I woke up that morning a while earlier than everyone else at camp. It was chilly and quiet in the Spruce Tree Campground, so I decided to take a stroll. I just didn’t know that stroll would lead to me meeting the people I met.
Logan Horak living the dream
The Great Burn is full of interesting and wonderful recreators, from couples out of Washington, families who consider it their backyard, and even folks from around the country who have just stumbled upon one of the most beautiful places in Montana and Idaho. The people you meet are only there to have a good time with each other and enjoy the opportunities that the creeks and trails offer. In the South we have something called Southern Comfort which always sounded like the best kind, but that was until I was welcomed so graciously by the users of these forests.
So I woke up on that chilly morning before the sun had reached into the drainage, and I took a stroll around the campground just to get the blood pumping and my body to stop creaking. On my walk I encountered a couple from Seattle, Washington who had just come out to fish and enjoy the Fourth of July together, but when I reached them, they had already packed up camp and were ready to leave. Only one thing stood in their way, and that was a dead battery in their car. They asked me for help, which is no big deal. So, I brought my truck over with my portable jumpbox to help them get out of there, but my jumpbox died in the middle of helping them, and we couldn’t find their jumper cables or mine. We ended up enlisting the help of a third campsite, borrowed their jumper cables, and ended up getting the couple’s car running. They offered to pay me, and I refused, but they left me with a beverage instead. But this isn’t where the story ends.
Logan and fellow crew member Jasper with a trail user
Later in the afternoon, after we had completed our objectives for work, we made it back to the campsite. I went for another stroll and walked over to the third campsite that morning just to say, “Thanks for the help.” This happened without any problems, but I ended up staying over at their campsite for at least an hour, they asked me to stay and offered me a beverage and we talked about all sorts of things from the Burn, to the GBCA, their work, where they are from, families, kids, how society has changed. It was a wonderful time. Dave and John were their names. They met in college and became good friends. They started to come out to Spruce Tree Campground every year so far for about six years around the Fourth of July just to enjoy their friendship.
Another encounter I had with a few recreators in the Burn was in the Kelly Creek Drainage. My partner and I had just made it out of the trails to finish our hitch when I realized I had forgotten my truck keys eight miles down the trail. No way was I going back down, so I wandered over to a few fishermen and asked for a ride out of the drainage. They said if I could be at their truck by eight o’clock the next morning I could get a ride to St. Regis. So, I was there. He gave me a ride and was told that he and his coworker had been coming to the Kelly Creek drainage for over ten years on the same days every year. They started the tradition when they started working together. They had helped four people get out of the drainage in the past two years, me being the fourth.
The people of the Great Burn are there to enjoy themselves and the people around them. They love the land, and they want it to stay safe, and if it means helping a few people out here and there then they are all over it.