i'm writing this entry at the atlanta airport after a long weekend adventure in charleston, sc. i went to see my friend becky get married in a beautiful service with a reception following at a gorgeous mansion.
i think i'm going to try a new format for writing about my trail hitches...here goes!
location: quabbin reservoir park, the main water supply for the boston metro area
project: building retaining walls out of dimensional lumber along eroded sections of a beautiful trail just south of the dam as well as putting in "runners" along the side of the trail near a stream bank to help hold in and build up tred
highlights: quabbin is beautiful. downright gorgeous. we saw lots of wildlife (turtles, turkeys, and an eagle!) and made friends with two families of geese who enjoyed hanging out by the section of trail we were working on. it was the crew leader's birthday in the middle of the hitch so we went to amherst for some yummy vietnamese food and ice cream. the program director even came out to eat with us! our site contact was AMAZING and introduced us to what seemed like almost all of the employees at quabbin. we even joked about making DCR (department of conservation and recreation) trading cards. al detour (nicknamed hipster al for his large plastic framed glasses, snazzy hairdo, and fun sweaters), the head carpenter was invaluable in supplying us with tools and tips of the trade. i broke a sledge hammer handle. yup. i did!
not-so-good parts: in the middle of the hitch a huge thunderstorm rolled through the area and woke us all up for over an hour. there was a torrential downpour, terrifying winds, and thunder like no other. the lightning was so frequent that it seemed as though someone had a strobe light outside the van. needless to say, the day after the storm was not ideal. all of us were tired, some of our work had to be redone, and morale wasn't super high. we got over that though...only to come back to the campsite one evening to find that two big packs had been stolen from our tents (none were mine). that brought on lots of issues (calling the police, questioning our safety there, needing to go to town to replace some clothing and gear the folks didn't have anymore). the police were hilarious, so that was at least entertaining. to add to that, the next day we came back to the campsite to find that 3 of our 4 tents were missing. also gone were a crew member's nice hiking boots and headlamp. we eventually relocated to the ranger station where we slept on the floor of the locker room. i much preferred being in a tent to that, but it was a warm, dry place to be which was all we really needed at that point.
wrap-up: despite all of the not-so-great moments, i had a great time! i loved all of the wildlife sightings (cute goslings and baby turkeys!) and enjoyed having a camp kitchen (even though we didn't use it all of the time).
next stop...southeast mass!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
adventures in rock world.
it has been a while since my last entry because i haven't had access to a computer for the better part of two weeks. i'm waiting for my laundry to finish, so it's the perfect time to recollect on my trail experiences. after finishing a 5 day hitch and having 1 day off (not really a day "off" since i had oodles of errands to run and emails to check), i spent my sunday getting ready for another adventure. since i was leading a crew, i had extra paperwork to worry about, food and tool pack-out to coordinate, and lots of other little tasks to stress over. however, sunday went well! we got all of the food and tools we needed, and i even had time to make some sweet potato bread, chop vegetables for our first meal and take a walk around the pond.
on monday, i was up early to get myself ready to lead! once everything was packed, we drove out to leominster, ma - stopping at the wachusett mountain state reservation to drop off our personal gear and food (that's where we were staying) and then headed to the worksite at the leominster state forest. i must say, the staff at wachusett mountain are AMAZING! we were greeted by bernie, this entertaining park employee who told us lots of fun stories from his time at the forest.
we spent the rest of monday, all day tuesday and wednesday morning doing some rock work on a steep slope at the leominster state forest. moving heavy rocks on a steep slope is a little unnerving at first, but we were able to figure things out.
wednesday afternoon we packed up and headed to the otter river state forest to volunteer with the massachusetts envirothon. the envirothon is a high school science competition where student teams take tests and make presentations on a wide variety of enviromental subjects including ground water, watersheds, forestry, wildlife and soil. we helped set up a lot of tents, tables and chairs on wednesday evening. then we froze in our tents that night...not exactly ideal...but it comes with the life of trail work. the day of the envirothon we bummed around here and there...helping direct people where the needed to go, manning a display booth about SCA programs, generally being awesome in our "conservation begins here" shirts. in the afternoon we led a service project clearing some branches on a nature trail. we were expecting 30 students and only had 7...so it was kind of a bust, but the students who volunteered with us had a great time wearing hard hats, using tools and learning about some of the trail work practices we use on a day-to-day basis, so it was a success. once we were done with our project, we cleaned up camp and headed back to wachusett/leominster.
on monday, i was up early to get myself ready to lead! once everything was packed, we drove out to leominster, ma - stopping at the wachusett mountain state reservation to drop off our personal gear and food (that's where we were staying) and then headed to the worksite at the leominster state forest. i must say, the staff at wachusett mountain are AMAZING! we were greeted by bernie, this entertaining park employee who told us lots of fun stories from his time at the forest.
we spent the rest of monday, all day tuesday and wednesday morning doing some rock work on a steep slope at the leominster state forest. moving heavy rocks on a steep slope is a little unnerving at first, but we were able to figure things out.
