Life and Times of a Smokejumper

Refresher Training 2011

Bjorn — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:24:35 +0000

At the beginning of each fire season, as jumpers come drifting in from their winter lives as surfers, fisherman, international travelers, slum lords, hog splitters (seriously, one of my buddies works at a meat packing plant, sawing pigs in half), and mostly ski bums, they have to be “refreshed”. Refresher training consists of two weeks of remembering how to do our job. One week is dedicated to reviewing parachuting, and the other to reviewing firefighting. With refresher training comes a mix of emotions. Scanning the crowd on that first morning meeting of the week and you will see faces that express sadness that winter vacation is over, joy that friends are united again, excitement that a new fire season is about to begin, and frustration knowing the next two weeks will be filled with critique and scrutiny of your parachuting performance. Overall it’s just about knocking the dust off and getting your head back into the game.

Here are some photos from our parachuting refresher:

Red, White, and Blue chutes and Orange chute are DC-7′s made by Airborne Systems: http://www.airborne-sys.com/

Blue and Yellow chutes are CR-360′s made by Performance Design: http://www.performancedesigns.com/

Two DC-7 parachutes

The Legend coming in

CR-360 parachutes

Good landing

Ladies, his name is Evan Adsit

The Twin Otter kicking cargo

Cargo coming down on a "bucket" chute

Traditional cargo chute

The Blog is Back

Bjorn — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:08:47 +0000

For those who have been faithfully following my blog (haha, inside joke- I know from the stats that nobody is following), I want to apologize for the year long- wait, two year long, sabbatical I’ve taken from writing. It’s hard to say why I stopped… The best I can do to try to explain is that enough time had went by that I had a lot to catch up on and was feeling a little overwhelmed by the task of updating. As time went on the project of “catching up” kept building and building. Soon I convinced myself that it was such a daunting task that I would just neglect the whole dang thing. Anyway, I’ve recently made some new goals in my life and have decided to put more effort into the things that I am passionate about- and writing is one of those things. I didn’t even know where to start since I’m so out of date so I decided to pick up at the beginning of the 2011 fire season. I may fill in 2010 at some point later but I’m having computer issues and don’t have access to most of my photos from last year anyway. So, here we go.

Colorado River

Bjorn — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:12:32 +0000

Looking back on my posts this summer I noticed that I failed to post about one of the best days of the summer. While in Grand Junction I had a mandatory day off (they make us take a day off every 21 days). Wally, another jumper happened to have the day off as well. We got a hold of ex Boise smokejumper Ryan Jordan who lives in GJ now and we all three went to hang out on the Colorado river in Ryan’s jet boat. We grabbed a case of Tecate and some fishing rods and hit the water. Despite knowing that I’d be hanging out all day on the water in 100 degree weather, I neglected to apply sunscreen so I ended up with a brutal sunburn but aside from that it was a great day off.

Out on the river

hiking around on the shore

Found an old holding pen

thirsty catfish

parked in a cove for some fishing and swimming

found some good cliffs to jump from

Ryan J getting some hangtime

Bruin Point fire

Bjorn — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:00:01 +0000

Finally! A fire call! The call came in about 4pm on Thursday. For a few days it had been pretty quiet around here and there wasn’t any lightning forecast for the day so it came as a surprise. The fire was near Price, UT. As it turned out it was a lightning strike from several days prior, it just had been smoldering around until some wind came up and started to fan the flames. This fire was pretty straight forward… we jumped it, put line around it and mopped up until late that night. The next day we mopped up some more with the help of a few helicopter drops, and had the thing cold by 4pm, 24hrs after we got the call, now that’s efficient firefighting. That’s the reason that we can justify our program, our job. Had they taken extra time to have crews of people walk up to the fire from the nearest road, the fire could have been too large to contain right away and may have burned down into the community below. The most critical thing is getting to the fire as quickly as possible and attack it while it is as small as possible. When the fire was out we got a helicopter ride to the Price airport and waited for our plane to come pick us up and fly us back to Spanish Fork. Easy as that.

flying to the fire

Perfect fire! Small but not too small, good jump spot and beautiful scenery!

