More Recon

As I have explained before, access can be very tough on projects like this. Normally, our only option to identify access points and trails is low resolution aerial photography or satellite imagery. We look at the imagery and try to identify possible trials. We then take our vehicles and ATV's to see where the trails lead us. Sometimes they take us where we want to go, sometimes they dead end at an impassible swamp and sometimes we can't even find them.

The best way to look for new trails and access points is by flying over the project at a low altitude. Unfortunately, surveyors normally can't afford a plane and a pilot.

Working under a contract with the forest service does have some advantages.

Today we did a low altitude flyover of the project in a USFS Beaver plane. It is a single engine 6 seat plane. We went up in the air around 9 this morning, and by 10 we had figured out how to access some points of the project that were previously very difficult to access.

Elephant Lake

Our house is down there somewhere

Daily Grind

People have been telling me that I don't update the blog enough. When the job first started everything was new and exciting and I had a lot to say and share. Now we have reached the point where the job has become routine.


A a daily routine is very important, since on any given day we may be a 3 mile hike from our vehicles. If we forget anything back at the house, the day is bassically shot. By the time you go back to the house and get back into the woods, the day would be over.

Most days go like this

6-7: AM            Wake up and make breakfast

7-7:30 AM:       Pack equipment and gear for the day.

7:30 AM:          Hit the road and get to work

7:30-10 AM:     Work
10-10:15 AM:   Coffee break

10:15 AM:        Back to work

11, 12, 1 or 2:   Eat lunch when we can

6 PM:                Hopefully we are back at the house

6-7 PM:            Unload equipment and make a plan for the next day

7-8 PM:            Get gear ready for the next day.

8-9:30:              Eat dinner, call home, etc.

10 PM:             Get some sleep 

I was home this weekend and my wife and I went to a hip cafe for breakfast. I struck up a conversation with the trendy barista dude and he started telling me how he had to work through the weekend and go to school, etc, etc.

I started to think about my situation. Like the barista dude, I am really busy during the week and I don't really get a lot of time to rest. We are planning on working the 10 days without a break in hopes of beating the next major snowfall.

I guess the main difference is in location. I could be working in the Twin Cities or in the great northwoods.

The job may be coming routine, but I wouldn't trade it for any other job in the world right now.

(Come back later in the week, and we'll see how I feel with 4 inches of snow) 

Chainsaw Pack

On typical day we pack in a lot of stuff. Fence posts, signs, GPS equipment, food, water, etc. One of the most important pieces of equipment is our chainsaw.

The saw is needed for many reasons. We clear downed trees that block our path on our way to set a corner. When we set the corner we may need the saw to clear out enough area to get a good GPS signal. We also use the saw to clear line to bearing trees.

Initially we would bring the saw with us by carrying it in one hand. This works well enough, but it does make trudging though the woods and swamps difficult. Wayne told us about a chainsaw backpack that he has been using, and we decided to give it a try.

McKenziepackcompany.com

This pack is amazing. It fully replaced another backpack while allowing us to carry the chainsaw on our backs.

As always, the pictures don't do it justice. On the left you can see our old pack. It was an heavy, old military issue pack.

On the right, you can see the new chainsaw pack. It carries the same amount of stuff, along with one more important piece of equipment, the chainsaw.

This pack has made our lives (especiialy Wally's since he carries the saw) much easier. If you ever need a chainsaw backpack, look this company up, you will not be disappointed.

Evidence

One of my earlier posts was all about the finding the original corners that were set. But what else do we look for?

It is rare to find the actual corner. While still uncommon, it is more likely that we will find a corner accessory. A corner accessory is something else that the original surveyors left behind to help future surveyors locate the corner position.

The most common accessory is a bearing tree. These trees were marked to tell future surveyors where the corner was in relation to them. These typically lasted much longer than the actual corner since they were a living tree.

The original surveyors would blaze the tree (take the bark off until they exposed the living wood of the tree) and then scribe the bearing and distance from the tree to the corner. The pitch would then seep over the blaze and scribe and preserve it. If you find a living an original bearing tree today you could peel off the bark and find the scribing exactly as it was when it was originally scribed.

This is the remnants of an original bearing tree

While some bearing trees can still be found, it is more common to find remnants of the bearing trees. Like every other tree in the forest they die and rot or get cut down. If they are cut down, we are generally out of luck. Loggers don't generally look for scribing before they cut down a tree. If we are lucky, they will cut the tree down and leave it lay with the scribing face down which can preserve the scribing.










This may look obvious, but it is rare. It takes perfect conditions for a bearing tree to survive like this one did. Most likely we will find something like this.

It is just an old rotting stump, but upon closer inspection, you can see the remnants of a scribe as shown below.

If you look closely you can see a definite scribe mark on the right hand side of this stump. There is not much left, but we found another stump, that also fit the measurements from the original survey. It does not seem like much, but on the other hand, why would anyone go into the middle of a swamp in the woods and blaze and scribe a tree?

The only people I know of that would do something that odd would be surveyors.

Rock Mound

Almost every monument we find or set up here has a rock mound around it. Originally these rock mounds were built for 2 reasons. First, they would hold the monument upright and in place. Many of the corners fall in areas where the bedrock is within inches of the surface. If they could not dig a hole and set the monument in the hole, there was no other choice than to build a mound around it.

The rock mound also serves as a means to re-establish the orignal corner. Since the original posts around here were wood, most have rotted away. If we find an old rock mound that we can use it to re-establish the corner position. It is not likely, but we still try.

We still have to build rock mounds today. Mostly it is to hold the monument in place. I enjoy building these. It is hard work, but when you are done you get to see the fruits of your labor.

