A Day on the Quad

Earlier this week Brian and I spent a day on the quad, checking one of the fence lines a long the highest points in the ranch. We were at about 9000 feet, and the views that day were really beautiful. We loaded the quad on the truck and drove about and hour before parking it, unloading the quad, and commuting another 13 miles before we started our "work".

There is a dirt road that parallels much of the fence line and goes along the mountain ridge so that we could see down into the next valley and the neighboring ranch. The dirt road actually is on the neighbors property, and we were disappointed to come across several of our steers on their side of the fence. We checked as much of the fence as we could from the road, and found no open gates or broken areas in the fence where the steers could have come through.

Although any one of them could jump the fence, when there are as many on the wrong side of the fence as we saw, it is unlikely that they ALL jumped.

There was a section of fence that we couldn't see from the road going through a very hilly grove of aspens, and we guessed that was the area where the steers were coming across a break in the fence. At the moment, we still don't know where they were getting through because our plans to check that area of the fence didn't really work out.....

We left the road and started following the fence up the hill. Once it got pretty steep, I got off the quad to walk so Brian could tackle the terrain a little better. As he was riding along the highest point, with the downhill side of the mountain to his left, it started to get a little sketchy. Brian was no longer straddling the seat, but instead was completely leaning on the up hill side of the quad with both feet on the foot mount on the right (visualize he is looking straight down hill with the quad going sideways along the mountain between him and the downhill slope). He was using his right hand to continue to hold down the throttle and get to a more level spot. Unfortunately, the quad started to roll. Brian jumped off (on the uphill side) and the quad rolled through a patch of aspen seedlings, side over side three times before it stopped, upside down, with tree trunks woven through the frame.

I was close enough to watch the whole thing happen, and we both just laughed after realizing we probably had a long walk ahead of us. Thankful that Brian jumped off and didn't roll with the quad, we started working through our options. Some of the quads have a winch on their front bumper which would have been handy that day, but not this one. We were about 15 miles from the truck at that point, and it was 10 am- a walk in the heat of the day for the next several hours would have been pretty miserable. We tried getting the tree trunks "unwedged" from the quad frame with no luck, and the two of us pushing together could not force the quad back on its wheels against the strength of the aspens that strapped it down. I think Brian was ready to start walking, but I don't give up that easy--well to be fair, I don't give up on my ideas for what Brian could do...on my own, I would have been out of luck.

The only tools we had with us was a pair of fence pliers and a pocket knife. The fence pliers have a sharp point on one end, so I recommended Brian use it to try and "chop" the tree trunk that was most offensive in keeping the quad where it was. I must say, I supervised very well! (:-)).

It took Brian about 10 minutes to get through the tree trunk with the pointy end of the pliers, but it worked. Once it was out of the way, we were able to get the quad upright. We cleared all the remaining brush between the quad and the top of the hill where the fence was, and I got out of the way!

It took a few tries to get enough momentum to start the quad moving uphill, but once it was in

motion Brian started yelling like a cowboy on a buckin' bronco as he raced straight up hill and almost ran into the fence before taking a sharp turn to the right. We made it out without much more excitement, and decided that section of fence would need to be checked another day.

On our way out, we took a different route back to the truck and went by an old sheepherders camp. It had a brick oven that someone had made out of concrete several years ago, a nice creek along one side, and a large cleared area beneath some really large aspens that had lots of shade. There were names and dates carved in several of the aspen trees, and the names (like Juan, Alvarro, Jose) reminded us that most sheepherders, even here in the states, are actually Peruvian. The oldest date we saw was 1954, but we know there were sheep herders in that area even before that.

The other kind of neat structure to see that day was the tie shack. The tie shack is a rectangular cabin with one door, three windows, and a lot of history. We've met people in their 50's and 60's who when we mention we work at Squaw, ask us if the tie shack is still there, because "back when I was 15, I spent 3 months up there all by myself", or "after 3 weeks in the tie shack, I decided I didn't want to be a cowboy any more".

It is constructed of railroad ties with white chinking in between. It is about 14' x 20' feet, still

had the stove pipe in place from the old stove (but the stove is gone), has two cots with mattresses, some old books and magazines, and a shelf full of Bisquick mix, instant jello, and various cake mixes. There is an old propane refrigerator outside, and the frame of what used to be a screen door still hanging on the hinges. Written in pencil over the old white paint on the front door is the message "Jo, on Thursday move the cows down to Lewis field. Mo. Today is Monday". Not sure how old the message is, but it was fun to see the practicality of just writing it on the door in a setting like that. I don't have a picture of the tie shack, probably a good idea that I didn't take the camera with me that day as it likely would have been lost in the down hill detour the quad took.

The pictures here are a grove up aspens in the mountain allotment- the area where the quad occurrence happened and where the tie shack is, a chuckar that just

happened to be right in the road when we came around the corner ( it had several friends with it that flew away once we were closer), and a few wild flowers that have just recently shown up. Interesting observation about the yellow flower- we saw fields of it down near lower clover about two weeks ago, but it has only blossomed up here at squaw in the last few days. There is over 1000 ft. difference in

elevation, so I'm sure that's the explanation. It seems as though the season is rolling up the mountain a few days at a time.