Phase Two

This past work week was still training, but it was designed to be a little more typical of what I will be doing in the future. We left early on Monday morning and met up at North Table Mountain, which is a recreational space run by the (Jefferson) county. Getting there was very dramatic and stressful, and unfortunately cast a shadow over the whole day. I got picked up by two other people who didn't know to leave early enough to allow for traffic! We got to the rendezvous point late and then had to drive to the work site separately. We basically hit every type of inconvenience, including waiting for a train and navigating past freeway accidents.  We made it to the job site just in time and jumped right into work!
 Working on a mountain is pretty cool, until you realize how hot, steep, and unshaded it is. For our training, we were helping the county revitalize this area. Our instructors were all part of the Outdoor Stewardship Institute (OSI). We worked on three different projects through the day. First, we helped construct a switchback. Mostly, this involved using pickaxes to dig out the trail, and then building a rock wall along the edge of the trail to support it. Our instructor for this particular project was a cute old man who seemed to take a liking to me. I think he actually picked me out as being the weakest, smallest, and most inexperienced and tried to empower me by making me the group leader. This ended up having the opposite effect. I, with no clue of what I was doing, had to direct a group of people who already knew how to do the work what to do while I was being corrected by the instructor every step of the way. I basically hated every minute of it, but I stuck it through! Later, the instructor was trying to joke around with me and called me a weakling, which was just the icing on the cake.
Our next job was to build a water bar. This job was the least stressful of the three. We dug a big diagonal ditch across the trail, built it into the trail with dug-in ramps, and then filled the end of the ditch in with some large rocks. The purpose of this is to catch the water run off that comes down the trail and redirect it to the mountainside, rather than allowing to to continue down and washing out the trail.
Finally, we went way up the mountain and started digging a brand new trail. A social trail had formed there, and we needed to design a trail that would make more sense and be more healthy for the landscape. Again, we used lots of pickaxes and shovels, although this was much more difficult! Cutting into fresh mountainside isn't easy! I got singled out again here, which was frustrating. At the end of the day, I was very stressed out, hot, and sunburned, but I had learned a lot!
After we got to our campsite and set up, we had dinner and then some more training! It just never ends. We had a two hour session about leadership. At least there were no tools involved!
The next day was a pretty similar set up, although it went much better for me! We were at Red Rocks State Park, which is a very cool place I had never been to before! There are a ton of huge red rock formations scattered through out the park- there is even an amphitheater built in between some of the formations- courtesy of the CCC. Way cool!

 Two of our jobs involved closing off social trails. We had to pick and dig away at the trails to loosen of the soil, and then basically rebuild them into a more natural state. To do this, we dug in grooves for water to follow, strategically placed rocks to act functionally and look natural, and seed, fertilize, mulch the area before covering it with slash (tree branches which protect the seeds and also block off the trail). When we were done with those trails, they looked like pieces of (natural) art!

The other project we worked on was a bit different because we actually were working with a social trail instead of taking it out or otherwise working against it. There is a path from the amphitheater to one of the parking lots that a lot of people use and it is very steep! We knew that there wasn't really a way to stop people from using this major causeway, so we decided to make it safer by putting stairs in it. Building stairs (especially 6 foot wide and 30 inch long ones) up a steep path is a lot of work! We spent a lot of time digging and measuring, and then digging and measuring some more!  We worked ourselves ragged with those stairs but it was my favorite job we worked on. Our team worked really well together and we got a great, tangible, useful, result.
After work we headed back to camp and I nursed my very brutal blisters. They were so bad that I wasn't sure I would be able to work on Wednesday! Luckily one of my team members was very handy with moleskin and tape, and I was able to wear 3 pairs of socks and take some painkillers to get me through!
I was on dinner crew that night and I helped make some very great burritos that really hit the spot! After dinner, we had two more hours of training!
The next two days were filled with a myriad of different jobs we worked on! We carried fencing up the mountain and built three big fences with it. We built two sets of stairs in some really steep parts or the trail, and rehabilitated a bunch of trail and eroded areas. I didn't get to take too many pictures, but I did capture one of our fence! I'm looking forward to going back and showing people all the awesome work we did.

After work on Wednesday, we had spaghetti for dinner and then some more training! The rest of the night was a bit dramatic as there was a huge thunderstorm, complete with lots of pouring rain, thunder, lightning and hail! Not so fun to camp in! The storm eventually dissipated and we ended the night sleeping in very cold and slightly damp tents. Thursday was a half work day and we were able to pack up and head home a little early.
I was hoping we would have Friday off to recover, but there was lots to do in the office! The crews were all heading out on their official first hitch on Tuesday (Monday was off for Memorial day) so we had a lot to prepare for. We did lots of planning, cleaning, organizing, packing, and shopping! I especially helped with all of the food shopping- we went to Costco and got 3 flat carts piled high with food! It takes a lot to feed 25 people for 5 days and 12 people for 10 days!
Finally, we got to head home for the long weekend!