after a weekend trip to new haven, ct to see the yale gospel choir with one of the other corps members, i hurriedly gathered my big pack and day pack and hopped into a van headed to mohawk state forest for a week of learning basic trail work skills. wahoo! sunday night consisted of some fun and games and a tasty dinner...all the while discovering that i left my headlamp in my other backpack (good thing the full moon was this week).
just some background on the week, there are 24 of us from hawley, 10 corps members from the central crew, and 1 team leader for the berkshire crew, so the 35 of us are divided among 6 groups for adventures in learning trail work skills of rocks, drainage, tread, timber bridges, and new trail building. i'm finding that everything revolves around water. it's kind of cool : )
MONDAY
i woke up cozy in the cabin i shared with caleb and elysa. with all of my hustling and bustling around, i haven't actually been sleeping in my own bed much. i've gotten used to life in the bunkhouse and now find it rather strange to wake up in a different room (or tent) where i'm not surrounded by 23 other people. so, i digress, i woke up in my cozy cabin and got myself ready for a day of rock work. the day involved learning how to use a tool called a rock bar (basically a 17lbs lever) and trying (and sort of succeeding) to set a rock into this really messy steep, rocky, wet section. in the evening, we enjoyed a meal of stir fry with quinoa and peanut sauce. yummmmy! i didn't swipe leftovers soon enough though so i had to pack a lunch of a cheese and mustard sandwich. yum?
TUESDAY
i woke up thinking that there would be rain, but it hadn't started yet. my group (called the mule deers) went to a different trail to work on building a bog bridge from rustic timber. that's trailwork talk for putting a few logs (rustic timber) over a muddy section of trail (bog bridge) so it's easier to walk over. once we got to the work site, we had to carry these really heavy logs that had been cut to size and the bark removed over to the bridge area. that took a lot of effort! we used these tools called timber carriers which make it easier to move logs, but it still take quite a bit of elbow grease. then i worked with some others to finish setting the foundation for the bridge...which took longer than it should have.
lunch happened sometime in between; however, it was one of the worst lunches i've had in a while. not because of the food (my sandwich and apple were great!) but because of the torrentional downpour (and coldness). for a few hours after the rain, i lost a bit of my fine motor ability (i discovered that when i had trouble unbuttoning my pants as i was taking a pee break). that was a scary feeling, and it was only made worse by the fact that my work gloves were completely soaked and caked with mud. whenever i put my gloves on my hands would re-freeze...it was a bad cycle. i can say that i was wise to pack an extra pair of socks and enjoyed the luxury of being able to put them on in the middle of the day...it was amazing! i was most definitely covered in mud at the end of the day, but i enjoyed the feeling of knowing i did some good work. i learned about so many new tools and actually partook in the completion of one bog bridge. i am sure trail season will have many more to come...
WEDNESDAY
this was a day full of work. i woke up early to help with some breakfast chores. i donned myself with 7 layers up top and 3 layers below. after a hike out to our site, we tried to stay warm. the theme of the day's station was tread drainage and involved putting in a rock water bar (a small rock wall intended to help control water flow off of the trail) and a retaining wall for preventing erosion of tread.
some of the highlights include seeing a tree fall from a chainsaw cut, using a chisel to shape a notch, crushing rocks with a sledge hammer and moving rocks down a hill with my new rock bar skills. i need to work on my skills with a hammer. i might actually practice nailing in some scrap nails into some scrap wood back in hawley to build up my muscles.
in other news from the day, there was this tree that kept blowing in the wind and sounded like a door creaking. that is a strange noise to hear when you know that you are deep in the woods. also i almost peed on some poison ivy...whoops! the evening adventures invovled eating yummy burritos and singing songs by a camp fire.
THURSDAY
i woke up to a beautiful, sunny day. it was awesome. after breakfast and packing up, we headed over to the bog bridge of our work site. the bridge was mostly built, so we spent the day working on steps to help transition the trail down to the bridge. the area we worked in was MUDDY! there was water coming from all over the place. down the hillside, down the trails leading up to it, from random "seeps" as they call them everywhere on the bank. literally, you could stick your shovel in somewhere and water would start gushing out. there was lots of log hauling, rock crushing, and notch measuring. we made the steps out of some big logs and filled the empty space in with small rocks. my favorite part of the day was arranging these rocks in the steps. it was like putting together a puzzle. somewhere at the end of the day i started to lose my energy a bit, but we apparently completed more today than our instructor thought we would and i even had time to take a shower before dinner! wahoo. i enjoyed a delicious curry dish with everyone and then spent some time hanging around the fire.
FRIDAY
i did not want to get up. my sleeping back was SO comfortable. but, i finally woke up and got everything packed up. the mule deers headed over to work on laying out new trail. it was a laid back day in general. i did get to saw down a relatively large tree with a bow saw (4in diameter...big for a bow saw). i also got to see some of the finished projects from the week. that was great! it made me really excited for the rest of my summer.
once we were done with the day, we did some wrap-up discussions and then spent a few hours cleaning, sharpening and oiling our tools. then...the weekend!
i think i'm really lucky to have this opportunity to live my life like i do right now. spending time with wonderful people. learning new skills. using my youth for good. (eating wonderful food). living in beautiful places. yup. i couldn't really ask for much more in life.
some notes to myself more than anything...
things not to forget on hitch:
- headlamp
- thermos
- lots of socks
- sunscreen
things that would be awesome to have in life (my birthday is coming up in june...):
- a kick ass camera
- compression bag
- hydration pack
- a swiss army type of knife
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