One week in...

One week in to my new position as Trail Builder/Educator with the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference and boy has it been a doozy. First Hurricane Sandy hit, leaving the whole area in shambles and without electricity, delaying my start date to November 1st, and confusing my housing situation. Next a noreaster dumped snow on us. So the weather for someone who works outdoors 90% of the time has been less than ideal. But none the less I am getting into the swing of things. Learning about NYNJTC projects, learning about databases and office stuff, splitting a bunch of rock to be made into stairs. I've been bouncing place to place with a rental car provided by my organization now filled with all my possessions. The search for a home has begun. Until then I am bouncing around co-workers' homes and hotels. My lovely parental units have assisted me in the acquisition of a new Subaru Cross trek, which I will obtain when I visit them for Thanksgiving. I am a lucky girl. Things are coming together.

Change of Plans!

I have accepted a full time permanent position at the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference as the Trail Builder/Educator.  I start on Halloween.

In my element.

How much wood can a wood chuck chuck?  Our last project of the season was a helical pier boardwalk raising the tread above the flood plane of the nearby Conodoguinet River.  The project was posh in that it was a 10 minute walk from base camp, and I slept in my bed every night.  It was a butt kicker in that we had to transport thousands of pounds of material (metal piers, 72 12 foot long 2X4s, endless amounts of decking, joists, girders) and tools to the site by hand.  That 10 minute walk can get quite long.  It was beautifully orchestrated chaos.  Teams of people drilling piers, building boxes, decking, attaching railings, attaching kick boards, shlepping materials, while I go from group to group teaching how to use speed squares, explaining how to cut the angles on the decking, laying out the location of piers, making sure everyone has the supplies they need, and making sure all the crowns are frowns.  Rocking it.  Life is good.  We kick boardwalk ass.  My ass is beat.  It marks the end of the Mid-Atlantic Crew season.  I am off to a whirlwind adventure in Baltimore, MD before returning to the Scott Farm to clean things up, lead a group of high school age volunteers in Palmerton, PA, wash and wax the van and trailer, and do some paperwork before I fly out to Tucson, AZ on Monday.

The Mountain of Bears

Say hello to mechanized trail building.  Two weeks at Bear Mountain in New York where the Appalachian Trail tread is 5 feet wide crusher fines. The stairs are quarried rock.  The ditch witch is queen.  The canycom is king.  The hammer drill is benevolent dictator.  The griphoist is president.  And rocks under 200 pounds are made into crush.  Millions of uneducated hikers tramp all over the mountain each year, hopefully the completed project will funnel them a bit.  It was a tough two weeks with low volunteer numbers and poor weather, but when the sun was shining the views of the fall trees and the NYC sky line in the distance were breathtaking. 
I have been putting some miles on my bicycle and with a little over one week left, I am getting ready to box it up and ship it to Tucson, AZ where I will be taking an extended vacation/working odd jobs until the next thing comes along.

Another beautiful day for a bike ride.

I've been spending my days off on my bicycle touring the hilly Pennsylvania countryside. Delightful. My boss, Bob, is a big bike rider as well and has recently changed my life. He taught me how to clean (the fact that I should clean) the chain and other drive parts of my bike! Amazing! There are parts that are silver that I had thought were black all this time! I don't even know how my chain was staying on with all that gunk build up! Crazy I know that a girl like me who can re-seal a diesel fuel injection pump etc doesn't know much about her bicycle. I had assumed that when I take my bike into a shop they take care of that kind of stuff or would at least let me know it needs done. But alas I have proven once again where assuming gets me and that I need to learn more about bike maintenance and repair so I can treat my black beauty right!

The season here is half over. Five weeks left. Still no clue what is in store next.

These last two weeks of work consisted of some of the most beautiful weather on earth. We dominated Buzzard Rock on the Virginia - West Virginia boarder with a beautiful rock staircase. Next up, the engineered marvel of Bear Mountain, NY.