This one was on a steep hill, so we had to find plenty of large stones to hold the monument from falling down the hill. Of course most of the rocks were downhill of the corner, so getting them back up hill was tiring.

This one was about 4 feet at the base.



This one was at the top of a hill and we could only recess it 2 inches in the ground. That is a 7 foot fence post, which we also had to build a rock mound around.

This one is probably 6 foot at the base.

This is the best one so far. We had to move a rock that took 3 pry bars (also known as small trees) to move. We moved the rock just enough to get it out of the way and then propped it up with smaller rocks.

My 3 year old nephew loves to play with rocks, maybe he will make a good surveyor one day.

Lunch

If you have been checking out the picture archive page you have noticed that I have a lot of pictures of our lunchtime view. It seems like every day we happen to find the most serene place to take our lunch break.

This one is taken from a hunting shack in the middle of the woods. They built the cabin on the edge of a beautiful beaver pond. It takes a 1 hour rough ATV ride get to. There are points in this ATV ride that you just pray you don't flip the ATV.

This day was the toughest we had. We wanted to do some scouting as well as tie in 2 very important corners. We took lunch on the edge of this lake, that I don't think people get to during the summer. It is about a 2 mile hike to get to. 

These are taken from the Table Rock Falls on the Vermillion River. The picture on the left is the view we had that day. The portage around these falls is about 1 mile long. We had to hike a mile and half this day and we could hear the falls from the corner we were tyng in. We decided to find the falls for our lunch break. They really are breathtaking. 

You can make out as Wally a little speck on the right side of this one. 

The pictures don't these views justice. I would recommend you go see them for yourself.

Original Corners

What we found
In this picture you can see a new aluminum monument (the shiny thing next to my foot). This is what we are setting when we re-establish a section corner. It is about 2 feet 6 inches long and is buried so that 10 inches of the monument are above ground and is then surrounded by a pile of stones.

What is harder to see is what makes this particular monument so exciting.

There is a piece of pink ribbon that is floating on the water just above the new monument. That ribbon is tied to a 4' alder pole that the original surveyors set in 1895. Wayne found the original wood post and set the new monument on top of it.

The close-up in the below picture does not do it justice.


Why this is exciting
This extremely rare. Imagine putting a wood post in the middle of the woods. Would it last more than 100 years? Could it survive the rain and snow without rotting? What about loggers that cut down all of the trees around it, would it stay standing? Would the bird, bugs, deer and moose leave it alone?

In most cases, no.

This particular hunk of wood was stuck in a swamp 115 years ago and remains only because the swamp water preserved it. But that is not enough.  It is also right next to the face of such a steep cliff that no animal or person (other than stubborn surveyors) would ever come near it.

So far we have recovered 20% of the original corners, and that is much better than expected. Most surveyors would be thrilled to find 10%, so we are pretty happy.

Recon

Up until this point, Wayne has been out in the woods recovering existing corner monuments. The problem with recovering corners on a project like this is you have to get there first. The fact that the southern 4 sections on this project are inaccessible via ATV's has made this project interesting. These 4 sections are essential since they may affect the corner positions on the rest of the project.

Until today, most of the corners in this area have been a 3 mile hike, one way. Wayne has been hiking in to search for every corner. This is  no easy feat. To search for a corner you need some basic gear including, but not limited to:

• Field Notes
• GPS Receivers
• Ribbon
• Machetes
• Maps
• Lath
• Food
• Water

Just think, 3 miles carrying all this gear just to find 1 corner. You may be able to find a couple of corners a day, but in the end, you have to come out and do it all over again the next day.

Once the corner is found or re-established we have to either reset or maintain the corner. To do this add the following to what we need to pack in:

• More Water
• More Food
• Monuments
• Tree Tags
• Chainsaws 
• Fence Posts
• Signs 
• Fence Post Driver

There is one line that will require approximately 8 fence posts in a span of 2 miles. Think of carrying 8 fence posts for 3 miles through heavy brush, swamp and buckthorn to get to the first corner. We had to find a better way in.

Our optimal access is when we can utilize ATV's. As I said, these four sections are virtually inaccessible. To get to the area, we need to cross the Vermillion river in canoes, hike 3/4 of a mile, then cross through a swamp which has a creek running through the middle of it.

So one day a couple of weeks ago Wayne was searching for a corner in this area and all of the sudden a ATV came running up behind him. This guy had figured out how to cross the river, cross the swamp and get into the area that we thought was inaccessible.

It turns out that some bear hunters that have figured out a way to float the ATV's across the Vermillion River on a jon boat. They load the ATV's on a flat bottomed boat and balance it very carefully to get it across the river.

So, problem 1 solved.

We then proceeded to search for where they were crossing the small creek. It was easy enough, just follow the tracks and there it was. They had laid down a bunch of deadfall to cross in a narrow point of the creek.

Problem 2 solved, we can cross the creek.

Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to get everywhere else. Wayne went to maintain a corner and I went to figure out how to get around on the ATV's.

When we met back at the canoe, the corner was maintained and we figured out how to turn a 3 mile hike into a 500 foot hike.

Outpost Surveying

Hello Internet,

My name is PD. I am a Licensed Professional Land Surveyor in the State of Minnesota. This year, the United States Forest Service (USFS) needed to re-monument approximately 200 sections of land in the Superior National Forest.

My company was fortunate enough to be awarded a small portion of this project. We will be re-monumenting 23 of these sections. If you look at the blog header above, the gray areas are the project areas. We were awarded the project area directly adjacent to Buyck (pronounced Bike).

Over the next year and a half I will be updating this blog to show the progress, trials & tribulations and other interesting things that occur during the project.

If you would like a little more background on what we are doing, go to About The Project. It has a overview of the what, why and how of the project.

Also, check out the Progress Map (in development). I am planning on updating it with our progress.