LOCALadk Magazine

22 Fall 2017 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk Interior Outpost At Lake Colden: Caretakers By Bethany Garretson Fire on the Mountain Something was wrong. Phil Johnstone could smell it— smoke blended with the balsam and cedar. Past Avalanche Lake and nearing the Colden Outpost, Phil skied out onto Lake Colden and spotted a gray smudge above the tree line. The outpost was on fire. He kicked his skis and headed straight for the burning building. The day had started with great excitement. It was March 13, 1998, and Phil, then an operation's super visor of the DEC, was gearing up for a trip to the outpost with a good friend and former caretaker, Curt Heisler. Also with them was Phil's 11-year-old son, Andy. Snow conditions were excellent and temperatures in the low 20s as the trio set off from South Meadows. They took a break at Marcy Dam, and then headed up miser y mile to the pass. That's when they detected the smell of smoke and the mood switched from one of a happy reunion to a somber foreboding. When they arrived on the scene, the windows of the cab- in were blackened, as if curtains had been drawn tight. Dark smoke leaked from the floor boards. Phil reached for the door handle and Curt stopped him. Curt had fire experience and even though they couldn't see flames, he knew that the cabin was smoldering and would be engulfed as soon as fresh oxygen was added to the equation. Phil pulled out his radio and reported the fire. Outposts in the Adirondacks ser ve as a launch point for backcountr y aid, and the Colden outpost is six miles from the nearest road and only assessable by foot. No firetrucks would arrive to this blaze. Phil went to the shed and turned off the gas while Curt skied over to campers across the lake and told them to stay away from the burning building. Phil's son looked on from a safe distance. There was nothing more they could do. "It was the most helpless feeling in the world," Phil reflect- ed. " We had to get back to Marcy Dam." Skiing out, Phil was in a haze of disbelief. The group moved quickly without much talk. Occasionally, they heard the loud explosion of a propane tank in the distance. That night at the Marcy Dam, sleep did not come easy. The next morning, Phil and Curt skied back to the cabin. All that remained, midst a pile of ash, was the woodstove and kitchen pump. It was a complete burn, caused by a smoldering fire in what had been the wall behind the wood stove. Rebuilding the Colden outpost was a DEC community ef- fort. First, they had to get approval. In 1972, the Adirondack Park Agency had called for the removal of caretaker cabins, since they didn't conform to wilderness regulations. A com- mittee was assembled by the DEC and went to work proving the worth of Colden Outpost. Since it is in a heavily trafficked area and used for many back countr y search and rescue ef- forts, approval was granted quickly and a new cabin replaced the old in about a year's time. The Life of a Colden Caretaker Today, the Colden outpost is staffed year-round, making it the only cabin to have a caretaker in it 365 days a year. For the past 14 years, Nate Jeffer y has ser ved as one of the inte- rior outpost caretakers of Colden and Johns Brook. This was his last winter at Colden. Nate, 38, was born on an Army base in Clarksville, Tennes- see. When not stationed at the outpost, he resides at North Countr y School where his wife, Jess, is a school nurse. Care- takers pull week-long shifts, rotating on Sundays. Over the years, the schedule has become harder on Nate because of the young family he must leave ever y other week. Nate wears green pants and brown boots with red laces. A forest recreation patch is on the side of his beige, long-sleeve shirt. A ball cap covers his sandy colored hair. He has a warm smile and jolly laugh. Inside the outpost, a staircase wraps around the chimney hearth made of local stone. There are

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