lumberJILL?

"So, we're going to climb it, right?"

Her question took me a bit by surprise, partially because it was exactly what I was thinking, but also because it broke the silence that was so complete. We were above the town, so high above it that we could see P_____, the next closest city (about 25 miles away). We watched the cars and their passengers alternately crawl and scurry about hour after hour, day after day as we worked. It was the end of a long week of playing lumberjack...lumberjill?...we are both female, after all. Friday afternoon. We had just perfectly felled the last tree--a new chainsaw blade, slice in 1/3 of the way, remove saw, into the same side again, a perfect wedge falls out, then backcut 'til it starts to fall. Get the saw out fast so it doesn't get hung up, watch out for the butt-end of the tree so it doesn't pop up at you. K jumped and ran; it was falling sooner than she expected. We limbed the tree and sectioned it up, then loaded the truck. I resisted the urge to count the rings on the stump, and turned away. This is not a good job for someone with a hippy streak...like me, I thought as I took off my oh-soo-sexy orange safety chaps and removed my earplugs. I set my chainsaw in the back of the truck, thinking that the 15 minutes we had left in the workweek would be just enough time...

"So we're going to climb it, right?", she asked. "Hell yeah!", I responded and straightened up to appraise IT. There are two, to be exact. They are monstrous, hold well over a half-million gallons of water each, and are more than 90 feet high. The ladders are fairly high off the ground and have locked cages around them. Hmm. Less than 20 seconds of analyzing, manouvering, and shimmying later I was in the ladder-cage. Ninety feet of straight-into-the-air ladderclimbing is definitely a cardiovascular workout. And then...the view we thought we had before was nothing! Four major snowcovered peaks, the Columbia River, the clouds and mist, the breeze, all that is NW America! Glorious!

But then...we both stepped on the same panel of the top and it buckled in. We jumped back, scared shitless at the thought of falling into a million gallons of water, so dark and SO alone. It popped right back out, but the enjoyment was slightly dampened and the sound of a nearby car reminded us that we are risking our lives and our livelyhoods (our sole sources of income) for a little fun. Hmm, time to descend to earth where we belong. There are other days, other places...