50 NEBRASKAland • JUNE 2018
people and campers, including one pair
of impromptu nudists startled to see my
SUV round their private nook. "Sorry!"
shouts the man as they scramble for
clothing.
Loren Eaton is not surprised to hear
of nudists. He has seen all kinds of
antics and incidents. "Most commonly,
people don't take a map and they get
lost," he said. "Some are lost overnight,
and in emergencies cell companies
will ping phones to give us the general
vicinity." And people get stuck in the
sand. "It's the first time some of them
have ever left the pavement." But
standard visitors are rural folks with
big tires and high clearance who know
about dicey roads.
Forest staffers are largely rural, too.
"We have a lot of former ranch hands,"
said Julie Bain, district ranger. "It's a
competent bunch who can fix things."
Bain lives here and loves it. "We
are much less visited than mountain
forests," she said. "You have a real
opportunity for seclusion on hikes or
Fire is essential to healthy prairies. In springtime, if conditions allow, yellow-clad "burn
crews" converge on the Forest's grasslands to conduct highly orchestrated blazes.
The Charles E. Bessey Tree Nursery produces 900,000 pine saplings indoors per year and another 1.5 million
various tree species outdoors.
