noisy mind shut up. Walking in the woods alone, in the snow, in May, was lovely and weirdâsnow on green ferns, inches of melting white beneath my boots, the sway of quiet through branches. I forgot, as I often do, to call out, to yell, âHey bear!â as is prudent when hiking alone. I forgot myself. Halfway back to the cabin, I saw a bear. Off the trail to my left, lumbering through the trees, snapping branches beneath its feet, a huge male grizzly moved, also alone, parting the snow in the air before it. Unaware of me. Had this one peeked through our cabin window? A stripe of white mapped its spine, flanks falling away like slopes off a high ridge, corniced along the top. I stopped, blood rackety in my veins. I watched the bear move in steady snow with an ambling poise, rolling to one side and the other like a graceful fat man in no particular hurry. Thirty yards away? I saw my hand stretched out in the air, separate from me, palm out, inviting in, warding off. Noticed, it fell to my side.
I didnât want to surprise the bear. It was too late to yell out without alarming it, and I didnât want to jar the stillness. I wanted to watch the bear, keep it in sight for the rest of the day in the snow. But really. I couldnât hike along parallel, risk surprising it suddenly. It would charge me if startled. It was so close.
I kept walking. So did the bear. A minute later it turned toward me, swung its square head, and paused. It wasnât a stop, exactly, just a longer moment between strides. Had it noticed me, or known I was there all along? The bear loped into the woods, disappearing from my view as if it had been erased. I saw its rump peppered with white, then nothing. Snow kept falling. âHey bear,â I sang out when I started walking again. Hey bear, hey, I saw you, brown bear in a white world, so big how can you be so graceful, so close to me, so far away?
The next day, the snow had mostly melted and left trees down everywhere. We hiked to our stashed gear and cleared as far as we could, two on saws, one hauling brush, busting ass to absolve ourselves of the previous dayâs secret. We barely made it to the foot of Upper Kintla Lake, slowed by heavy steps in the last inches of muddy snow and tangled piles of trees to cut, one after another with barely any hiking between. We followed more bear tracks in the trail, half brown, half white, one set bigger than my hand, a second set much smaller. They preceded our path all day, sometimes veering off trail for a few yards, then joining us again, until, crossing a snow-covered meadow, we lost them for good. The tracks were fresh, from that morning, still crisp around the edges. Two bears together, probably a mother and a subadult cub. Not the curious lake bear, nor the lone male of the day before, his paws like snowshoes. We never saw the mother and cub that day, but they were there, watching for us as we watched for them.
A well-used wooden axe handle is smooth, almost soft, having absorbed the oil of hands. To properly care for a wooden handle over its life, use sandpaper on cracks that may cause splinters or blisters. Rub the handle with linseed or neatsfoot oil when it feels dry. Treated as such, with the care youâd give a friend, an axe becomes a thing you can also rely on. The axes Iâve used for work have been communal tools, belonging not to an individual, but to the trails shop, to a certain crew, over many years. When I oil the handle of one of these tools, or feel it rotate midswing in my damp palm, I imagine all the people who held this axe before me, men and women who strapped it to their packs, hefted it over shoulders, felt its weight arc out from their arms. They are both teachers and witnesses, and the axe is what they pass on to me, wiping their sweat from its handle, placing it in my hands.
ROCK BAR
Usage    A rock bar, sometimes called a pry bar, is an essential tool for trailwork, especially in high
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