Once we hit the ground we were very busy. We had to assemble our tools and hustle to cut saw line, dig fire line and try to contain the fire quickly because the wind was blowing and causing the fire to really take off. After several hours we were able to get the flames knocked down and the fire contained but unfortunately in the chaos I didn’t get the opportunity to take any photos. So, the ones I got were from the next day during the “mop-up” phase. They aren’t as glorious as pics with fire in them but it gives you an idea of what it was like…

The fire slowed it's progress once it hit the aspen

It ended being about 2.5 acres

Helicopter bucket drop- helps out a lot getting 50 gallons at a time

Practice Jump 8/27

Bjorn — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:07:41 +0000

Still no fires around here during the last week but lightning is expected the first part of next week- lets just hope there isn’t a bunch of rain with it! Anyway, we had another practice jump this morning. We are keeping our skills fine tuned for our next fire jump. This is critical since most of our injuries stem from landing in an area in which was not intended- for example into the trees, a rock slide, a cliff, onto the backing course of an Asian driving school, or any other potentially lethal areas that typically surround an intended “jump spot” out in the wilderness. Parachute accuracy is an important skill for any smokejumper who intends to do the job for very long. A jump spot may be a patch of grass or short brush as small as a volleyball court and surrounded in hazards that will nearly guarantee you a medical evacuation if hit. A volleyball court may seem large while you’re standing in it, but from 3000 feet it looks like a putting green at the mini-golf course, and maneuvering down into it while negotiating gusty winds can be as challenging as lassoing a greased midget riding a coked up show pony. That’s why we like to keep or skills sharp by getting a jump every week or two regardless of how slow the fire season is at the time.

Touchdown

Flinders' boys got to see their ol' man jump

Brollier enjoying his morning

Different types of canopies: DC-3 in red made by Airborne Systems , white and blue and the CR-360 in blue and yellow made by Performance Designs, inc.

Fish ON!

Bjorn — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:06:20 +0000

Since I’m currently rotting away in Spanish Fork like an old mayonnaise sandwich in the Utah sun, and haven’t jumped a fire in half a fort night. I don’t have much to post about. I’ve decided to do some posting anyway- on some events that happened in the past. That way I can keep throwing posts up on a regular basis. Soooo… Fly fishing trip is the event for the day.

Chris and I made a last minute trip to his “super secret” fishing spot to which he brings NO ONE! I was really excited and honored to be let in on his coveted fishing area but once we got there (about 5 hours from Boise), I found out that despite it’s extreme remoteness it was in fact one of my favorite places too since it was near where I grew up! So we both had great past memories of the place, which made it that much more amazing. Getting to the fish meant driving the last hour on a dirt road that made a Bolivian Jeep trail look like a freeway- then a four mile hike to top it off. We showed up to camp in the dark and celebrated with a few pulls of whiskey then pitched our tents and hit the hay, looking to get up at first light.

The next two days were full of amazing weather and pretty good fishing. We hooked several nice steelhead and got some good sunburns- Perfect weekend!

Cast away!

Chris showing his fightin' skills

Nice work Dude!

Hooked up!

Don't horse it!

Those little guys sure can put up a fight!

Go tell your big brother to come bite my line next!

Fish on!

Had to run a couple hundred yards trying to keep below him!

Huffin' and Puffin' but happy! Love It

Swim free little buddy

Nothing like just you and the river...

Finally, politics explained in a way which I can understand…

Bjorn — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:31:45 +0000

Why didn’t my professor just give us this and let us go home for the rest of the day?!

Politics Explained

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

live to pull, pull to live…

Bjorn — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:50:41 +0000

We did a practice jump yesterday up Spanish Fork canyon. Beautiful day, beautiful jump…. it was a good reminder of why I do this job!

The load

enjoying the view

coming in on final approach

stacking them right in

WOMBAT!

Dax

Catching Up…

Bjorn — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:01:59 +0000

It’s been way too long since I’ve gotten on here and updated… sorry Andy and Emily- since I’m pretty sure you two are the only people who even look at my blog. But on that note, if ANYONE happens to stop by, whether I know you or not, PLEASE PLEASE just drop a line- a word even! Just let me know that there are people who read this occasionally. It is a lot of motivation to keep updating this just knowing that there is even one more person who looks at it!! Pretty Please…..

