An interesting and remarkably informative day at the Beta Site. This was the first time I’d ever gone up there by myself and I was looking forward to doing whatever I wanted, at whatever pace I wanted, however I wanted, without worrying that I was eating up someone elses time. So, I get up there and I’m trimming some branches from the road, making notes to myself, when I hear a fourwheeler in the distance. And, it seems, it is getting closer.

I looked up on the  hill and, sure enough, on my road, comes this old guy on a beat-to-crap four-wheeler. He comes to a stop and I say howdy. “Im your neighbor”, he says. We shake and introduce ourselves.

He has the 20 acres kitty corner to mine. As we talk, he tells me that he used to live up here full time but now (he’s 80) his wife wants to live closer to the hospital. So, he comes up here on weekends and whatnot ‘to get away from the wife’. Alright, I don’t want to tip my hand too much because no doubt anything I say will get passed around as hot gossip. I ask for recommendations for people to deliver propane, who does excavation, etc.

Then, I tell him that he might see some surveyors creeping around and that theyre on my dime. There hasn’t been a survey done since Wilson was president so theyre gonna be wandering around a bit.

He looks at me like I have two heads and says “Nah, hop on the back and I’ll show you where your corners are.”

Uhm..okay.

So he leads me to two corners that are approximately where the cadastral and OnX says they would be. One corner marker is an old t-post surrounded by a cairn of painted rock and reflectors. Dubious, but things were a lot more casual back in the day.

Other corner is a bright, shiny, and dang near new looking cap with flagging tape that hasnt even faded yet. This too was approximately where Onx and the cadastral said it would be. I took photos of the newer pin with all its info engraved on it and forwarded it to the surveyor. I am hoping this will provide enough info to be useful to them and possible reduce the workload, thereby reducing the price for this project.

The neighbor and I talked and I tried to get across that I’m not here to change anything, Im just looking for a place to enjoy the quiet and be left alone. Hopefully that message got across.

Next weekend is a three day weekend and I’m really keen to spend it out there camping out. Working on a platform this week to put together up there.

A very nice day here in western Montana. Was the weather good enough for me to get into the Beta Site without the SxS? Well , here is last week:

And here’s the same thing today:

So, I’m gonna call that a yes.

First thing I gotta say is – getting the Milwaukee M18 chainsaw was not the worst idea I’ve ever had. Does it do everything a gas saw does? Probably not. But where it absolutely shines is for ‘touch ups’ and quick jobs. The situations where you’re driving along, turn a corner, and theres a lodgepole pine crossing the road. Hop out, grab the Milwaukee, zip zip zip, and youre done. Lightweight, no fuels to mix, no muss, no fuss. It’s just handy. And even though it has a grip safety of sorts, I like that I can pull the battery when Im done and the thing becomes absolutely harmless unless you drop it on someone.

After cutting a buncha downed timber, I had put down the saw and was moving the cut pieces when I slipped and took a backwards tumble. And somehow, in the tumble, without even being aware it happened, my glasses got snagged off my face. Trying to find your glasses, when youre not wearing your glasses, is a major pain the posterior. I had a set of prescription sunglasses in the truck, but was I in the truck? No. I was well away from the truck. After about fifteen minutes they were found. So, since the Beta Site likes to teach me lessons here’s the two I learned that day: first, the dorky safety strap for the glasses is going to have to become a thing. Second, I need to keep a spare pair in the pack that I’m carrying around when I’m off doing this sort of stuff.

While I was up there I also moved the Monovault that I left up there a few weeks ago. Since I could get in with the truck, I tossed the Monovault in the back and took it further into the property and relocated it. In a few weeks, I’ll be burying one of these and that’ll serve as my hidden stash until I get things built.

Another thing I did while up there was to grab some water samples from the creek. Be nice to see whats in the water up there before I make any plans around it.

And, finally, I am in discussions with a surveyor to get the place pinned and marked so i know exactly where I can and should not be doing stuff. Good fences make good neighbors and all that jazz. I have no intention of putting up any fencing at the moment, but I very much want a definitive answer to where the borders are so I don’t inadvertently violate someone elses property. It ain’t gonna be a cheap process but its gonna be a buttload cheaper than fixing an encroachment problem at a later date. And, most importantly, I want to know exactly how much of that creek is on my side of things.

