(From “Diaries...) Long Live The General January 21: Today, I’m enjoying the pleasure of company in my “office.” My friend Greg is along. He rows along closely behind me in a second little boat. The downside is that it is going to take another hour or two to complete my survey. Greg revels in “smelling the roses along the way.” But it’s a small price to pay for some company. So I gladly stop with him at every detour and discuss numerous “highlights” that we encounter. But by late afternoon it becomes clear that the dallying needs to be shortened, if not curtailed completely. The sun’s headed down and without good light, any adult steelhead are going to be hard to see and count. So it’s a good omen when the one and only power line crossing this section of the canyon finally appears downstream. It signals just another hour to the take-out, a time line I have grown to rely upon when rowing alone through this beautiful canyon. Never mind that this icon (i.e., power line) is an enigma. It is quite large in diameter, yet crosses the river alone, then disappears up both steep hillsides, immediately enveloped by dense, nearly impenetrable vegetation. The nearest roads or remote residences are miles away, so questions arise. Is it a “live” line–or an artifact of the past? Where does it go? How is it serviced in such a remote, roadless area? I have no clues. Nevertheless, Greg knows something of this icon that I don’t: It marks a short detour to the home of “The General.” “Beach the boat, get out, and walk 100 yards up into the forest on the north side of the river,” his source has opined. So that is just what we do. Sure enough, there it stands, just where it has since the mid 1800s, a huge second-growth redwood, likely the largest such tree in this entire part of the watershed! Someone’s initials are blazed in the trunk, along with the circumference–47 feet. But this old man appears to have added a lot more girth since that waistline measurement was taken. It’s hard to believe I have floated just yards past this magnificent tree dozens of times. All-round are the fire-scarred stumps of his brethren who long ago suffered their ignominious ends at sawyers’ hands. For what noble cause was his life spared? I would like to know. Maybe The General is contemplating the answer too, from this quiet and inconspicuous hiding place amid sprouts from his dead brethren, and hoping not to be rediscovered again anytime soon. Today, all we have time to do is take his picture, salute him and say a simple prayer: “Long live The General!” And then we climb back in our tiny boats and continue down the river. But I know that this is destined to become a special place for rest and quiet contemplation from now on–each time I come down the river.