Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The Experience - Dylan Barbash

This is blog is about my first experience yielding a chainsaw and using it to fall a tree. One of the most terrifying, exciting, and adrenaline rushing experiences of my life. I was inspired to write this narrative on the ride to the first day of trails training.


You approach the being hesitant but excited. It has power that must be recognized. Its going to do what it wants to do so its better to work with it than fight it. It is stubborn even in death, it will hold on to the last remains of life until it is consumed by fire, pushed by the wind, or ignited by lightning. Such a stubborn beast is hard to manipulate. You size up the scene to see if there are hidden dangers or booby traps. Evaluate the being and see which way it wants to go, feel it to tell how much life is left. All the while the beast looks down at you with speculative eyes, asking what you are doing, why are you bothering me? You approach with your machine, a device that is dangerous in and of itself. It needs to be yielded carefully and precisely. You tear away at the stubborn life force that is within. Cutting away at both sides, needing to be precise because even in death this beast can play tricks on you, maybe taking its revenge with a malicious twist. You continue on hoping that you have been precise enough and evaluated the being correctly. You hear cracking and walk away to see this life force drain from the being in its elegant but forceful fall through the foliage. You have done it, fallen the beast and come out the victor. But there is always next time and the next being may be more resistant to your demands and could fall you instead.

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Take nothing for granted. Not one blessed, cool mountain day or one hellish, desert day or one sweaty, stinky, hiking companion. It is all a gift.
—CINDY ROSS, Journey on the Crest, 1987