All in all, a good trip. I found out the most important thing I needed to know: that the conditions now are such that I can get the truck into the property. This means that I can now start shifting a goodly amount of material to the Beta Site…supplies, tools, etc. Also, Im thinking that maybe next week I’ll bring the camping gear, which needs to get stashed out there anyway, and stay out there for the weekend. Explore the property at my leisure, say hi to the  bears, that sorta thing.

I had mentioned that the gamecam hadnt been doing its thing. Well, atmospheric conditions must have changed or something because all the buffered and backlogged pics since 4/24 just landed. And, it look like there’s been some activity:

Well, its confirmed that there are indeed mule deer up there, and foxes, and moose. Still waiting on the elk and bear.

Well, I did get up to the Beta Site this weekend. The roads were…okay..enough that I suspect I can get my truck up there if the weather doesn’t turn to snow by next weekend. The road onto the property itself was okay but there were a few berms of snow that were not going to make motorized ingress possible.

There was a fairly deep (2-3′) bern of snow at the entry point, but after that it was pretty much like this all the way to the top:

However, in the shady spots, you got these moguls that are about two feet deep which would probably have been high enough to center the SxS. This is the view down the road from the high point leading into what could be described as the ‘building area’:

That particular section of ‘road’ needs some serious trimming back and thats definitely on the agenda over the summer. I did, also, get a chance to try out the Milwaukee M18 chainsaw on some lodgepoles that had fallen across the road. Worked like a champ. Very convenient.

Since every trip up there is a learning experience, I made sure to pack the things I forgot last time that I thought I would need. One of the things was a full-sized D-handle shovel. However, I didn’t have a convenient way to carry or mount it in the SxS. A friend of mine gave me some of these a few weeks back and this was the ideal time to try them out. I wrapped them around the shovel and one of the roll bars, cinched ’em down tight so they wouldn’t chatter against each other, and spent forty minutes driving over bumpy roads. Everything stayed tight and together. Because of their elastic nature, they keep things held together quite nicely. Definitely a product that performed as I needed:

And, yeah, I brought the snowshoes this time and didn’t need them.

Gamecam has been acting weird and not reporting in the way it has been supposed to. I suspect the issue is that I’m in a middle-of-nowhere where there is utterly no cell signal. When I eventually get StarLink up there, that’ll get sorted out handily.

It’s looking like 100% access-with-the-truck is in the card in the next couple of weeks, which means its time to start staging stuff. This means I need to fish or cut bait in terms of picking a small structure design and committing to it. Goal is to have a decently protective, small, simple shelter up there in time for hunting season.

All in all, a good trip. Nothing major went wrong, I got to see how things look in the early spring season, and got the impression that its coming on time for some of the bigger steps to get taken. So..not an unpleasant weekend.

ETA: Oh, and I forgot to mention…that baby moose from a few weeks back? Yeah, he’s not doing so well. The eagle that was munching on him, though, thought everything was just fine.

Well, Im hoping the weather is nice this weekend. I’d really like to be able to get up to the Beta Site without needing the SxS. If I can get up there in my truck, then I can really start pre-positioning a few things up there. (Well, more than a few, really.)

Still need to get more cameras set up, another game feeder, and a few other things. It occurs to me that I need to dedicate a game camera to watching the creek so I can track the seasonal flow remotely. Tracking how the water supply, creekwise, changes up there throughout the year is going to be rather important. I’m also going to borrow one of these from work and calculate where along the creek I get the most drop.

And, honestly,  I just want the satisfaction of sitting under a tree, hearing all the nothing, and daydreaming about putting what where.

The goal for this year is, at the moment, fairly simple – build a small little structure to give me a roof over my head and a little security when I’m up there stomping around. Just a place where I can put a folding cot, sleeping bag, some supplies, and be out of the weather. Some place where I can stay on-site when the real building and construction starts.

Its a tricky situation…temper the desire to do everything at once with the need to be careful and strategic. I often say that I can only afford to do this once, so I need to make sure of where I’m placing my feet before I commit to the next step. I’m getting there, but sometimes I also just wanna sit under the trees and indulge myself with just the tiniest little bit of back-patting.

So…we’ll see how the weekend shapes up.