

I worked 5 seasons on the Ashley before their high country recreation budget diminished to the point where they asked me to consider coming back as a volunteer the next season. I had been going back and forth between summers in the High Uintas and winters in Wickenburg, Arizona working on a guest ranch. By this time I had moved over to a ranch that stayed open all year—relying on tour groups from Europe and Japan during the hot summer months. That was the end of my Forest Service work until years later when I went to college and landed what was then called a Co-op internship as a professional series employee on the Kaibab.

Well done.

Chet and Keno, mid-September in the high country

You, my friend, spin a good yarn yourself!

"Well, that’s fer god-damn shor” if I may be bold enough to quote your friend, Chet!

I look forward to reading the next chapter!
Don

That's a great picture of an interesting man. I enjoyed your narrative and hope you have a few more to share.

Jim

That's an old piece of leather with a face. And a quality education.

I grew up on the Wasatch Front, spent a lot of time as a Scout and a Scout leader in the Uintas. I love those mountains. My brother takes Scouts on a backpack to Kings Peak every year.

Scoutmaster, first of all, remember this took place many years ago, and many simply did not understand Wilderness, and Wilderness ethics.

I was out riding somewhere in Grandaddy Basin one day when I came upon a scout troop busy making “primitive shelters.” Every scout had a hatchet and they were busy cutting green boughs for shelters and sleeping mats.

The scout leaders just didn’t know, they were following a training exercise that was still in the handbook.

I gathered the boys and leaders all around and we had a good talk about the Wilderness Act and its intention, and minimum impact/leave no trace camping. No one was more enthused than the two men who were scout leaders. We talked about the requirements to become an Eagle Scout, and in particular, the public service requirement.

The leaders had a few boys who were Eagle candidates. I suggested that boys could lead troop members in lake shore cleanup and restoration—breaking up fire rings, scattering ashes, picking up litter, etc.

Over the course of the next couple of summers several boys led efforts like this restoring lake shores in the Basin.

I’m as proud of the coordination that we achieved as anything I got done as a seasonal.

Love the story, will continue reading as many as you will post!!

Great stories. Keep them coming.