On the month of January, fire guys, and clearcuts

 

bikepacking in Prentice Cooper State Forest

I decided to keep my 2021 new year's "resolution" very conservative: sleep outside once a month. Many of these nights outside will come in the form of "microadventures."The New York Times described microadventures as "short, perspective-shifting bursts of travel closer to home." These little write-ups will serve to dicument those shifts in perspective.

On microadventure #1

Max and I bikepacked to Davis Pond campground in Prentice Cooper State Forest. We met our friends Reid and Josiah who backpacked in on the Cumberland Trail. It was a dreary day but the clouds parted long enough for a nice sunset and long campfire before the floodgates of heaven were released. It was a cold, wet, and really good time.

On the month of January

January is the month equivalent of the state of Ohio. "Ohio," of course, being Native American for a shoulder shrug. Nobody cares about Ohio outside of elections. Nobody loves January except for the first day of month and even that's about the last day of December. The initial high of New Years and its resolutions quickly wear off in the month's cold, wet, dark days. The holidays are over and everybody's exhausted and broke. The joy of fall and the hope of summer are equidistant goal posts from these, the doldrums of winter. No wonder more people die in January than any month. I used to like January for its prime Southeastern climbing conditions but the more and more I ride my bike the more and more I long for warmer days. Thank God February is our shortest month.

On campfires 

I love looking at fire. My friend Reid wrote a while back, "Around a fire, the lulls in conversation that sometimes sandbag the whole affair are changed into pleasant meditations. There’s nothing to say, but there is a fire to look at." But I don't need a lull to stare. In fact, I don't say much around the campfire (this is my modus operandi at most social gatherings). Instead, I sit listening to the conversation around me; soaking it all in. The lull is the brief moment in time in which I insert myself through a joke, anecdote, or factoid before retreating back to my warm cocoon of silence, looking at the fire, listening to the sounds. 

campfire at Davis Pond campground

 

In defense of the "fire guy" 

We all know a "fire guy:" the guy who tends to the fire throughout the night with the eagerness of a boy scout and is often derided as such. The fire guy gives off strong "eager beaver" vibes. They meticulously build tiny twig tee-pees. They tend to the small sparks with motherly care until their baby fire grows into a roaring flame. They get down on all four and they huff and they puff at the coals. They snap sticks over their knees. They tweak and they poke and they prod at the fire all night long. They seldom sit. And all the while we benefit from their action. We sit and drink and laugh and converse never minding the intense labor of love that is taking place before our eyes. We are the birds on the elephant's back. The elephant is neither helped nor harmed but the birds eat their fill and enjoy their lives. Max was our elephant and what an elephant he was! All hail, "fire guy."

On clearcutting

clearcuts along Tower Road

Clearcutting is the harvesting of an entire stand of trees in a single operation and leaves behind a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Dig a trench, add some barbed wire, throw in a horse wearing a gas mask, and a clearcut looks like every picture of World War I you’ve ever seen. The gravel ride along Tower Road passes many such atrocities.

Much of the plateau in Prentice Cooper is subject to logging prescriptions that involve clearcutting and — I cannot decide if this is shocking or not — Tennessee has no statutes regulating the quality of this high-intensity timber harvesting. The Forest Service intends that these clear cuts are re-established but as Janisse Ray says in Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, "there is no way to re-create a forest. Not quickly. And the trees will just be cut again." The replanted stand of trees near Davis Pond campground is typical of these "re-created" factory forests: systematic rows of identical trees more reminiscent of a plantation than a forest.

Clearcutting destroys biodiverse forests, accelerates climate change, contaminates watersheds, depredates healthy soils, and decimates native plant species. Monitoring already shows a drastic decline in biodiversity in Prentice Cooper. Oak and hickories fail to regenerate in the degraded soil and only poplar and invasive autumn olive remain. The volume of cutting is increasing and clearcutting is becoming the norm.

But why should I care? I mean, I still use toilet paper to wipe my butt*. I am an imperfect conservationist. But I do think that trees and forests have intrinsic value beyond unsustainable market mechanisms. "The trees encountered on a country stroll, reveal a lot about a country's soul," wrote W.H. Auden. And I fear for our country's soul for so many reasons.  

FURTHER READING:

*Toilet paper wipes out 27,000 trees a day.  (National Geographic)
Tennessee Heartwood (Tennessee state forest advocacy group)

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray

"On the Bosom Of This Grave And Wasted Land I Will Lay My Head," in Orion Magazine by Janisse Ray

Gospel of the Trees curated by Alan Jacobs