For the Love of the Crosscut Saw

Linda and Mike Merigliano at work clearing trail with a crosscut saw in Wyoming's Jedediah Smith Wilderness.

Friday before last, I stepped away from my desk to perform advocacy that has never felt more important: clearing a nearby Wilderness trail with a crosscut saw. While just a month ago, I would have categorized this work under WWA’s stewardship pillar, the recent news that chainsaws were permitted in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho has changed things. The simple and clear management practice of leaving mechanization at the boundary of these places, and entering with humility and restraint has taken a blow. In light of this, I have found myself wondering if a love of the crosscut saw could help safeguard other Wilderness areas from an ever-pressing effort to chip them away? I am hopeful that it can. 

Although I had more than enough work to keep me busy at the screen, when Linda and Mike Merigliano invited me on their jaunt into the Jedediah Smith Wilderness to clear the trail of down trees, I jumped at the chance. Linda’s name likely rings a bell for you because of the decades she worked for the U.S. Forest Service. Recently retired, her commitment to the land, and Wilderness in particular, has not waivered.

As we hiked along, the crosscut effortlessly balanced on the waist strap of my backpack, we spoke of our love for the saw, its efficiency, its long history, the problem solving it demands, the skill and strength that it builds, and how it often outshines the chainsaw, despite widespread and misconceived generalities.

We also reminisced about a major “blow-down” of trees following a storm on the Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF) in 2020. Many at the time argued that the aftermath required chainsaws to clear the trails. Yet BTNF Wilderness Managers and Forest staff knew better. WWA published this story, written by Linda, in a WWA Newsletter that year. I feel the time is ripe to share it again. Enjoy, send your thoughts, and thank you for reading. 

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Upholding Traditional Tools and Skills in the Bridger and Gros Ventre Wilderness

by Linda Merigliano (first published in the 2020 WWA Newsletter)

Crosscuts versus chainsaws in Wilderness – the debate is an old one. Declining staff capacity for remote trail work, loss of traditional skills, increased visitation and demand for public access all increase the pressure to use chainsaws to clear trails more quickly. But in Wilderness, is the easy, fast response the right one? The response to the Labor Day windstorm on the Bridger-Teton National Forest offers some insight.

Weatherman Don Day didn’t mince words. “This is going to be a very intense storm for this early in September.” Additionally, meteorologist Alan Smith noted that, “the latest trends are hinting at the potential for a rare sustained high wind event.” The rare event was predicted to be a downslope wind — in which winds accelerate as they move downhill into the valley and come out of the north/northeast instead of the typical westerly winds. When the storm arrived, the temperature quickly dropped 41 degrees and snow blanketed the valley. But it is the aftermath of the wind event that was historic. While the recorded wind speed in Jackson was 48 mph, the Pinedale area was hit with wind speeds exceeding 60 mph and the damage assessment suggests that localized gusts were much higher.

In the Bridger and Gros Ventre Wildernesses, the wind event resulted in a very scary night for campers, with tents shredded, trees falling, new snow, and access back to the trailhead blocked by hundreds of trees. Amazingly, no one was injured. After the storm, the beautiful fall weather quickly enticed people back to the mountains. It did not take long for reports to emerge about impassable trails.

"The first four miles of the Pole Canyon trail to Photographer's Point are completely obliterated. Green trees are blown over by their root wads and stacked ten feet tall. Unable even to find the trail."

"The East Fork of Flat Creek is passable for about a mile and then I hit an area that was just flattened. A lot of trees were snapped at their bases and had their whole root base lifted up."

"Hiked up the Sleeping Indian trail and ran intoa. wall of trees. There is no way around."

The magnitude of the event resulted in understandable public pressure for the Forest Service to request an exemption to the prohibition on use of motorized equipment in Wilderness and allow the use of chainsaws to clear trails. For routine trail clearing, a skilled crew with a sharp crosscut saw is just as efficient as a crew with chainsaws; the main factor determining the number of miles cleared is travel time and number of crew members, not the tool. But for massive tangles of downed trees, a chainsaw crew will out-perform a crosscut saw crew. On the trail, conversations with some Wilderness hikers included comments such as “Geez, seems like this would be easier with chainsaws?” and “I wouldn’t tell anybody if you were using a chainsaw up here.” This begs the question – do we really value Wilderness as embodied in the law or do we value these areas simply for the experience of travelling solely by foot, horse, or ski in a scenic area?

Despite the pressure, Wilderness rangers and trail crew members embraced the challenge and were confident that trails could be cleared safety using crosscut saws. The event was also seen as a good opportunity for different crews to work together. “We have the skills, the right tools, and the desire” was the strong sentiment. In the end, fire crews with chainsaws stepped up to clear trails leading to the Wilderness. Wilderness and trail crew members then took over, aided by outfitters and partners for some work. Eleven straight days were spent clearing the Pole Creek trail with progress crawling to 1000 feet on some days. Untangling the stack of crisscrossed trees while paying attention to weird tensions in the wood made for interesting work. But over the course of a few weeks, an estimated 25 miles of trail were cleared and 3,000 trees cut.

So why did the Forest Service make this choice? Integrity – doing the right thing when no one is watching – came to mind for many of us. In Wilderness, the prohibition on the use of motorized equipment is not based on whether or not people can hear motorized noise. Instead it centers around the fundamental idea underpinning Wilderness – the concept of humility and restraint. The Wilderness Act became law due to concern over “expanding settlement and growing mechanization” that were the forces causing wild country to become increasingly occupied and modified. As Howard Zahniser, the author of the Act, so elegantly wrote, “we have a profound need for areas of the earth within which we stand without our mechanisms that make us immediate masters over our environment.” Our decision to use cross-cut saws was made out of respect for what Wilderness symbolizes in terms of the human relationship to nature, as well as our pride in keeping alive the skills and traditions associated with a tool that was used effectively for over 300 years.

The work to clear trails clearly will continue into next summer as we find more trails covered with trees. But we stand ready to tackle the challenge with sharp saws, skilled workers, and extra cookies for fuel.