Week 2 Hullabaloo

Greetings, civilized world! I come to you from the land of WiFi, aka the KCC. Dave and I came back here after a somewhat rocky but overall successful week at Noble View.

It started off last Sunday with Dave and I on our porches awaiting our crew. We're officially "on" an hour before they're scheduled to arrive, and we saw a van pull up a half hour before that. Our group was from an environmentally based charter school and was being dropped off together. We already knew that our original group of 9 had been cut down to 6, but only 3 hopped out of the van. "I think half of our crew might be here", Dave said. Turned out to be our whole crew.

Week 2 Crew

Crews get cancelled if less than four participants sign up, so technically our crew shouldn't have even gone out. One had a family emergency and two were no-shows the morning of, but the people on our end didn't know. That meant we had food for double the amount of people dropped off on Sunday. It also meant we had to figure out what work we could do with a group that size. We decided that closing trail would be best since it doesn't take a lot of people, and we are closing a ton of intersections. So, Monday was spent on the northernmost section of trails closing 8 intersections. The next day we started our first re-route on the same section. A phone call and miscommunication left us thinking that we weren't supposed to be closing or re-rerouting any trail, and that the past day and a half of work was rendered useless. We had to immediately switch gears and decide how to handle the situation. 'Hey, thanks for you hard work! Undo it all!'. We decided to go to another potential worksite that I had scouted out on my own the weekend prior and deliver the bad news in the best way possible. We didn't undo any work, and thankfully so, since it turns out what we did was perfectly fine. It wasn't until the end of the week that we were able to figure it out, so it set up a week of confusion and frustration on my end.

Thankfully, the project that we switched to had

Working on the tread and side ditch

lots of work to do. There were several "waterbars" that badly needed maintenance, and a large section of tread that had a whole slew of drainage problems. Over 200 feet of trail was set into a U-shaped hillside, meaning the water had nowhere to drain off trail. We had to dig a 220 foot side ditch to give the water a pathway down and off the trail. This rendered the 4 "waterbars" useless. I use quotes around the word waterbar because really only 1 out of 4 was actually set, the other 3 were basically just a pile of rocks that someone put there (at least that's what it looked like). We removed 2 smaller ones and saved/improved 2 bigger ones. We also had to set gargoyles on one of the bigger waterbars to deter people from thinking the side ditch was their walking path. Finally, we re-cut about 200 feet of tread to make the path obvious.

Dave left on Wednesday afternoon, as he had to leave early to go home for a family emergency. Katie came in and replaced him Thursday and Friday morning, but we still had a teeny tiny crew. Thankfully they were really hard workers and were all friends, so we were still able to get a lot done. Still, I was happy to say goodbye to that week. Working with a group that small is sometimes great and sometimes crappy. We had such a long worksite that we were oftentimes working far apart, which really kills motivation. If one person in a group of 10 is tired it's not a big deal, but if one person in a group of 4 is tired it's much harder to combat.

We came to the KCC for a BBQ and a change of scenery. Honestly, it was a little overwhelming to see so many people that knew me. We've been living in a little pod for the past two weeks. It doesn't seem like long, but it's a long time to not interact with many people. After the BBQ we went out to the Gypsy Joynt, a Great Barrington favorite, for dinner, drinks, and live music. It was so awesome to go out and feel like a real live 24-year-old, doing 24-year-old things like hanging out with people and drinking a beer and wearing a dress. Today we went out to the local farmer's market, where I got a really awesome handmade and dyed leather bracelet. It was the first one the woman ever sold in that new design and dye, and she was really amped to talk my ear off about it. I happily listened.

I'm a little bummed to go back to the Noble View and leave my dirtbag friends (except Dave, he has to live with me). It's nice to be a bit secluded at Noble View, but I feel like we miss out on a lot of fun on the weekends at the KCC. I think we'll end up coming back here more often now.

Well, off to do REAL laundry (not bucket laundry) and head back to get ready for another week!

