Page 56 - Flathead Beacon // 6.1.16

MOUNTAIN EXPOSURE
OUTDOORS IN BRIEF
FLATHEAD NATIONAL FOREST CAMPGROUNDS OPEN
Following Memorial Day weekend, the Flathead National Forest opened its campgrounds across the region.
Holland Lake, Swan Lake, Emery Bay, Murray Bay, Devil Creek, Lid Creek, Lost Johnny Camp and Lost Johnny Point, Doris Point Camp and Boat, Riv- erside, Big Creek, and Tally Lake Campgrounds are open. These sites are operated by forest con- cessionaire Flathead Valley Camp- grounds ( atheadvalleycamp- grounds.com). One change this year requires recreationists at Holland Lake Campground to pay a day-use fee of $5 per vehicle, con- sistent with similar fees across the forest.
The Spotted Bear Camp- ground is operated by the Forest Service and is open for camping. Water and other services are avail- able. In addition to campgrounds, boat launches and day-use areas, the forest also has 14 rental cabins (recreation.gov).
Many non-fee campgrounds can be found on the forest as well, such as Lindberg Lake Camp- ground on Swan Lake Ranger Dis- trict, Beaver Creek Campground at Spotted Bear Ranger District, Upper Stillwater Lake on Tally Lake Ranger District, and Lake View Campground on Hungry Horse-Glacier View Ranger Dis- trict (http://www.fs.usda.gov/ activity/flathead/recreation/ camping-cabins).
Forest campers and visitors are reminded that all food and food-related items must be stored in a bear-resistant manner. Camp- ers are also reminded to be careful with re. Never leave a re unat- tended and be sure the re is “dead out” before leaving.
The Flathead National Forest enforces a 16-day stay limit; camp- ers may camp for 16 consecutive days in one site.
For more information, visit http://w w w.fs.usda.gov/ athead/.
OUT OF BOUNDS ROB BREEDING ORANGE GROVE
MEMORIES
GOING HOME TO VISIT FAMILY in Southern California always leaves me nostalgic, but maybe not in the way you think. Sure, I’m reminded of family and friends, people living and dead who passed through my life when I lived here. But there’s other stu too.
There’s also nostalgia for place and landscapes of my youth, as well as the fading landscapes that were already lost by the time my family moved to the home where I grew up in the late 1960s. I may miss that imagined world of a past that predates my childhood most of all.
I grew up in a desert valley in River- side, California. Our subdivision was one of the rst that crept up the valley oor, displacing the orange groves that a fewdecadesbeforehadreplacedthedes- ert scrub ecosystem, a not-quite-native landscape that had already been altered by livestock grazing and the introduction of cheat grass.
Riverside will always be a good place to grow oranges, but before the post war boom it had to have been nirvana for cit- rus farmers. The seedless navel orange was developed at the agricultural sta- tion here, the climate was mild and sunny with only an occasional threat of frost, and while it rarely rained, there was plen- tiful ground water to irrigate the groves.
Those groves near our home were still actively farmed when we rst moved in, and the farmer had a reputation for deal- ing harshly with youngsters he found messing around near his crops. I sup- pose that makes sense as we were young and dumb and didn’t have the slightest clue that when we helped ourselves to his oranges, either to eat or throw at one another, we were cutting into his pro ts.
On one boyhood walk through the groves we found a baby bird that had fallen from its nest and died under the tree. We were so fascinated by its trans- lucent, featherless body that we returned with a packed lunch the next day to bury
it and dine on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We were sitting under one of the trees memorializing the fallen chick when we heard the farmer’s tractor approaching. We bolted from the grove at full sprint, certain our backsides were soon to be peppered with the rock salt the farmer loaded his shotgun with to punish way- ward orange grove invaders. But the shots never rang out and we made it home unscathed.
Eventually, the encroaching subdivi- sions and meddlesome suburban boys who lacked even the most basic under- standing of the economics of farming took their toll. Well, there was that and also the sacks of money developers paid the farmers for their land. In time the groves were either replaced or aban- doned. Once left fallow the groves would hang on for a time, but without irrigation water the trees were soon just skeletons of Riverside’s rich agricultural history.
It’s the post Word War II, pre-subdi- vision era that I never knew but imagine as a kind of paradise lost. Orange groves in the valley bottoms, valley quail on the hillsides. Traces of that time lingered well after the groves had died. There was an old barn beyond the dead groves that in our young minds was a full day’s hike away. This was the type of adventure we undertook only with great care and plan- ning, including a backpack stocked with provisions for the journey — PB&J for all, and a real canvas-covered canteen for water. H2O out of a plastic bottle has never tasted that good.
The old wooden barn had been aban- doned long before the groves and proba- bly wasn’t safe. But we entered the mys- terious structure and climbed around a bit, before the fear of a salt loaded shot- gun overwhelmed our curiosity and we began the long trek home.
We never told our parents about our adventures of course. These were secrets to keep just among us boys.
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JUNE 1, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM