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The next day we decided to head down the hill. On the way we decided to take a look at an abandon Logging town not to far off Dinkey Creek Road. While we where exploring the buildings, we found out the forestry was doing a preservation project to open the town up to the public as a museum. There was no one there that day though and it appeared that the preservation was a slow going process that started in 2001 according to a sign on the wall of the general store.
It was inside the old general store that we saw indications of the age of the town.
DINKEY CREEK -- A soft breeze sweeps through mountains once filled with the clatter of machinery and the deafening scream of saw blades tearing into thick logs.
Although this section of the Sierra National Forest has been quiet for nearly 30 years, Patrick Emmert and Thomas Catchpole are eager to talk about the noisy old days when the Pine Logging Camp was producing lumber here to build homes in the central San Joaquin Valley and beyond.
"This place is a unique feature of the mountains," says Emmert, a forester for Sierra Forest Products and secretary of the Central Sierra Historical Society. "It's a sawmill town in the woods that has a human story."
Emmert and Catchpole, a retired forester who worked as a part-time scaler at the sawmill from 1976 until it closed in 1979, want to keep the logging camp's story alive so future generations can appreciate its role in Central California history.
Both men will be on hand to share their knowledge of the camp today during the Central Sierra Historical Society's Pine Logging Picnic, a fundraiser to acquaint visitors with the site and stir up interest in preserving it.
A significant amount of work already has been done to preserve the camp's remaining buildings. Many were damaged by weather or vandals over the years, but in 2002 and 2003, Emmert coordinated restoration work to clean, stabilize and repair the structures.
"We still need to do more work on the buildings," he says. "We'd also like to put up some interpretive displays and signs to tell people about the buildings."
Emmert says additional improvements, including construction of public restrooms and a parking lot, may come in the future as the U.S. Forest Service moves ahead with plans to turn the camp's old truck garage into a fire station.
The Pine Logging Company was organized in 1933 by Robert Grimmett and James Rohrbaugh. Initial logging operations were conducted in Mariposa County and other mountain areas but were moved to the Shaver Lake area when Grimmett bought 3,500 acres of timber from Southern California Edison.
A site near Dinkey Creek, about 10 miles east of Shaver Lake, was selected for the camp. Workers began clearing the area in 1936, and the sawmill went into production the next year.
Equipment and living conditions were primitive in the early years, Catchpole says.
"They used two-person saws to clear the trees," he says. "Chain saws were not developed until after World War II."
Catchpole says the first building was a structure to house a diesel generator, which supplied the sawmill and camp with electricity.
"The sawmill would start operations as soon as the road opened in the spring, which was usually in March or April," Emmert says. "Then it would keep going until snow closed the road in the fall."
Logs were cut into boards at the mill, and the lumber was hauled by truck to a yard in Fresno. After the boards were dried and finished, they were shipped to lumberyards throughout the central San Joaquin Valley and as far away as Los Angeles.
Workers and their families lived at the camp while the sawmill was in operation, and several buildings were constructed to meet their needs. Emmert says the tiny community, which numbered 150-200 people, grew to include 41 houses, 14 bachelor barracks, shower houses, a cookhouse, office buildings, a general store and a one-room schoolhouse.
The school, which served children up through the eighth grade, had an enrollment of 20-30 students.
"The camp had a company store where you could buy basic supplies," Catchpole says. "Single men lived in cabins, and the families were in homes. The buildings were rustic and made with plank construc- tion."
And Emmert adds: "The schoolhouse was used for church services on Sunday and movies on Saturday night. These were things to keep the community happy."
The sawmill was built on stilts to provide plenty of room for sawdust to fall out of the way, Catchpole says, recalling the time he spent there as a scaler. His job was to determine the number of board feet in a log by measuring its diameter and length.
"I only remember two logs from the time I worked there," he says. "One had a nest of meat bees [yellow jackets], and when it went through the saw, we all got stung. The other log looked good at both ends but was rotten in the middle. I had to change the book and make the log a cull," a log that's unusable.
Sawdust and wood scraps were carried by conveyor belt to a metal tepee burner, a huge, conical furnace where the fire temperature reached 2,000 degrees.
"The fire was hot enough to melt rocks," Catchpole says. "You can still see the clinkers in the soil."
The sawmill is gone, as are most of the houses where families lived. But enough buildings remain to give visitors an idea of what life was like during the camp's heyday.
The bachelor cabins, simple square buildings with room for one or two men, are stark reminders of the camp's spartan living conditions.
"If you were single, all you needed was a place to sleep," Emmert says.
In the cookhouse, where many workers ate their meals, visitors can still see marks on the wood floors left by the spikes in the boots the men wore.
"You can tell where the tables were from the marks," Catchpole says.
A cool house, where perishable food was stored, reveals how challenging it was to keep things cold during summer. The building has two roofs, separated by several inches of open space.
"The top roof was to reflect the sunlight," Catchpole says. "The space in between was so air could circulate and keep the building cool."
The most impressive structure is the tepee burner, which is 75-80 feet high and provides a hint of the extent of the sawmill's operations. During a typical shift, the sawmill produced 100,000 board feet of lumber. From dawn to dusk, the camp was alive with the raucous sounds of men and machines at work.
"You'd hear the clanking of chains," Catchpole says. "And at a sawmill, everything has a squeak to it."
A steam whistle signaled the beginning and end of shifts, and diesel engines groaned long into the night as trucks loaded with lumber headed for Fresno.
But more relaxing sounds were never far away.
"You could hear Dinkey Creek roaring," Catchpole says. "And there were the sounds that wildlife makes -- grouse and quail calling to each other. There were all the typical California mountain sounds."
The sounds provided a soothing, memorable setting for many people who lived in the camp. Emmert says during the initial restoration work, he met several former residents who stopped to visit.
"They'd walk by and say, 'I used to live over here,' " he says. "They come back because they have fond memories, and we need to continue that with the restoration."
Carry a water filter with you when backpacking, which allows you to get clean water from a lake, pond, puddle, river or stream. Insert the hose of the water filter into the water and pump the water into a bottle. (http://www.ehow.com/how_2210377_carry-water-hydrate-backpacking.html) I have a small review on one such filter I used on a camping trip the filter is called the Katadyn Hiker Pro Water Micro filter You can read what I thought by reading about my California Camping Trip
