Above and below are pictured some of the old log cabins that can be seen along Johnson Creek. A few years ago J and I were visiting Yellow Pine where I bought a local history book written by a woman I know about "Dead Shot" Reed who used to live along the South Fork of the Salmon back at the turn of the last century. I walked out of the General Store and an older lady looked at the book in my hand and said, "Why didn't you buy the book about the Cox Ranch?" I was a bit taken back, but the lady was nice so I said I just felt I only had the money to buy one book and probably would buy the book about the Cox Ranch later. I asked her why I should buy it. She said, "I wrote the book. It is about my Mom and Dad." Well, that put a whole new spin on the matter, so I crossed the street to the General Store and bought the book. When I came out she was getting into the passenger side of her pickup. I called her out and said that she had to sigh the book. She was happy to do so. I have Emma Cox's signature along side her picture when she was only a lass of three perched on a white horse. The story she wrote is quite good and written better than most local histories that I have read. A good buy and read!
Here you can see the heigth of the mudslide in the worst place. This is Lick Creek Road that services only about 100 people in Yellow Pine, Big Creek Lodge and Ranger Station and the Zena Ranch and Lodge.
The picture above shows well what was the most common problem--blowouts. The small streams that feed the Secesh fall rapidly through really steep terrain. The small, narrow canyons can fill with debris from the fire and snow can melt and freeze trapping water that builds up into small lakes then bust loose with tremendous destructive power taking the whole hillside out and depositing it in the river. I did not count the number of these, but ten would be about right. The river is a muddy mess and the road was impassable in each of these places. Sometime the washout occurred across the river from the road, but the mass of rock and mud that fell off the hillside spilled across the river and washed upon the road-- over ten feet high in one place.
D and I stayed at the Ponderosa Campground located on the Lick Creek Road at the point where the Secesh River crosses the road. The Secesh River is so named after the miners who came to Warren in 1862 from the Confederate States and camped along a Secesh River. They were called the Seccessionists by the Union men or "Seceshes". We drove to Yellow Pine on Saturday and saw the damage that was caused by the mudslides and landslides along the Secesh River. The rock and soil was washed away by the runoff from a larger than normal snowfall (for the last 20 years, anyway) and the fire last summer that burned away so much of the brush and root structure that held the soil in place. The fire was rather odd in that there are small and large patches burned out of the forest, yet there is considerable forest still left intact. The fires did close off all access to Yellow Pine. The people were told by the State Governor's Office to leave, but most chose not to and the elected sheriff chose not to enforce the governor's order. People were not willing to turn over the protection of their homes to the USFS without they being there to oversee the work or lack of work by the firefighters. Papa Coyote has to run to Caldwell, until later
May all your trails be slightly downhill
Yeeeeeeoooooowwwwwwwww!!!!
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