Alysia and I spent this weekend at a gathering on a 1600 acre conservation easement within sight of the Pacific Ocean. We turned off the near sea-level road (windy and about 1 1/2 lanes wide) onto a dirt road that had to climb 1000 feet to the gathering place. To my amazement, the road was remarkably smooth – except for large humps every few hundred yards. The humps were something like speed bumps except they were taller but also more extended so that rather than a speed bump, they were smooth, kid-roller-coaster fun.
During our time there, we learned that the management plan for this conservation easement was to shape this twice-logged land back towards its original old-growth redwood forest shape. The plan extends two-hundred years with selective cutting every fifty years to support the trees that would become the future’s old growth.
Saturday night, Alysia was talking with David Katz, the initiator of this conservation project, about how smooth the road was, including the speed bumps. Dave explained that those “speed bumps” were actually “rolling dips” and their purpose was to lead any runoff that was flowing down along the steep road off to the downhill side before it could attain the erosive power to degrade the road. The presence of the rolling dips was part of the reason the steep dirt road in a 40” of rain per year place remained so smooth. Dave described to Alysia, with pride, how much work they had put into constructing those rolling dips just right.
I woke the next morning stirred from that sense of pride in work well done. At breakfast, I asked Michael Furniss (a hydrologist who was also involved with the construction) about the road. I heard the same sense of pride in something done right. I wanted to write about this spirit and title it Rolling Dips. So that afternoon, I went walking down the road to get an illustrative photograph.
Walking the road allowed me to also notice the culverts buried beneath the road. Stonework stabilized the uphill entrances of the culverts. A challenge of culverts is dealing with the water coming out the lower end. Like water from a hose, the water is concentrated and can cut a gully on the downstream end. How had they dealt with this?
If the road crossed a steep, high slope, the culvert ended as a large, flexible black tube that carried the water down past the slope and discharged it to the side on flatter ground. On shorter pitches, large rocks were set to baffle the water’s momentum. Some of these slopes were quite steep so I asked Michael whether they had dumped a truckload of the rocks or actually set the rocks in place. He said with a casual pride that they had “Rambo-ed” them in.
The pride both David and Michael expressed for that road reminded me of a quotation shared by our dear friend, Susan, when we visited her in Iowa a few years ago. Her family took forty years to build their farmhouse in the same mindful spirit that David and Michael built that road. They posted a quote from John Ruskin midst their work.
“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that.a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, “See! This our father did for us.”
Dave and Michael’s two-hundred year project felt like the centuries-long deliberate intent by which a medieval city built a cathedral. Like laying the cornerstone of a cathedral, the cornerstone of restoring a redwood forest is ensuring the project’s access road is founded in the same two-hundred year intent. The road is as much a part of the project as the forest and equally worthy of one’s best efforts.
As I walked back up the road, a thought arose and began repeating itself over and over again.“When I get home, I must clean the tool shed.”
heather rangel
Beautifully said and thank you for allowing me to see these rolling dips through your eyes by way of this blog. Reading the poem and engaging w your insights makes me think about the pioneering of the metaverse and the evolution of the Internet and digital platforms. If that poem could be a guiding principle, what would be built differently? You’re the best Pail Krafel thank you
Bert Horwood
What a great project! So few of us think past next week’s grocery list. It’s inspiring to read of those hwo have a really long view and work to achieve it.