Shared by Lewis Campbell: Ranch family member, former camper, 2014-2015 counselor, and Gates climber extraordinaire.

Since the fire, I know many of us have been thinking about the mountain we all love to admire and climb… well maybe some of us don’t quite *love* to climb it but… I would like to give a brief account of my thoughts upon climbing it for the first time after the fire.  This past weekend I was lucky enough to drive back up to the place I call home and spend a couple days catching up with family and exploring the new look of the ranch.  When I arrived, the ranch was quite a different place than when I had left a couple weeks before.  When I had last been there I just remember driving away from the fire truck-filled Bar 7 and watching the flames reach Gates Creek, watching them come to the road’s edge where it crosses the creek, and watching them creep down the hill toward Corral Creek.  But now it’s empty.  There are no firemen stationed at the Bar 7, there is no fire on the property. What the fire reached is burned, and what the fire avoided is holding strong.

So of course, me being me, I thought that things were just too still and inactive when I got there so, before I had even put my things inside the house, I told mom “alright, I’m going to go climb Gates,” and left.

I knew the fire had burned up to the edge of Gates Creek but I didn’t notice it until I got to the sign for Gates Mountain.  Everything past the ditch just beyond it was blackened.  So I continued on, eager to see how different the rest of the landscape would be.

When I got to Gates and as I climbed up I could tell exactly where the fire had been and where it hadn’t.  There were a couple spots where it had jumped over to the other side of the ridge and then been put out, but for the most part only the camp side of the mountain was burned.

I know many people are worried about the survival of the ammo box with the treasured notebook inside containing records of the countless trips up the mountain people have taken, but you can finally relax and rest assured that the ammo box survived the fire.  But, as seen in the picture, some sort of animal felt left out and decided to write its own name in the book as well.

When I was growing up Gates didn’t really stand out to me any more than any other place on the ranch.  But when I began rowing crew in high school I decided to use Gates as a training run while at the ranch.  I began timing myself down to the second every time I climbed it, trying to improve as much as possible and getting a huge thrill every time I did.  But soon it became somewhat of a competition of who could get the best time.  Although I tried to avoid this aspect of it, it was very moving to see how much excitement it instilled in people about climbing Gates and, at least for me, Gates suddenly became an extremely meaningful part of the ranch; it was suddenly one of the places that stood out from the rest of the ranch.   So you can imagine how hard it hit me when I got an email from Kent with a picture of the fire covering the mountainside.  Driving up this past weekend, I was both excited and frightened to see the new appearance of the mountain I love.  But when I got there I couldn’t tell any difference without closely examining it.

I’m not going to say Gates hasn’t changed, but I also won’t say it’s changed for the worse.  It has only taken up a new look from a completely natural process that was overdue to occur.  Sure that side’s a bit more barren than it was before, but now more of the beautiful view is exposed.  You can see the whole Bar 7 field and barn.  You can see the field between Emily’s and the Bar 7 (Prize ‘n’ Dance), Emily’s and Big Flat poking through the trees, and camp has never appeared more beautiful from afar.  If you look across the way towards Pattison you can see a broken down excavator that made a new home there the past couple months, which, if Kent and Paul get their way, may be taken down in parts and rebuilt to be used for whenever camp needs it (good luck).  There is a new tree fallen across one section of the path, and the dirt is much looser, but this makes it even more fun to “zorch” on the way down.  And, come wintertime, when it (hopefully) rains, who knows how dramatically the landscape will change.  It’s all part of the natural cycle of the forest.  I just look at it all with excitement for what new opportunities it will provide for camp and with appreciation that no one got hurt and none of the camp structures were damaged.  I can’t wait for my next return to see what new things there are to see and explore.