“The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!”
The new Alamar Guard Station, July 1937. Image courtesy LPNF archives.
As discussed in last week’s installment of “Station to Station,” Blakley’s history relates how Alamar Station met its end as a result of bears’ intrusions. This is — to me — an acceptable death for any building man should erect in the forest. Bears have every right. It’s certainly a better fate than the vandalism that eventually prompted the USFS to bulldoze and burn Happy Hollow or the fiery demise of Madulce 2.0.
Built in 1937, Alamar was part of that string of stations built by the CCCs. For some time Upper Bear Camp — just down the slope at the head of the Sisquoc drainage — was used as a camp for the crew along this stretch of the road, as the Buckhorn was built over the course of nearly 10 years and Alamar did not have a constant water source.
Alamar Guard Station, ca. late 1950s–early 1960s. Image courtesy Condor Trail Association.
The damage wrought by those local U. americanus miscreants eventually prompted the Forest Service to raze the damaged structure in the 1960s.
Alamar Guard Station site, post-Zaca Fire.
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