To The Wild Country Ch. 01

In 1984, I worked a summer job as research assistant for my brother-in-law, Richard, a forestry professor at Boise State University. The job, conducting pine bark beetle surveys, took me into the wilderness four days each week, and during my time off, I stayed with Rich, my sister Abbey, and their young children, Chloe, 3, and Luke, newborn.

June 4^th was my first workday. In the forestry lab on campus, Rich walked me through the job. The western pine bark beetle, native to western North America, is an integral component of the forest ecosystem, attacking and killing weakened and diseased pines. In their absence, seedlings gain water and sunlight, regenerating forest growth. However, under certain conditions, beetles reproduce out of control and threaten entire mountainsides of healthy trees.

Aerial photographic surveys were conducted over tens of thousands of square miles of public forest to locate areas with unusually high incidence of tree mortality which could be the result of many different natural forces. But only boots on the ground could verify whether beetles were the cause. And my boots would be the ones doing the walking. My job was to venture into remote forests all over Idaho and inspect dead and dying pines to ascertain whether the beetle population was normal or epidemic. And those inspections weren't based on subjectivity; a field manual I was issued outlined precise methods for making observations and recording data.

Richard spread a large-scale topographic map of Idaho on a work table and showed me the regions where abnormally high rates of tree mortality were occurring. At the same time, I was overlaying mental maps of where I knew hot springs were located. No matter where my job took me in the 'Gem State,' there was a hot spring within easy driving distance. And many of those springs had a long tradition of nude use. Being an ardent outdoor adventurist and naturist, that was right up my alley. It was shaping up to be an awesome season in the wilderness.

To access the rugged back country, the university supplied a white four-wheel drive Chevy Blazer. And they even paid for gas! Sweet! Armed with maps, aerial photos, field manual, camping gear, and boundless enthusiasm, I set off for my first day on the job. I was given a computer printout with my assignment for the week: up Black Warrior Creek, a tributary of the Boise River.

After turning off the gravel Forest Service road, I was able to drive only short distance along a rutted jeep trail before a fallen pine blocked my path. Backpack slung over my shoulders, up the valley I hiked amid the aromatic evergreen forest. Five miles from the Blazer, I smelled sulfur. Without question, a hot spring had to be nearby. I sloughed my backpack. Following my nose, a short time of searching turned up a tiny hot seep in shallow gully. Its flow rate was so slow it might have taken a minute to fill a coffee cup. Discovering the seep was a pleasant surprise because it wasn't shown on my U.S. Geological Survey geothermal map.

Below the seep was a tiny pool, bathtub size, and the temperature was perfect, 106 degrees Fahrenheit according to my small camping thermometer. Right then, I wanted to strip naked and soak, but with the day already half-gone, I had to get some work done.

From the valley, dozens of brown pines were visible on the western flank of East Warrior Peak, my target destination. After pitching my tent, I tossed on my daypack and began climbing upslope. Way out there in the wilderness, clothing was superfluous. Standing beside a dead pine, I stripped off every stitch and went about my work as wild and free as the golden eagles soaring overhead.

Following the procedure in the field manual, I counted the number of bore holes oozing sap between ground level and six feet, a gauge indicating the severity of the beetle attack. Next, I peeled off slabs of loose bark amounting to four square feet and counted the number of live beetles clinging underneath. Other required observations, measuring trunk circumference at four feet, estimating height of the tree and percentage of live growth in the crown, I performed and entered in the logbook. I finished by snapping photos of the inside layer of the bark, including beetles, and the entire tree from several angles. Using the collected data, Richard and others back in the lab would determine whether the beetle activity was epidemic or normal. And based on their assessment, the Forest Service could either remediate the beetle outbreak, or let nature take its course.

My assignment was to inspect as many dead and dying pines as possible during four days in the field. No specific number was mandated, so I worked leisurely, but steadily. At intervals, I took breaks to perform other vitally important observations such as lying on my back, watching puffy clouds drift across the high country.

That evening back at camp in the valley, I lowered my bare body into the tiny hot pool created by the benevolence of nature. Some organic matter swirled and clouded the water, but otherwise the pool was perfect. With a long, satisfied sigh, I gave thanks for my good fortune: I was getting paid for hiking, camping and hot springing way out in the wilderness and, as a bonus, was able perform my job duties in the nude. What a gig!

