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The Daily Bucket. Trail maintenance, Bucks Lake Wilderness, Plumas National Forest, CA [1]

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Date: 2025-06-23

June 21, 2025

I’ve had this date on my calendar for awhile, and a couple of days before the day I called my friend who is with Friends of Plumas Wilderness to ask him if he was going and did he have room for me? He was and he did and I went.

Right click and “Open Image in New Tab” for best view.

And I boo-booed. I forgot my jacket. Or, actually, dismissed taking it. Because it was warm and sunny down at Quincy. And I know better. Bucks Lake is another 2,000 feet in elevation and I could see clouds to the west, sort of dark summer potential thunderstorm clouds. And it will never happen again, because I had to buy a hoodie sweatshirt up at the lake at the marina and that was expensive. I was cold standing in the sun even, with just a light breeze. But the hoodie turned out to do the trick so it was worth every penny. About 5,500 of ‘em, that is. Yeah, $55 for the thing. Ouch.

But ya gotta admit, it’s purty.

*****

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*****

We arrived at the assembly area at Bucks Lake at about 9:00 a.m. Turned out ten of us for the day. The fellow in the nearest foreground at right, next to the pickup tailgate, is the Forest Service trails person, Mt. Hough Ranger District. So, he da boss.

Sign in, introductions, safety notes, liability waivers, kum-bye-yah, yadayadayada…

I kid. We do take this seriously, even if relaxed and casual. You notice nobody else forgot their warm extra layer.

The owner of the Bucks Lake marina was very gracious in giving us a ferry ride in a large pontoon boat across the lake, a leisurely fifteen minutes about. We arrive at Right Branch Mill Creek trailhead, 10:27 a.m. Now the work begins.

We took about twenty more tools than we needed or really ever used. But better to have it and not need it than the other way around.

Canada Goose (geese) might be old hat, but you just can’t pass up babies, not at all when they’re fuzzy-wuzzy wittle babies, now can you?

Say it with me: awwwwww…...

I’ll confess it right up front: I’m just not as fit as I used to be. The trail hiking was not all that bad, but I didn’t make it all the way as far as the rest of the group went. I had to turn around and just go back to the lake and wait for their return. But nobody held it against me. I was, after all, at age seventy the old geezer of the group. However, I have traced it out on a map and I went up the trail a full mile and a quarter, but the the trail got real steep and switchbacks, so I called out to the person just ahead of me that I had reached my limit. She totally understood (we’ve known each other for about fifteen years now).

However, however. I did make it to the first major work spot, about three-quarter mile up the trail, and that turned out to be an old wind blow tree across the trail. With our “heritage tool”* bucking saw we made fairly short shrift of it.

* “Heritage tool” is the Forest Service guy’s polite way of saying all manual labor, no motors involved. Your fuel is whatever you ate last and your only exhaust is carbon dioxide and sweat. But, you can make all the vrooom-vrooom sounds you want, if that makes you feel better. 😜

Truth be told, the short two-person bucking saw is actually from the antique days of logging; the F.S. guy has fully reconditioned it (and a second one) for excellent performance. See it in the video, below. We even had the second of this saw along with us, just in case anything happened to the first.

So if there is one thing I can still do, it’s at least hike along and get what photos and video I can. Here’s the complete exercise in action:

Hiking back down the trail I was watching carefully for any wildlife to photograph, but by now it was a good hour past noon and although the forest was quite alive with bird songs and calls and the occasional Douglas Squirrel chirping, they were all staying pretty much concealed. I did manage a couple of exceptions:

Hammond’s Flycatcher

Propertius Duskywing skipper, Erynnis propertius

Here’s a flower that I’ve never photographed before:

Crimson Columbine, a.k.a. Western Columbine, Aquilegia formosa

Western columbine (Aquilegia formosa), also known as crimson columbine, has red sepals and spurs with yellow petal blades, a conspicuous color combination. It is a member of the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae, which has a global distribution with 50 genera and 1,800 species. … Western columbine occurs from coastal Alaska south through the Yukon Territory, to British Columbia and adjacent Alberta, Canada. In the lower 48 states, it is found in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada and Wyoming. Western columbine prefers moist areas in forests, woodlands, alpine and subalpine meadows. … It’s interesting that parts of both the scientific and common name refer to birds in flight. The name Aquilegia is derived from Latin for eagle, aquila; which refers to the spurred shape of the flower petals resembling an eagle's talon. The common name, ‘columbine’ comes from the Latin for "dove", due to the resemblance of the inverted flowers posing as five doves clustered together. When the wind is blowing, the swaying flowers look as if they are almost ready to take off in flight. --U.S. Forest Service; wildflowers

Sigh. Are you (meaning, am I?) getting desperate when you start photographing rocks? Talk amongst yourselves.

A rock that just sort of stood out from the crowd, eh.

Hat shown for scale. I didn’t have a banana with me.

They say there are two sides (at least) to every story. I dunno about that, but there were two very distinctly different sides to this rock. A sunny one (above), and a not-so-sunny one. The shady side was covered with a bunch of moss:

By the time I got back to the lake, my legs were really feeling the exertion of the day. I just sat down and waited and enjoyed the scenery and the sun and the breeze and talking to a couple of passing hikers. I saw this Common Merganser up at the end of the cove where the stream flows into the lake, and those were my final photos of the day.

Now it’s your turn. What’s been up in your world, nature-wise and environmentally else? Let us know in the comments, and include your location and any photos you’d like to share.

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