Ok, so. I have been having anxiety thinking about all the stuff I need to catch up on and I know that by the time I get to the present events, they will be in the past and I’ll really have a hard time catching up. I decided to just do a quick re-cap of stuff just to get up to speed. Sorry for not elaborating on any one event but that’s just going to have to do. So here it is ESPN highlight style:

ALASKA- LAST 3 WEEKS:

Fought a couple more fires, had some good times, got to see some AMAZING country!

en route to fire

Flying low to kick out some cargo out to the guys on the ground who just jumped

Home away from home

Warm Day!

Cold Day.... and REALLY windy

That'd be in the AM... about ready to tent up for the night.

Middle of the night, dirty, cold, tired, and absolutely loving it!

The game its self is easy... put lots of money in the middle of a circle of people, flip a quarter. If it's tails you're out, if it's heads your still in. Last one in takes cash. That one ended up being about $6,400.00

The end of Mustache May (which, I must admit, bled over into June a bit..) Right before shaving it

WEEKEND OFF IN BOISE:

Sometime in late June I had a weekend off… Saturday I rode my motorcycle to Wieser, ID. for the National Fiddle Championships and Music Fest! I didn’t actually see any of the actual competition part of the festival but I did spend my day watching live music on the stage outside of the comp area. Most of the fiddle competitors had their bands in tow and played for everyone’s enjoyment. The weather was amazing- it was a great day. Highlighting the day was a band called “Milk Drive”. They were amazing… I recommend them to anyone who is into bluegrass. The four of them are all in their twenties and exploding with talent. Somewhat “Nickel Creek”ish with a little more edge. Fantastic.

Sunday I was invited by my good buddy Chris to go rafting on the North Fork of the Payette. Chris, being a bartender, fly fishing guide, and all around fun lover was guaranteeing an amazing time- I was in from the words “hey do you want to…” Well, it proved to be a great time of course. All around a great weekend- just the kind you want when you only get one once a month.

Milk Drive

Gearing up for a day on the Payette

Part of the crew, about to shove off

On the water, woohoo

Chris, our skipper and party official

celebrating the triumph over another rapid

Just enjoying the summer the way it should be enjoyed!

GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO:

My first trip into the Great Basin was spent mostly in GJ, although I was in Utah and Nevada as well for short stints. Overall great- great fires, great country, great times. I was previously not much of a desert fan but I haven’t spent much time there either, or in the right areas. Colorado and Utah especially have gorgeous areas- most of them are National Parks and I hope to tour some of them on my motorcycle late this fall if everything pans out. Anyway, despite 100 degree plus temps, lack of trees, and the fact that every plant, animal, and insect is trying to poke, bite and sting you, the desert is quite nice. Quite nice during sunrise and sunset anyway.

Flying over Salt Lake

Our aerial battalion

Bad ass air tanker- Book Cliffs in the background

snakes on a plane

scenes from a loft

Red rock country

Ready, in the door, waiting for the slap on the shoulder

View from my first fire in Colorado

Whooped her again

The desert at it's best

Right before starting a 120 pound packout... that was the last time I smiled that day

BRAUN BROTHER RUNION:

For the second year in a row I took time off of work in the middle of what is typically the busiest time of the season. The reason? Only the best frickin’ three day concert in the frickin’ world, that’s why! Challis Idaho:

Amazing scenery

So, as you can see, Challis is a great destination on its own- no imagine the chance to spend three days watching your all-time favorite bands along with only a few hundred other “friends”. Well my friends, that is the Braun Brother Reunion show.

As luck would have it four of the bands- Ray Wylie Hubbard, Micky and the Motorcars, Randy Rogers, and Cross Canadian Ragweed were playing in Boise on Wednesday night, so I of course saw them all. The next day we drove the 4 and a half hours to Challis and got there just in time to see Stoney LaRue do a jaw-dropping solo acoustic set of songs requested by the crowd of maybe oh, 80 people. Unbelievable comes to mind. In the middle of his set we were visited by yet another (same as last year) five minute hailstorm that pelted everyone with grape-sized hail. It was amazing- like the heavens opened up with Stoney’s angelic tunes…. Ok, so maybe not, but it was effin’ rad anyway.

It was like having one of your very favorite musician's come over and play in your living room.

Next was Ray Wylie Hubbard. This guy is a true Godfather of the Texas brand county rock that is, in my opinion, the best music on earth. On stage with him was his 15 year old son playing lead guitar. This kid was a prodigy. Some of the best guitar I’ve heard came from a kid who was probably learning geometry in school… unbelievable.