With each sunrise I returned to the mountainside to inspect more dead and dying pines. And each evening in the valley, I soaked in the tiny hot pool. On Thursday, I was already so far up the mountain, I climbed the remaining distance to the summit of East Warrior Peak and took my lunch of trail mix and dried apricots with only the sun and the wind for company. Splendid solitude.

* * * *

Friday morning in the forestry lab on campus, Richard assigned one of his summer school students to help me enter the data I had collected into the IBM mainframe. Megan,19, had worked with the university's computer system during her freshman year and was familiar with the programs used by forestry department. Her assistance was greatly appreciated.

Wearing leather sandals, denim shorts and an orange & blue Boise State Broncos T-shirt, under which her bounteous breasts bulged against the cotton fabric, this red-haired freckle-faced sophomore-to-be sat at the computer terminal beside mine, tap, tap, tapping away. Her slender fingers flew over the keyboard while mine struggled along, hunting and pecking.

"How can you type so fast?" I asked.

A few seconds passed before it registered I was addressing her but finally she stopped and looked up. "I dunno. I don't even think about it. I just do it."

"Kinda like riding a bicycle?"

"Uh . . . sorta."

Megan smiled, then quickly clamped her lips together as if feeling self-conscious about her braces. She looked away and went back to work: tap, tap, tappety tap. At the rate she was typing she would accomplish most of the data entering, which, as it turned out an hour later, was the case. But she wasn't finished; she navigated through the program and found my assignment for the following week and printed it. I thanked Megan for her assistance whereupon she replied, "You're welcome!" She flashed another brief metallic smile then rose to her feet, turned away, and sashayed her shapely backside out the door.

Richard didn't conduct class on Fridays. That was time for his students to pursue independent study in the lab and/or work on projects in the greenhouse. His teaching materials included an exhaustive map collection, maps of every type: geologic, topographic, hydrologic, geothermal and more. Since Fridays were informal time in the lab, he invited me to browse maps, and whatever else I fancied, at my leisure. And browsing Megan had certainly been pleasant.

Ever since my youth, I enjoyed studying maps for a variety of reasons but the one reason surpassing all others is the male instinct to master his surroundings. Our Neanderthal brothers needed only to understand their immediate geographical region to find their way back to the cave after a day of hunting and gathering. But modern man ranges over vast domains reaching to the stars. Maps are windows to infinity.

On a large work table I spread the U.S. Geological Survey geothermal map which was a newer version of the one I had acquired in Denver. On this map, the hot seep along Black Warrior Creek was shown, as were other seeps along creeks elsewhere. Rare was the creek valley in central Idaho that didn't have minor hot seeps.

"Hey!" Megan's voice startled me. I was concentrating so intently on the map, she had approached undetected from behind. I turned and met her gaze. Eyes bluer than a summer sky . . . .

"Hey," I replied, "I thought you left."

She stopped and stood beside me. "Nah. I'm working in the greenhouse. Forgot my fertilizer." She hoisted a large plastic jug to corroborate her story. "Whatcha doing?"

"Map brooding." I paused a moment then added, "You ever do that? Just look at maps for no good reason?"

"Yeah, sometimes. Where you going next week?"

"Way up here." I pointed at the tiny mountain town of Yellow Pine, deep in Payette National Forest, 100 miles north as the eagle flies.

Megan looked at the map. "That's beautiful country up there."

"Lotsa nice hot springs too."

Megan nodded. While she perused the map, my fantasies took flight: This lovely young woman is extolling the beauty of wilderness hot springs and saying how she loves soaking her lithe body in the salubrious waters and, if I desired, she would accompany me to the mountains where we would spend four blissful days and nights indulging wet, wild, naked fun.

Oh man! Get a grip! I scolded myself. Megan and I had met only that morning but already, in fantasy, we were sprawled in a wildflower mountain meadow, making sweet, sweet love. Entertaining fantasies like that would lead in only one direction: frustration. But at the same time, such fantasies would supply rousing masturbation fodder.

"Well, I gotta get to work," Megan said. "Have fun up north!"

"I will. See ya around."

