Sep 8

Logistical Case Study: Fish Lake

In our last post we detailed the logistical challenges the Tiller Ranger District would face when trying to manage its rental units—Acker Rock lookout, Butler Butte cabin, and Whiskey Camp cabin—from Canyonville or beyond. 

To recap: all three units are well beyond cell phone range, and the district would struggle to provide operational service to guests when a human touch-point is an hour or more away. It thus seems likely that, should the ranger station ever be relocated closer to Roseburg, the district would have to discontinue offering these rentals. (They’re already trending this way, as Acker and Butler have been out-of-commission for several seasons because of maintenance issues.) 

We can imagine how these same remote management problems would impact the Rogue-Umpqua Divide Wilderness—particularly “the lakes” (Fish, Buckeye, and Cliff), which are among the most popular recreation destinations on the district outside of the main river corridor. 

The “untrammeled” wilderness experience that the lakes currently offer is only possible because of the very human labor provided by the Tiller Ranger District’s wilderness and recreation employees, e.g.: 

  • Hauling out trash and debris (beer and soda cans, Dinty Moore stew cans, wads of aluminum foil, discarded water bottles, broken fishing poles, partially-melted air mattresses, etc) that campers leave behind, often inside of their still smoldering fire rings.
  • Burying human waste and toilet paper. 
  • Ensuring visitors are following wilderness rules—for example, not bringing in motorbikes, setting off fireworks, or carting in kegs of beer. 
  • Helping hikers who have suffered an injury (like an ankle sprain) return safely to the trailhead. 
  • Helping family members reach their spouses or children when an emergency message needs to be passed along. 

Visitors would *immediately* notice the difference if this level of service were diminished—which it certainly would be if the ranger station were relocated downriver, whether to Canyonville, Myrtle Creek, or even all the way to Roseburg. 

Consider that it’s already a lengthy drive + hike (around two hours) from Tiller to Fish Lake, to use one of the lakes as an example. You’d be tacking on an extra thirty minutes to that commute if you were coming from Canyonville. Those extra chunks of time really add up when you’re trying to visit all three lakes on one day, which wilderness employees will often do during summer weekends. 

Beyond the lakes and their trailheads, there are many other trails (around 100 miles total!) that hikers can use to explore the wilderness, including the Acker-Divide Trail (which leads to Grasshopper Meadow and Grasshopper Mountain), the Rogue-Umpqua Divide Trail (which covers everything from Abbott Butte to Anderson Mountain to Hole-in-the-ground to Three Lakes Camp), and the Whitehorse Meadows Trail (which leads to the namesake meadows and Wolf Lake). 

Anyone who has attempted to hike these trails in recent years knows that they’ve seen better days, due in part to a lack of maintenance and in part due to damage from recent fires. This unintentional negligence is certainly not unique to the Tiller Ranger District, but the problem is only going to be compounded by moving the ranger station away from the wilderness and closer to Roseburg. 

Sep 2

Logistical Case Study: The Whiskey Camp Guard Station

The Tiller Ranger Station is located at the confluence of the South Umpqua River and Jackson Creek, about 23 miles east of Canyonville along County Road 1 / Highway 227. Although there are parcels of Forest Service land surrounding the ranger station, what we think of as “the forest” is actually well up the road. And getting to the most popular camping, hiking, and recreation destinations (like the South Umpqua Falls) requires quite a drive.

Moving the station AWAY from these locations would thus introduce a number of logistical difficulties. We can imagine how these problems would play out by looking at the Whiskey Camp Guard Station.

Whiskey Camp is a two-room cabin that was built in the 1940s to serve as the summer home of “fireguard” personnel, who were tasked with spotting smoke, fighting fires, and maintaining phone lines and trails. The site also includes a shelter built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

Whiskey Camp has been converted into a rental and is usually booked solid all summer and well into the fall—with visitors coming from across the country (and documenting their stays on Instagram). The property is serviced by recreation employees from the Tiller Ranger District, who periodically clean the facilities and remove trash. Fire has also been a concern the last few years, and the buildings are currently wrapped with aluminum insulation to protect them from the nearby Big Hamlin blaze.

Getting to Whiskey Camp currently requires an 18-mile drive up Jackson Creek and eventually Forest Road 3114. The drive takes around 53 minutes according to Google Maps, though if you’ve driven up that road lately you know that you’d probably want to give yourself at least an hour.

Now, imagine how much more difficult managing this rental would suddenly become if the Tiller Ranger Station were relocated to, say, Canyonville. Now you’d suddenly be driving 81 minutes (or basically an hour-and-a-half) to reach the rental. How would that impact service? What would renters do if they were having problems with the unit—say the propane wasn’t working, or the code for the gate wasn’t letting them in? Keep in mind: this happens *all of the time* right now and guests often have to drive back to Tiller to address these problems because there’s zero cell phone coverage in the area. Are you going to ask these guests to suddenly drive all the way to Canyonville if they’re having issues? And what if there’s a fire nearby and you need to evacuate them? 