Fall has come?

We have finished our first two week project of the season. Challenging, technical, and loads of fun. We crushed a lot of rock. We had a lot of laughs. We put in a lot of stairs. We did some beautiful work and a lot of it. We braved a few intense storms and hot humid days. The storms left a chill in the air and a rustle in the leaves and it feels like fall.
I spent my days off on a whirlwind tour of New York City. 22.5 hours in the city was all I could swing with the small amount of time I have off between hitches plus travel (walk 2.2 miles to a bus stop, take a commuter bus to Harrisburg, walk to the Amtrak station, spend 3 hours on a train). The small amount of time in the city was definitely worth it. I was able to visit three friends and walk around a lot of Manhattan, the East Village, and Brooklyn. I visited ground zero since that seemed to be the proper thing to do on September 11th. I walked down Wall Street. I toured many a park. I soaked up the city with not a lot to show for it but a lighter pocket book, a tummy full of good food, and loads of good feelings. (I really should buy a new camera.) What a wonderful place. I love being able to walk everywhere and hop on subways. I love the hustle and bustle and people watching and street sitting and possibility for endless adventure and exploration. If I could find a way to live in the city and do field work in the middle of nowhere, that would be heavenly.
Back to work realizing I did not escape the carpet of poison ivy at our last work site and resisting the itch of scads of tiny bumps on my arms, legs, and belly. Lots of rock stairs to build in the next couple weeks.

Goodbye Maine... Hello Pennsylvania

Another season of work is over and here I am already a week into my next.  Things have been moving quickly.  Job to job to job.  State to state to state.  Maine was lovely.  Mostly in that I got to work with one of the trail greats, "THE Lester Kenway" "The man who eats bowls of barbed wire for breakfast"  (or Kix cereal or blueberry muffin tops depending on the day.)  Lester is the man and am honored by the fact that he wrote "is good company" on my final evaluation.  He also wrote other nice things but that most tugged my heart strings.  I went to Maine in order to increase my technical skills, to learn how to use a griphoist, to have Lester as a reference and what I received was all of those things as well as Lester becoming my mentor for the summer imparting his encyclopedic knowledge upon me at every piece of flagging we placed.  There was a lesson to be taught and learned in everything we did.  There is a better way to tie flagging, a better way to line out project notes, and of course a million and one ways to use a griphoist.  Lester's scientific teaching is something I will never achieve or really even understand, (The exact physics/angles/torques etc of a rock on a highline is beyond me.  I am what Lester calls intuitive rather than scientific.) but golly do I think it is cool.  His way of teaching has given me a push to expand my own ways of teaching and explanation in a slightly more scientific direction even though I am unable (and have no desire to learn how) to calculate the velocity of the water as it turned off trail by my waterbar. 
Maine, although lovely, in general was lack luster for me.  For what ever reason, the state did not pull me in.  Maybe I went with too high of expectations.  Maybe I just had too much on my mind to appreciate the landscape.  My spring season with SCC was trying, maybe it took the summer to recuperate.  Maybe I didn't get out on my own enough.  Either way it is one more place explored with a million lessons learned about myself, my profession, and my world.
Now here I am in Pennsylvania with a big bowl of fruit and yogurt and granola.  One week in.  Tools cleaned and sharpened, project sites visited, work for the season lined out, gear situated.  Volunteers arrive tomorrow night for dinner and orientation and we hit the ground running.  I've got a few odds and ends to tie up before tomorrow night but all in all am ready for another go round with another organization and another group of folks.  
This area has at once hit me as strikingly beautiful and inclusive of everything that is wrong with the United States.  I was surprised by how beautiful I find Pennsylvania to be.  But then again I had no expectations and there is just something about rolling hills of farmland with old barns that makes my heart go pitter patter.  As I drive down the 5 lane "turnpike" lined by car dealerships, walmarts, electronics stores, above ground electric wires, vast parking lots the Kunstler in me cringes.  I just want to live in a well planned pretty community/city and work in the most desolate reaches of the wilderness.  But alas my urban planning ideals seem to be the minority.  The East in general has reminded me that I am the minority.  Good for you food is disgusting, the car is king, TV is THE entertainment, big box stores, camping is done in an open field in tents that look like houses with boom boxes blaring...
I know I sound like an old curmudgeon but sometimes it is easy for me to forget that I live outside the social norm and when I am brought back reality I find it disheartening and must remind myself that what works in life for me works for me and what works in life for others works for others.  Who am I to tell them they are wrong?  Even if I do think they are killing themselves and the planet.  They think I am a crazy curmudgeon tree hugger weirdo.