"Yeah, see ya next Friday!" Megan turned and walked away but the heat of her femininity remained, shimmering like a desert mirage. Eyes bluer than a summer sky . . . .

* * * *

Early Monday morning I departed for my next assignment along Quartz Creek north of Yellow Pine. On this second outing I was more organized and finished my work by Thursday morning which allowed me to spend the afternoon at Vulcan Hot Springs which wasn't far off the route back to Boise. According to my USGS geothermal map, Vulcan towered head-and-shoulders above every other hot spring in central Idaho when measured in terms of flow rate and temperature: an astounding 3200 cubic feet per minute at 191 degrees, near boiling. This spectacle of nature was a 'must see.'

I steered the Blazer off the gravel road and parked at a small Forest Service campground at the trailhead to Vulcan. One car and two tents were there. A footbridge spanning the south fork of the Salmon River I crossed then hiked three-quarters of a mile through the aromatic evergreen forest. The trail followed alongside a substantial creek, smelling of sulfur. I stuck my hand in the water. Warm.

Finally, I arrived at the Vulcan Hot Springs pool which, in actuality, was a lake. Some enterprising persons, probably quite a few, had been busy as beavers; in a wide swale, a log dam 35 feet long and 5 feet tall impounded a lake, 30×70 feet. The hot creek continued up the valley toward the source of Vulcan's power, unseen.

One guy and two girls were floating on air mattresses, all of them 25ish and veteran nudists judging by their dark seamless tans. Wearing a red string bikini, one ordinary-looking brunette girl, same age, sat on the log dam "Hey y'all!" I greeted the group as I approached the muddy bank of the lake. They responded with a chorus of friendly greetings.

In many situations, people aren't accepting of strangers invading their space. People erect mental barriers to keep others at a distance until gradually, acquaintance can be made. But in my experience, at hot springs no barriers exist. Newcomers are welcomed wholeheartedly.

In addition to being an ardent naturist, I was also an unrepentant exhibitionist. This was the sort of setting I was seeking during my season in the wilderness. After kicking off my boots and socks, I stripped off T-shirt, cargo shorts, and boxers then carefully stepped onto the log dam, the cleanest, easiest entry into the lake. Much easier that trying to clamber down the steep, muddy bank. The bikini-clad girl seated there glanced at my midsection before making eye contact and offering, "Water's real good today."

Standing close, with my dangling penis at her eye level, I replied, "Is it ever bad?"

She smiled. "No, never! It's just finally warming up." After a long cold winter, snowmelt seeping in from surrounding terrain cooled the lake, but now snow was gone and the lake was warming nicely. From a seated position on a barkless pine log, I eased myself in. Perfect temperature. Right beside the dam the water was deep enough to actually swim although I couldn't go very far.

Lying on her back on the air mattress, the busty nude blonde gestured toward an unoccupied mattress floating nearby. "You wanna use it?" she asked. No barriers.

"Sure! Thanks."

I had left my air mattress in Boise. I made a mental note: Next time bring your air mattress you big dummy! Aboard the borrowed mattress I climbed, laid on my back and struck up a conversation with Blondie.

"Where y'all from?" I asked.

"Boise," she replied then shooed a dragonfly away from its attempt to land on her naturally blonde pubis.

"Same here. Where else do y'all go swimming?" Figured I would pick her brain for leads on popular skinny-dipping locales.

"Sometimes we go to Atlanta (hot springs near the tiny mountain town of Atlanta, Idaho) but it gets kinda crowded." While listening to her expound on all the places she enjoyed running around naked, I couldn't help but smile. The world needs more girls like her.

"You ever been to Worswick?" she asked.

"No, that's a long drive. "

"Yeah, but it's worth it. You oughtta go."

I was familiar with Worswick Hot Springs having read its description in my hot springs guidebook. However, with scores of thermal springs much closer to Boise, I hadn't seriously considered making the long drive over to Ketchum and beyond into Sawtooth National Forest. Nevertheless, Worswick sounded intriguing: dozens of individual vents spread over acres of mountain meadow, seven rock-lined pools raging from small to party size, and the whole place clothing optional. On Blondie's recommendation, I made another mental note: Visit Worswick.