These are just a few of the logistical nightmares the district would suddenly face if the ranger station were relocated to Canyonville. And these distance problems would only be amplified if the station moved further still—say, to Myrtle Creek or Roseburg. It’s quite possible that Whiskey Camp would have to be turned over to the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest for management in that scenario, as the High Cascades Ranger District’s Prospect office would actually be much closer to the unit than the “Tiller” Ranger Station.

These same problems would also impact the Buttle Butte rental and the Acker Rock rental when those two units eventually reopen to the public. 

Aug 31

Let’s make sure the Tiller Ranger Station stays in Tiller, Oregon

 

The new Tiller Ranger Station sign

The proposal to relocate the Tiller Ranger Station seems so poorly thought out that it’s tempting to think cooler heads will prevail and the idea will be eventually be shelved. Yet there’s no guarantee that will happen. The relocation feasibility study is being compiled at this very moment, and the move clearly has the support of Umpqua National Forest Supervisor Alice Carlton and Forest Engineer Steve Marchi. A final decision is likely not locked in, as government bureaucracies tend to move at a crawl, but the Tiller community and regional stakeholders would be wise to do everything possible to raise awareness about the proposed relocation and rally widespread opposition.

One point that should be hammered again and again is safety. Everyone here understands the danger posed by wildfire, especially given the extreme drought conditions impacting western states. Moving fire resources AWAY from the forest in these conditions would be completely negligent. And stripping housing away from firefighters would only compound recruitment problems.

How, then, to publicize these safety concerns? Here are a few options:

The News-Review
Any community member can send a letter to the News-Review expressing their concerns. Letters like this work best when they’re grounded in facts (“western forest are more susceptible to fire than ever”), supported by examples (“we can see this right now with the Devil’s Knob Complex”), and free of rhetorical hyperbole and name calling. You can submit a letter right now using a simple form at the NR website.

Oregon State Legislators
Those of us living in southern Douglas County are represented by the following legislators:

Senator Dallas Heard
Phone: 503-986-1701
Email: Sen.DallasHeard@oregonlegislature.gov

Representative Christine Goodwin
Phone: 503-986-1402
Email: rep.christinegoodwin@oregonlegislature.gov

You can also try our U.S. Congressional Representative, Peter DeFazio:
Phone: 541-465-6732
Email: https://defazio.house.gov/contact/email-peter

Social media
Please share any and all of these posts on your social feeds! You can find Defend Tiller on Facebook here and on Twitter here.

Questions / comments / concerns? Defend Tiller can be reached at defendtiller [at] gmail.com during normal operating hours.

Aug 24

News-Review Letter: Tiller Ranger Station is a window onto a mystical forest experience

A hazy sunset on Mill Hill

The following letter was published in The News-Review on August 24, 2001

Thank you! to Pete Hunt for writing about the proposed relocation of the Tiller Ranger Station. The letter is well written and focused on facts with solutions. Disclaimer — facts as close as we can tell. A request has been made for information on facts & figures through the FOIA process. Eight weeks and still no information.

Emotion is what I bring to the discussion. Tiller Ranger Station has been the heart and soul of the Tiller community for more years than I can count. It is the gateway to magical forest experiences. The Umpqua National Forest outside Tiller is not well known. Perhaps that is what adds to the magic and mystery.

Since many of the employees working for the Umpqua National Forest don’t actually go out into the forest and live far away the mystery deepens. It is a complex puzzle of roads, spur roads, creeks & hiking trails. It has come to my attention that many of the road signs have been vandalized so it is now difficult to find one’s way.

Once upon a time there was a vibrant crew of employees maintaining signs, roads, campgrounds and trails with equipment and boots on the ground. That was approximately 20 years ago.

Relocating the office father away will only exacerbate the problem of poor trail & road maintenance. Having to drive more than an hour from the office to the job site would leave even less time for getting the job done.

There are slides (you know — photos) of the many magical places that were taken before the digital era. The two people I knew who could find their way to those places and shared the treat of visiting some of them with special fire crew members are now gone. The history house and slides remain.

Joanne Gordon
Days Creek, Oregon

Aug 20

News-Review Guest Column: Tiller Ranger Station is going to move, but why?

Tiller Ranger Station, 1941

The following column ran in The News-Review on August 20, 2021

On April 20, the Umpqua National Forest announced via press release that a feasibility study would be conducted to determine the future of the Tiller Ranger Station. The announcement was followed by a virtual “town hall” on July 21 detailing key considerations for the study and an in-person meeting on Aug. 3 that offered more time for questions.

