17 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Surveying On Horseback By Jim Luke, PLS (Retired) Surveying On Horseback This is one of those surveying stories that us old surveyors tell to you young surveyors about how it was back then...Once upon a time back in the 1970s I was working at a regional company in Colorado. We surveyed in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah and ended up with a project to survey for a new microwave signal from Salt Lake City, Utah to Moab, Utah. There are some mountains and some desert between those locations. The plan was to use reflectors and boosters and get a good signal for the cable TV company and maybe the phone company. I wasn’t really involved in those parts of the project, so maybe I am not even saying that part of it correctly. But for the survey part of the project, we had to access some mountain tops to get the job done. Now mind you this was before GPS and even before data collectors. Shoot, this was even before total stations! Surveyors had the theodolite to measure the angles and then take that off the tripod and put up the EDM to measure the distance. Not only that, but we had to take notes in the field book! So for quality control, surveyors had to read the right number and then write down the right number. Our saying back then was, “There is nothing worse than a dyslexic surveyor.” Younger surveyors today would not even be challenged by this project! One of the mountain tops was on the face of the cliff of the Book Cliffs outside of Green River, Utah. The Quad sheet showed a road (Jeep trail) up to a saddle below the point we needed to survey. Up on the top, we would have to be sure we could see the booster sight below as well as the point selected above Moab where the signal would be bounced down to the cable TV building. We find our 4-wheel drive pickup can’t make it up the Jeep trail with the creek crossings, boulders, wash outs, and all that. We rent a 2-wheel drive motorcycle and get about a quarter of a mile up the trail before it breaks down. Good thing it is all downhill to the truck! You guys know the drill. This project is a disaster and getting worse! Time to get a change order from the client and order a helicopter. It is February with a couple of inches of snow on the ground. The sun melts the snow on the south slopes with some grass growing from the moisture. There are some sheep grazing over the “foothills.” We see the shepherd’s wagon and two horses and drive over there. We make arrangements to rent the horses the next day from him. He says the sheep will be okay there for one day with his three dogs to take care of them. Part of the deal is for us to come get him in the morning and drive him to town (Green River) for the day. Next day we show up at about dawn, get the horses saddled up, pay the rent for the horses, and my helper sets off for town with the shepherd. I have the backpacks loaded up for the day when my helper returns and we mount up for the ride to the top. My pack had the survey equipment (T2, HP3800, battery, cables, etc.) and my helper had the tripod and lath tied behind his saddle with the rest of the gear in his backpack. He carried the six-foot conduit with one end on his boot at the stirrup. Everything works fine and we finally get to the top. Another helper is at the point selected above Moab with an 18-inch square mirror to “flash” us reflecting the sunlight. We see the flash and set to work setting a rebar, measuring the angles, and measuring the distance down to the proposed booster station below. Before leaving we put up the conduit backsight, guy it, and head back down to the shepherd’s camp. We both had bruises from the backpacks and had the typical soreness from riding horses, but we got the job done. I had grown up with horses so that was no problem, but my helper had very little experience. Needless to say, the horses were not used to us and we were not used to them, but we got the job done without ordering a helicopter! We rubbed down the horses and gave them some feed as instructed and headed for town. Our last challenge of the day was finding the shepherd! He was not where they had agreed to meet. Turns out that he got some rot gut stuff and spent some time with a couple of floozies and somehow ended up in jail. I wasn’t about to pay for him to get out and eventually I got the Sheriff to let him out so we could take him back to his camp and his sheep. Wow, that was a long day. It is amazing what some party chiefs will go through to get the field work done. To tie the lower point (proposed booster station) into State Plane we needed to measure a line about 12 miles long. We contracted with another surveyor who had a Geodimeter 6BL to measure that distance. James H. Luke, PLS, USMS, is a currently-retired surveyor living in Portland, Oregon. He started his career in forestry in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, then transitioned to surveying/engineering in Colorado. He held the U.S. Mineral Surveyor appointment by BLM and active registrations in Colorado and Maryland.
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