Ray Wylie and his boy

Well, I could go on forever, in great detail about the amazing weekend and all that happened but I’m keeping it short remember… Let’s just say it was 72 hours of beer, thrift store shopping sprees, kick ass music, great friends, and more beer. Use your imagination…

One of the coolest tats I've ever seen!

The best find of the weekend! Behind the whiskey is says "FLY WILD" and on the back is a flying "V" of ducks.

Breakfast cocktails and a rousing game of horseshoes to start the day off...

getting wild in three, two,......

Livin' it up

Smock gettin' into it!

Taking a little beer break in between sets

Meet Cody, he and his girlfriend are the coolest. We hung out all weekend and luckily he lives part time in the Boise area so we can party again. GREAT PEOPLE!!!

Reckless Kelly going off!

Cody Canada from Cross Canadian Ragweed and Smock partying together... practically.

Well, I’m sad it’s over but I WILL be back next year, you can bet you ass on that.

Well, that about wraps it all up… that’s been my life for the last 2 months. Hopefully it wasn’t too abridged… who am kidding, any more detail and you would have X’d out of here long ago, haha.

First fire of ’09

Bjorn — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:51:07 +0000

Perfect timing! Within an hour of being on the list and available to jump fires we were loading up for a “pre-position” in Palmer, a few hundred miles south of Fairbanks- near Anchorage. Talk about a sweet flight… the Alaska Range is one rugged place. Denali (the tallest mountain in North America) is amazing from the air!

Alaska Range

Palmer was beautiful but we were only there long enough to eat lunch. The trendy little coffee cafe sold the last turkey and swiss to the customer directly in front of me so I had to have tuna. Bummer. They did mess up an order somewhere in the lunch rush though, so I cashed in on some free soup which was delicious. It’s not the first time that questioning in a judgmental tone “you’re just going to throw that away?!” has gotten me some good loot.

Alaskan scenery

We got the fire call in the early afternoon. There were several fires found during a detection flight that had just flown. We were to fly four fires and determine which one we would take action on. The first fire was only about 30 acres and was flanked on one side by a river so we flew on to find something that posed a little more of a challenge. Well, as it turned out, the next several were what we call “gobblers”- as in they are gobbling up everything in their path at a rapid rate. In most cases they are catchable with enough resources but we had to consider what we could effectively do with eight smokejumpers and a few loads of retardant. Each of those fires were beyond unstoppable with the few guys that we had; we would have been just as effective flying over it and peeing out the door on them as we would have been jumping.

Two headed monster!

gobble gobble

nasty

So, back to the first fire. In the time that it took us to fly to the other fires, get fuel, and come back, our little fire had grown to about 150 acres. Although it was much larger than we hoped, we were optimistic that we could do something to at least slow it down. We had try anyway- there was a village a few miles down the river. The jump itself was utterly amazing, maybe the best of my career. I was the fourth person in my four person stick (meaning four people jump just a few seconds apart from each other). As fourth man my job is to simply hang as high and as long as possible as the others try to reach the ground in an orderly fashion. It was during that few minutes that I decided that the single best way to experience the breathtaking beauty of the Alaska backcountry is while the sun is low in the sky and the calm wind makes it completely silent under the canopy, sailing two thousand feet above the ground. I found myself yelling at the top of my lungs “THIS IS AMAZING! I LOVE MY JOB!!!”

Our fire

the jump

cargo

view from camp

the standby shack in McGrath- spent a week there

they had parking for me!

We beat flames until 3 am before the two squads, taking opposite sides of the fire, tied into each other in triumph- we stopped it at 230 acres. We decided that it would be ok to leave for the night and get some much needed rest. The next three days were spent mopping up hotspots and making sure that the perimiter was secure. We got a helicopter ride to Red Devil (seriously the name of the village) where a plane met up with us and flew us the rest of the way to McGrath. We spent a week in the 200 person, two bar, one store village waiting for another fire to jump but the weather was cool and didn’t really produce any more starts. We eventually flew back to Fairbanks where I’ve been for three days mending parachutes, rigging parachutes, and when I have time, weeding in the garden.

Flying home to Fairbanks