DAVENPORT, Calif. — When Gina Lopez told her pals in UC Berkeley's "global-environment" residence hall that she had joined the school's logging team, they were aghast.
"Gina, I can't believe you'd do that," one of her housemates said. "It's logging!"
But here she was at this weekend's California Conclave intercollegiate logging competition, gripping a double-bladed ax with both hands, rearing back and letting it fly at a bull's-eye painted on a round slab of Douglas fir.
A few dozen competitors from California's only university logging teams -- Berkeley, Humboldt State and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo -- had spent a chilly night on this rugged 3,200-acre ranch north of Santa Cruz. Mostly forestry students, they emerged from their yurts in the morning to vie against one another in about a dozen events, including wood-chopping, ax-throwing and heaving a 10-foot log called a caber.
Big, friendly dogs were sniffing around, Johnny Cash tunes were wafting out of a boombox, chain saws were being unloaded from mud-splattered pickups, and burgers -- both beef and tofu -- were sizzling on an open grill.
"It's a new era in forestry," said Lopez, who, unlike Paul Bunyan, is short, female, Latina and vegetarian. Taking in the scene, the sophomore from Gardena was looking forward to a full day Saturday of obstacle-course-running and race-like-a-bear-is-after-you tree-climbing.
Such diversions have been part of the logger's leisure hours since men who ate meals the size of small ecosystems felled trees for the first ancient subdivisions. But today's up-and-coming foresters can find it disheartening to hone the same skills on campuses where ax-flinging and competitive chain saw events are seen as so not right.
"Even saying I'm a forestry major, I get attacked," said Mike O'Brien, an avid logging competitor and president of Berkeley's forestry club. "But you have to take the time with people and be patient with them."
O'Brien and his seven teammates have persevered. Cal's logging squad went dormant in the early 1990s and was revived only in the last few years. It receives no money from the school but raises funds selling Christmas trees. Members also peddle specially designed T-shirts at Berkeley's annual football showdown with arch rival Stanford, whose symbol is a goofy-looking, bug-eyed redwood.
This year's T-shirt pictures Stanford's beloved tree as a stump, with the ominous caption: "Not every tree deserves a hug."
