Dan Geddings: The blue line

The roads were in bad shape. Logging trucks loaded with timber had used the narrow dirt trails throughout the winter. Wet weather and heavy traffic made the roads almost impassable. There was severe erosion on sections of the rolling terrain. A bulldozer was used at the end of the operation to repair some of the damage, but no consideration was given to drainage.

One of the gate posts at the entrance had been pulled up and thrown to the side to give the big trucks plenty of room to traverse the muddy mess. Access was untended and open to anyone who was brave enough to try the road.

Eventually we were given permission to inspect the property and I drove in to take a look. I stopped at the gate and walked on the wet ground. It seemed firm and I decided to drive on in a little ways. If I got stuck, I knew I could call somebody to help pull me out. The road had dried out some but still looked wet on the surface. There were some small puddles that I drove around.

The old Northwestern Railroad bed ran through the property, and a section that was used during the timber harvest was repaired enough to drive on. The bulldozer had left deep cleated tracks down the old railroad bed, and it caused a distinct vibration as I drove slowly along.

The clear-cutting operation left a landscape of destruction. It cannot be avoided in a timber harvest. Stumps and limbs littered the ground. Everything was dead and brown. It was hard to look at, but the road network was my major concern now. I knew the land would recover.

The road turned from the railroad bed at a small grove of oak trees that had been spared by the logging crews. I had never driven on these roads and didn't really know what to expect. There were some soft spots and puddles along the road. After a long flat section, the grade turned up slope and wound around the hillsides.

At the top of the hill the timber harvest had stayed to the east of this road and blue flagging was tied to bushes and trees along the road to mark the boundary of the cutting. There were small limbs and roots in the road that I just drove over. They could be picked up later. The road carried me all the way to the northern property line where our club already held the land.

There were other roads that had turned off this main trail along the way and I knew that I could explore them later, but this road was the main travel way through the property. I needed some way to identify it to others that would come to look later. The blue flagging gave me an idea.

Years ago, I had made yearly trips to Arkansas to hunt ducks with a group of friends. We hunted public lands that were managed as flooded timber, or greentree reservoirs. One of the most popular was Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area. At Bayou Meto we launched our boats at a public landing and took a winding boat trail known as The Blue Line through the timber. The Blue Line was actually a logging road that was marked by blue paint on the trees along the road. There was usually some timber management ongoing during the summer when the woods were dry. During the winter rains the big woods were flooded, and the timber road served as a boat road for duck hunters.

I always liked that name and decided it would be a good fit for this timber road on the new ground that we were exploring. A section of this road was already marked with blue flagging and when I turned around and started back, I stopped along the way and added blue flagging beyond the area that had been marked by the timber company. I tied blue flagging on bushes and snags along the road all the way back to the old railroad bed.

It would be easy to direct other hunting club members through the property if they had an obvious through road to travel on and explore the land. The blue flagging would keep them on track. The timber company has come back and reworked the roads, and we have made some improvements, but there is still more to do along The Blue Line.

Reach Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.