wednesday afternoon we packed up and headed to the otter river state forest to volunteer with the massachusetts envirothon. the envirothon is a high school science competition where student teams take tests and make presentations on a wide variety of enviromental subjects including ground water, watersheds, forestry, wildlife and soil. we helped set up a lot of tents, tables and chairs on wednesday evening. then we froze in our tents that night...not exactly ideal...but it comes with the life of trail work. the day of the envirothon we bummed around here and there...helping direct people where the needed to go, manning a display booth about SCA programs, generally being awesome in our "conservation begins here" shirts. in the afternoon we led a service project clearing some branches on a nature trail. we were expecting 30 students and only had 7...so it was kind of a bust, but the students who volunteered with us had a great time wearing hard hats, using tools and learning about some of the trail work practices we use on a day-to-day basis, so it was a success. once we were done with our project, we cleaned up camp and headed back to wachusett/leominster.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
life by the light of a headlamp.
well, it's sunday night, and i'm getting ready to go on my next trail adventure, but i thought i'd share some highlights from my first trail "hitch".
last monday morning i packed up in a van with 5 others headed to the willard brook state forest in central massachusetts. we stayed at a really nice campsite and worked on the dead swamp trail.
when we arrived at the trail, we walked the loop, identifying problem spots as we hiked. after much ado, we decided to tackle a few muddy, wet spots on the trail. the next four days were full of lots of hard work, dirt, bugs, and good times. i enjoyed getting to use my new trail work skills with some great folks. we worked together well as a team and provided good support for one another as we muddled through the mud.
since we were working in areas with standing water, we saw lots of fun amphibians (orange salamanders and frogs!), but we also experienced lots of bugs...most notably mosquitoes and black flies. i've never lived in an area with black flies...but man, they are ANNOYING! they fly all around your face, land on you and bite...then the bites itch. i think they are more annoying than mosquitoes.
i saw the start of a wasp nest on an oak leaf. apparently wasps sting the oak leaf so much in a part that it mutates and the wasps can lay their eggs in the spherical shape that remains. it was so awesome! in other nature sightings, i saw a swallowtail butterfly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallowtail_butterfly). it was really beautiful!
one afternoon we needed to fill up the gas tank in the van and on our drive back through town we saw a chicken. crossing the road. ha ha!
we did encounter some struggles like the morning that a few people weren't feeling well, our cooler fell out of the minivan trunk smashing most of our eggs and the box of nails broke sending them all over the ground...but we worked through those struggles and ended up draining 5, 18 and 30 foot puddles as well as building 3 foot bridges and setting a stepping stone.
our campsite was really nice. we had the "taj mahal" of bathhouses...(that's what our contact called the bathhouse, which was really nice with hot showers and running water) and started to feel more comfortable using the camp kitchen for cooking. our last dinner together was spent along a pond eating hobo dinners (veggies cooked in aluminum foil over a fire...yummy!). loved it : )
i'm a crew leader for this next trail adventure...i have a rather large to-do list for the morning, but for now, it is time for bed!
last monday morning i packed up in a van with 5 others headed to the willard brook state forest in central massachusetts. we stayed at a really nice campsite and worked on the dead swamp trail.
when we arrived at the trail, we walked the loop, identifying problem spots as we hiked. after much ado, we decided to tackle a few muddy, wet spots on the trail. the next four days were full of lots of hard work, dirt, bugs, and good times. i enjoyed getting to use my new trail work skills with some great folks. we worked together well as a team and provided good support for one another as we muddled through the mud.
since we were working in areas with standing water, we saw lots of fun amphibians (orange salamanders and frogs!), but we also experienced lots of bugs...most notably mosquitoes and black flies. i've never lived in an area with black flies...but man, they are ANNOYING! they fly all around your face, land on you and bite...then the bites itch. i think they are more annoying than mosquitoes.
i saw the start of a wasp nest on an oak leaf. apparently wasps sting the oak leaf so much in a part that it mutates and the wasps can lay their eggs in the spherical shape that remains. it was so awesome! in other nature sightings, i saw a swallowtail butterfly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallowtail_butterfly). it was really beautiful!
one afternoon we needed to fill up the gas tank in the van and on our drive back through town we saw a chicken. crossing the road. ha ha!
we did encounter some struggles like the morning that a few people weren't feeling well, our cooler fell out of the minivan trunk smashing most of our eggs and the box of nails broke sending them all over the ground...but we worked through those struggles and ended up draining 5, 18 and 30 foot puddles as well as building 3 foot bridges and setting a stepping stone.
our campsite was really nice. we had the "taj mahal" of bathhouses...(that's what our contact called the bathhouse, which was really nice with hot showers and running water) and started to feel more comfortable using the camp kitchen for cooking. our last dinner together was spent along a pond eating hobo dinners (veggies cooked in aluminum foil over a fire...yummy!). loved it : )
i'm a crew leader for this next trail adventure...i have a rather large to-do list for the morning, but for now, it is time for bed!
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