Blondie relaxed and laid her head back, affording time for a leisurely inspection of her trim, toned body featuring ample breasts, nipples the size of thimbles and sparse, wispy pubic hair which allowed unimpeded viewing of her ruddy, tightly-pinched cleft. The other nudist girl, short dark hair, was in a pair bond with the shaggy-haired, bearded guy. In chest-deep water the two of them were now standing face-to-face, closer than close. No telling what their hands might have been doing below the waterline . . . but I had a fairly good idea.

I rolled off the air mattress, thanked Blondie for its use, then waded upstream toward the hot creek where it entered the lake. There, the water was much warmer. As I continued wading upstream toward the source of Vulcan's power, the creek grew hotter. Before long the water became so hot I had to abandon the creek in favor of walking on bare granite in the 'dead zone' where nothing grew because of the heat and high dissolved mineral content. And then, at last, there it was: The Source.

As if spewing from the gates of hell, scalding water gushed into the light through dozens of vents and flooded across a mountain meadow. Sulfurous steam hung heavy, like fog over the valley. Treading carefully across naked granite that felt warm to my bare feet, I wandered through an area half the size of a football field, peppered with bubbling vents and steaming trenches. In the center of the cauldron, bathed in steam, I stood gawking at the spectacle, the power which had continued unabated for centuries. Nowhere else in North America, save for Yellowstone, does there exist such a concentration of intensely hot thermal springs. Each day, enough energy to supply a small town with domestic hot water and space heating simply flowed downstream into the south fork of the Salmon River. But that was better than having despoilers of the earth enter with bulldozers and exploit the resource. Let it be . . . let it be . . . .

Back at the lake, all of my new acquaintances were seated on the log dam, passing a joint. As I swam toward them, the guy held up the joint and asked, "Wanna toot?" No barriers. Beside Blondie I sat and joined the party. The joint went 'round and 'round and the buzz came down. For the longest time we rambled on and on about everything and nothing. Typical stoned conversation. And all the while I enjoyed the privilege of partaking of Blondie's nakedness as she enjoyed partaking of mine.

Much longer I could have remaining in their company but the sun was sinking low in the west and I had many miles to travel to reach Boise. I didn't care to navigate those unfamiliar, twisting, turning gravel roads after dark. Reluctantly, I got dressed and bid my new friends farewell. But I vowed: to Vulcan, I would return.

* * * *

Tap, tap, tappety tap . . . .

Her fiery red hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail, Megan sat at the computer terminal beside mine, tap, tap, tapping away. Four days of beetle observations in the mountains north of Yellow Pine resulted mountains of data to be entered into the IBM mainframe. Her intense concentration on the keyboard enabled me to indulge a leisurely inspection of her lean, toned, body. Megan looked like she was dressed for running; black gym shorts and a skintight gray sports bra. But no. She was dressed for casual Friday in the lab. Her bounteous breasts bulged against the gossamer thin fabric but oddly, no nipple pokies whatsoever.

When at last all of the data had been entered and my next assignment printed, Megan turned to me and asked, "So, how was your trip north?"

"Fantastic! I've got the best summer job in the world!" Truth. I expounded on my week in the wild: the rugged grandeur of the mountains, the splendid solitude, the satisfying nature of the work . . . "And I went skinny-dipping at Vulcan Hot Springs."

At the mention of skinny-dipping, Megan's blue eyes sparkled. "I've never been there. Where's it at?"

"C'mon, I'll show you." We rose to our feet and headed for the resource library down the hall. From the map file cabinet I retrieved a large-scale topographic map and spread it on a work table. At Vulcan I pointed. Megan studied the location, along the south fork of the Salmon River.

"You wouldn't believe the flow rate," I said.

"Is it faster than Atlanta?"

"Oh hell yeah! You could fill a backyard swimming pool in only a few minutes!"

Her eyes widened. "Wow . . . I gotta go there!"

For the longest time we stood at the table perusing the map. Megan pointed out trails she had hiked, mountains she had climbed and hot springs she had visited. Every single one of the springs she mentioned had a tradition of nude use according to my hot springs guidebook. A lightbulb flashed on in my head. I looked her in the eye and asked, "So, are you a-" I made 'air quotation marks' with my hands, "-nature girl?"

Grinning, she understood my inference. "Yup! That's the only way to soak!"