Carroll Vogel built bridges and blazed new trails

Balancing on top of suspension-bridge cables as he often did, Carroll Vogel might have known better than anyone else what the word "sahale" meant.

Sahale, the name of Mr. Vogel's bridge business, is a Chinook word for "away up high." That phrase seems also to describe Mr. Vogel's adventurous life — spent designing and building backcountry bridges and trails, as well as helping conservation groups save marine wildlife.

Mr. Vogel, of Seattle, died July 5 from prostate cancer at age 56, but the more than 200 bridges and trails he built in national parks, forests and open spaces throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada remain as his legacy. If you're an avid hiker, you've probably stepped on a bridge or trail that he made.

For him, the structures were more than a way from point A to point B; they connected people, communities and places.

"His bridges represent nothing less than a triumph of the human spirit, our ability to overcome a seemingly impossible obstacle," such as gorges, valleys and rivers, said Jennifer Knauer, Mr. Vogel's wife.

Several of the bridges designed by Mr. Vogel — including the Islandwood bridge on Bainbridge Island, Lava Canyon Bridge in Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument Park and the Baker River bridge in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest — are scattered throughout Western Washington.

Most of the others are scattered throughout the state and country, and many of those are in backcountry areas, where Mr. Vogel learned to construct bridges using only materials that could be hauled in by pack animals or flown in by helicopter. Because chain saws often are restricted in those areas, Mr. Vogel also mastered traditional skills, like using crosscut saws.

But long before bridge building became his trademark, Mr. Vogel was making trails across the country with the Student Conservation Association.

Jay Satz, vice president of Student Conservation Association Northwest, said Mr. Vogel was always a leader. Borrowing the words of colleague Robert Burkhart, Satz said Mr. Vogel had an "inability to stand around and let things go to hell."

During the Yellowstone National Park fire of 1988, which charred more than a third of the park's 2.2 million acres, Mr. Vogel and trail crew members began restoring the park while flames were still burning, Satz said.

Satz said Mr. Vogel was one of the five most influential people in the formation of the Student Conservation Association — the largest nonprofit youth conservation organization in the world.

"Because of him, I did far greater things earlier [in my life] than I would ever have imagined," Satz said.

Mr. Vogel also left an impression on Paul Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace and the president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society — the whale-saving group featured on Animal Planet's television series Whale Wars. Mr. Vogel worked with the conservation society in its earlier years as an engineer, traveling with ships that helped stop drift-netting in the North Pacific, seal hunting off the Canadian coast and whale hunting in Neah Bay.

Watson said he once needed a boat fixed in 15 minutes, and Mr. Vogel got it done in 14 and a half.

"He had a lot of talents," Watson said.

Musing over her husband's work, Knauer talked about her favorite trail — the Baker Lake trail. The 13-mile path follows the edge of the lake, meandering through mature old-growth forest, and it took intensive rock blasting to cut through the hillside.

She said she often takes their children, Skye, Conor and Stella, to Seattle's Carkeek Park, where they can run across and play on the bridges their father built.

Whatever he was building, Mr. Vogel enjoyed it.

"He really believed one's work should reflect one's passion. It should inspire you to get up every day," Knauer said. "Nobody should have a job just to pay the bills, but one that reflects who you are as an individual."

In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the Student Conservation Association, in care of the Carroll Vogel Tribute Fund, Attn. Vicki Cota, P.O. Box 550, Charlestown, NH 03603-0550. Donations will be used to support SCA's conservation-service programs for high-school-age youth.

In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Vogel is survived by his parents, Audrey and Mike Highberger, of Snohomish; sisters Kim Vogel, of Snohomish, and Troy Wood, of San Jose; and brother Brian Highberger, of Lake Forest Park.

Private services will be held Aug. 8.

Carly Flandro: 206-464-2108 or cflandro@seattletimes.com