As a long-time resident of Tiller, I was disappointed to hear about the proposed relocation — but not entirely surprised. The Tiller Elementary School and Tiller Market have both closed and the entire town has been sold to developers who appear to have zero interest in developing. As such, I was open to hearing an explanation about why such a move was being considered and how a new location might better serve the community.

The two meetings, however, left me with serious concerns about the decision-making process.

It was evident in the July 21 Zoom meeting that the idea of “public input” was a charade. The operating assumption seemed to be figuring out when and where the relocation should occur, not if.

The audience at the Aug. 3 meeting recognized this as well, and repeatedly pressed for answers about why the move was being considered in the first place. There appear to be three main considerations:

Facility maintenance

The Forest Service estimates that deferred maintenance costs for repairing buildings and associated infrastructure could be as high as $11 million. That’s clearly an enormous price tag — although one that reflects some questionable calculations.

During the Aug. 3 meeting, for example, Forest Supervisor Alice Carlton claimed that sewage from the water treatment plant could soon flow into the river and “threaten coho salmon.” This claim seems wildly implausible given the limited size of the treatment operation.

Carlton and Forest Engineer Steve Marchi both stated that relocating into a scaled-back facility would mean the district would no longer have to pay for maintenance of government housing. Unanswered, though, was the question of where the workforce would then live. The nine houses on the main compound and six apartment units on nearby Mill Hill are all currently full.

Telecommunications

The Tiller Ranger Station’s internet connection is currently provided by a fiber-optic cable that was installed many years ago, and the internet speed is surely suboptimal for a ranger station that needs to digitally communicate and collaborate with other offices.

Yet, it’s worth noting this problem is not unique to Tiller. The Toketee Ranger Station, for instance, also does not have broadband. In addition, many of the desk jobs that require all-day internet have already transitioned to Roseburg, and the fire fighters, biologists, and wilderness techs who comprise the Tiller workforce spend most of their time out in the field.

Tiller also does not have any cell phone service, which leaves those of us who live here at the mercy of landlines. It’s not clear how moving the ranger station would address the problem, as the forest itself would still be outside the range of mobile networks.

Recruitment & retention

This is one issue Mahnchi kept returning to: Even if you fix up the Tiller Ranger Station, how will you attract a workforce to come live here? He referred to the district’s long-time employees as “ticks” — people who had become embedded in the community and were willing to stay — and claimed that there were fewer and fewer ticks available.

I have no doubt that recruitment and retention are both challenges, but — as Mahnchi himself noted — all of the government housing at Tiller is currently full. Seasonal workers, at least, are very willing to spend their summers in Tiller. And full-time employees have historically lived outside of Tiller, whether in Days Creek, Shady Cove, or beyond.

Manchi noted that federal workers are attracted to places like the Deschutes National Forest (near Bend) and Mt. Hood National Forest (near Portland). This may be true, but relocating the ranger station from Tiller to Canyonville is unlikely to move the needle when competing for workers dead set on being near major metros.

Unanswered questions
I will concede that many of the suggestions for Tiller’s future coming from community members are colored by nostalgia for Tiller’s past — about the way things “used to be” when timber was being harvested, the school was a community hub, and cold beer was flowing at the local tavern.

This line of thinking can be counterproductive, as it suggests the only way to “fix” the situation is to return to a previous status quo — which, for reasons too numerous to detail here, seems unlikely.

But the case for relocating the Tiller Ranger Station seems equally detached from reality, especially given the necessity of keeping fire resources in proximity to the forest. It’s thus important that not only Tiller community members, but stakeholders from across the county weigh in on this decision-making process before it’s too late.

Pete Hunt is a long-time resident of Tiller and former employee of the Tiller Ranger District. His writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, Willamette Week, and other outlets.

Aug 15

About Defend Tiller

The South Umpqua River flowing adjacent to the Tiller Ranger Station

 This website is intended to raise awareness about plans to relocate the Tiller Ranger Station. We believe this proposed relocation is ill-considered and will hamper the ability of Umpqua National Forest personnel to manage the district. We also have serious concerns about the safety of Tiller and surrounding communities. With global warming and continued drought across western states, fire season is now longer and more explosive than ever. In September 2020, small fires outside of Glide combined into the Archie Creek fire and consumed a staggering 72,000 acres in less than a day. More than 100 homes were lost eventually lost as the fire grew to 130,000+ acres. Such an incident could absolutely occur in the Tiller Ranger District as well, and moving resources AWAY from the forest is thus irresponsible and extremely short-sighted.