"If can't have fun or a sense of humor about trail work, you shouldn't be doing it." - THE Lester Kenway

Next

Safe and sound in Pennsylvania. So much to say. So little ability to say it.

Up Next...

I have accepted a position with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy leading their Mid-Atlantic Trail Crew based out of Harrisburg, PA.

Moose, whales, lobsters...

... mohawks, sea kayaking, flying rocks, AT Town dedications, beautiful weather, long bike rides, the best two high school teachers I've ever met, river kayaking, job searching, 3 weeks left in Maine.

There are so many bugs in my rain fly!

Busy busy busy! I've been in Maine six weeks. Hot dang how the time does fly. The caruck has now made its appearance in Maine after a long weekend of driving to Rochester and picking its broke now partially fixed ass up.

Bits of wisdom from Lester Kenway

Mosquitoes suck blood from your pores.
Black flies bite a hole in your skin and lick up the blood with their brush like tongue.
No-see-ums burn a hole in your skin with their vomit then they lick up the blood from that vomit hole.

This is the explanation of why all my bug bites heal at different rates. Just another educational lunchtime conversation.

Happy Trails

After the most beautiful love-filled farewell know to man, Snail and I hit the tracks. Both of us pensive, reflecting on our most glorious last few months, we spent much of the train ride from Tucson to Chicago in silence simply enjoying each other's company. After a yet another Michigan whirlwind and the assistance of my oh-so-wonderful family we were off again, on our way to Rochester, NY in the caruck filled past the brim with bicycles and gear. I left Snail and the caruck in Rochester and drove a rental car the remaining twelve hours to my new home in Maine. Snail is off to Vermont next to be a camp couselor and the caruck is at Airport Transmission to receive two new pieces of shift linkage that fell apart and off during the first twelve hours of driving.
The first two weeks were full force ahead! I am so thankful for overtime! My boss, Lester, and I spent the first week driving around Maine doing site visits and lining out a summer's worth of work for my trail crews. On week two the SCA interns arrived and we did training (chainsaw, griphoist, rock work) and prepped to go out on hitch. In between it all there was a lot of spring cleaning and settling in to be done. With week three we were off to Baxter State Park as a super crew (just interns and leaders) to work on the Hunt Trail. We are on a section of the Appalachian Trail within 4 miles of the summit of Kahtahdin, the beginning or end. We are working on an epic ditch and drain project. Moving rocks that we've estimated weight at least 5,000lbs. Life is good. The interns are kicking butt. We are ahead of schedule and exceeding expectations.
We are spending our first two weekends off at Baxter in order to explore the park. With the sun warming my skin, I am at home. With a day of hiking and another of canoeing, I am at peace and ready to take on another week of possibly dreadful weather.

The saguaros are blooming. Time to get out of town.