Stepping Stones (Literal, Figurative)

Our first week of Crew has come and gone already! It was a fast and slow week, as is the theme with everything so far. Our group of 4 (all friends) came in Sunday afternoon. We did an orientation about all things camp-life (well, all relevant things camp-life), like ticks, proper gear, pooping in the woods, and much more. Our food was delivered a bit late, so we scrambled to organize and get dinner ready while they set up tents. 

Monday, our first work day, included a more comprehensive tool and safety talk. They got their first taste of carrying 18 pound rock bars. Luckily we cache our tools at our worksite so we don't have to carry them every day, but rock bars are a fan favorite (sarcasm) nonetheless. Our first project was to set stepping stones on a muddy portion of trail that everyone was going around. We spent Monday finding and quarrying (getting rocks out of their holes and to our site) 5 rocks. Dave and I quarried the last rock together, and sadly watched it tumble downhill and into our giant fill hole (hole dug for mineral soil). We scream ROCK when a rock takes off rolling down a hill, so our warning sounded like "ROCK... Shit.... ROCK.... No damnit no..... ROCK... Oh for crying out loud.... ROCK.... NOOOOO" thankfully it only took one try to get out. 

Everyone was beat on Tuesday, and we still had 3 rocks to set. We did 2 as a group, then realized that we would need to use our "backup" rock, meaning there would be 2 more to set. It's pretty much the last thing you want to hear, aside from "alright, well, we have to take this all out of the ground now." Dave and I decided we would let them set one rock on their own and we would set the 5th. They did a great job, and it was a great moment for us to see how they applied what we taught them. We ended a little early as a reward after naturalizing the worksite. The picture above is of the first 3 set rocks.

We had little direction on what we should do next, so we decided to wing it and see what happened. We found one section that needed a lot of tread work, meaning changes to the tread that you walk on. Mostly tread problems happen because people are like water and want to take the path of least resistance, so they walk around any "obstacle", like a rock, and eventually widen the trail significantly. We re-shaped the tread and blocked off where we didn't want people walking. 

Dave had found two waterbars earlier in the week that needed work, so we continued to that site. They were pretty terrible waterbars, either they were poorly set or had been there for a long long time. The more we looked at the area the more work we saw. The next two days were spent revamping the waterbars (thankfully without any rock work) and tread in between them (about 60 feet worth). 

This picture is our final product. The second waterbar is further down the trail, and the trail past the first waterbar got significantly changed. Good trail work should go unnoticed by hikers despite how much work we put into it. I wish I had a picture of how much we destroyed the area to fix everything, and of how much work it took to make it look like that again. 

We did two big projects and one smaller one, so we were feeling pretty good. At the end of the day on Thursday we realized that we only have 5 weeks of crews at Noble View left (3 are on a different trail system), and we have to do as much as we can to totally overhaul the trail system here. We have a big project to complete. There are currently 64 trail junctions and it's being cut to 32. Many trials are being closed or re-routed. "Crap", we thought, "we need to do some of that. Now." 

Friday morning we had 2 hours of work, so we started to close our first trail. We only got one end of it done, but it's better than nothing. Next week we're planning on picking a quadrant and tackling it as best we can. 

After our crew left Dave and I went into town. Russell is not much of a town. Main St. is not what you think, more so a street that people live on than a street where happenings happen. There's two churches, a senior center, and a post office, though. I tried to mail something at the post office but it closes for TWO HOURS for lunch every day. I have a feeling one person runs the post office. We went to real "town", Westfield, for errands. Today's my one full day off (kids leave Friday afternoon and the next crew comes in Sunday afternoon).

I spent this morning hiking around the southeast section of the trail system. I looked for any potential projects but also for some cool things that the map promised, like cellar holes and ledge views. I did find a cool cellar hole, but the "lookout and ledges" provided me with the view in the photo above. Not very impressive. I did go to the big waterfall (we had been swimming in the smaller one), which was really cool. 