The second half of my spring session with SCC and my VOS crew flew by. Six weeks of building water bars and check steps at Lost Dutchman State Park. The session brought strep throat, a terrible flu, and the dreaded butt-mouth through the crew. It brought two visits to the Apache Junction Emergency Room, lost fingernails, crushed appendages, and embedded cacti. It brought friendship and love and hard work and personal growth. It brought miscommunication and personality differences and tears. It brought 3 crew members to quit and a new one to get hired. Now the session is over. We have de-rigged. I have let out a sigh of relief, hugged my crew goodbye, and am on a train heading east.
I've spent the last six weekends enjoying everything that is wonderful about Tucson. The dessert wildflowers are blooming. I've been dancing in the wildflowers, enjoying the company of friends, slowly prepping for Maine, and loving life in the sunshine. My friend and house mate, Snail, and I were given a glorious goodbye at the tucson train station. We are heading to Chicago where we will be picked up by my delightful parents and spend a day and a half in Niles. From there, we will hopefully be taking the caruck to Rochester, NY where I will be dropping off Snail and I will be continuing on to a summer in Maine.

There are two many people and a cat in this bed!

I blinked and this session is half over.  The beautiful Arizona sunshine has been keeping me warm and with a smile on my face.  I spend my weekends biking about town with my beautiful housemates adventuring and dancing and yoga-ing and eating good food.  I live with three delightful friends (Adria, Snail, and Brendan) in a small apartment in the heart of Tucson.  Walking distance from anything I need.  Biking distance from anything I want.  Living the dream.

I am leading a Valley of the Sun conservation crew that I am not entirely sure does not have some sort of bad juju curse.  While myself and the office are based out of Tucson, my crew and work are based out of Phoenix.  I drive up to Phoenix every Monday at 4am and am back every Thursday by 10pm.  We have been working in Tonto National Forest in the Superstitions Wilderness for the last six weeks making the best out of poorly planned and long neglected trails of the most beautiful persuasion.  My initial crew of 7 were thrown in to big time rock work first thing and they passed the test of Bluff Springs Trail with flying colors.  By the time we moved on to JF Ranch three weeks later we were down to five crew members.  At JF my temporary co-leader Gabe dropped two rocks on his foot and was out for the count to urgent care to make sure his metatarsals weren't broken.  (Just severely bruised.)  Two more crew members were out last week due to personal and family issues.  Then another was taken to the emergency room to deal with a pre-existing condition.  I feel like every Monday my crew meets me at the ranger with terrible story after terrible story - family members dieing, car crashes, serious personal health issues, family issues, personal issues.  But as a crew, they are beautiful.  They work together like peanut butter and jelly with efficiency and respect and joy.  They are a wonderful crew and if we can just keep them together we can accomplish amazing things!

I have been offered and accepted a job leading a trail crew with the Maine Appalachian Trail Club for the summer!  I will be quickly heading east in May!

Last Hitch - Organ Pipe Overload?

Three out of six hitches in Organ Pipe.  That is a lot of quality time. 

We spent our last hitch braving the cold, the rain, the hail.  We dug trenches for waterline, removed prickly pear, re-potted plants, mixed potting soil, and built a 6.5 acre pen for reintroducing Sonoran Pronghorn into the wild.  Then the session was over.  We followed everything up the next morning with an All Crews Breakfast and Olympics.  My crew quickly proceeded to loose by one million points.  Then the session was really over.  We packed up our things and got out of town.  I filled up the mommobile with all my belongings and Carolla and all her belongings, and I drove her home to South Dakota and then myself to Michigan for a whirlwind "vacation."  Dad and I worked on the caruck daily and when he was at work I went to visit friends.  After much turmoil the caruck lived and ran like a champion but alas it's adventures were short lived.  On the fatal final trip from Detroit to Grand Rapids, something went terribly wrong... probably the throwout bearing.  We magically made it to Sandra and Ray's and had AAA tow us back to Niles.  I rented a car and we proceeded to drive for a jillion hours straight with a stop in Chicago for Thai food and friends and a stop in Amarillo for terrible breakfast and to check out the Cadillac Graveyard.  And now I am safe and sound in Tucson.  Back where I began last August.  Getting ready for another session of leading trail crew for the Southwest Conservation Corps.