I also made my washing machine out of a 5 gallon bucket and plunger. It worked surprisingly well! I also cleaned and organized my tent, which now looks like a mini Motel 6, but much cleaner. Molly's Manor, I call it. There's a wedding here this weekend (well, currently), so I've been making myself scarce by lounging near my tent. It was bad enough that wedding guests were getting ready with me plunging my clothes in a bucket, I figured I best either put on decent clothes or hide. I think I may disguise myself in mud and go steal some steaks up there later. 

Week one is over, week 2 starts tomorrow. How time flies when you're having fun with rock bars. 

The Best of Surprises

The world works in weird ways, sometimes to your advantage and sometimes not. Thankfully, the world decided that Adam needed to come visit me and cancelled the class he was supposed to be teaching on Saturday. A dreary Friday suddenly got much better. 

Let me back up; it wasn't THAT dreary. I did wake up feeling under the weather, though, and I was certain I had caught "THE DAVE", aka the sickness that has been spreading around our group since training started (Dave started it). After training ended we slowly packed up and went into town to do laundry, the first time I had done it since leaving home. It was glorious. We got mistaken for thruhikers, which is probably the best sign that laundry day was very necessary. 

We got out to Noble View and into the old farmhouse where we would be staying until our tent were set up. 

The HAUNTED farmhouse. Why is there a wooden rocking chair sitting in the middle of the room? Because that's where the old man ghost sits, probably. Adam was set to get in around midnight, and I was so beat that I'm surprised I stayed up that late. Dave and I watched a movie on his computer, and about 30 minutes in we realized how weird of a scene it was: me, struggling to adjust my sleeping bag on a ratty old church-pew-looking-"couch" in an old haunted farmhouse watching District 9.  

Adam and I had a late night and early morning. We drove over to Great Barrington to putz around Main St., eat some food, and rescue my bike from the KCC. Then we hiked around a small section of the AT so he could see some of the work we had done. Before we knew it it was back to Noble View to cook dinner on the mildly dangerous gas "stovetop" in the farmhouse. I say mildly dangerous because I have yet to light it without burning off my knuckle hair. Luckily our propane cooktop for the summer is a little less terrifying. 

Goodbyes suck, even if they are just "see you soon"s. Even so, it came at a time when I was worn out, not feeling well, and in need of a familiar face (specifically, Adam's familiar face). I know this summer will go fast and slow at the same time. The first three weeks are done, but the first day feels like a distant memory. Three more weeks will go by and then my family and Adam will be back for 4th of July weekend. After that I'll only have 6 weeks of crews left + 1 wrap up week. It's not long, but the quiet moments here make it feel long. Luckily my quiet moments will be few and far between with our first crew arriving in a few short hours. Tomorrow is OFFICIALLY the start of the season! 

Rain, Rain, Go the Hell Away

Training is officially done!

We had a crazy last few days of training in preparation for the start of our seasons. It started on Monday with a real lesson in bog bridging. We got some practice with it last Saturday on National Trails Day, but that was basically just playing with lincoln logs in comaparison to what we did. We joined up with a former AMC'er and his interns to construct two bog bridge. One tree was already on the ground when we got there, so we got a brief demo on what we had to do. My group was sent to the second work site, where a tree was being cut down. When we got there, two trees were precariously leaning against two other trees. After some heaving-and-hoeing, chainsaw malfunctions, and axe work, we got the tree we needed. First, the tree was cut into "stringers (long pieces that you walk on)" and "sills (bottom supporting logs)". We then stripped the bark off, my personal favorite part, to turn the logs into wetter, slimier, prettier logs. Next came cutting the notches so the top logs would fit into the bottom logs, which involved measuring, cutting curfs (smaller notches), and thawcking them out with an axe or adze. After lunch we "topped off" our logs, which presented me the first opportunity to use a crosscut saw. Crosscuts are not used much anymore since things like chainsaws exist, but they're really awesome and badass to work with.

Crosscut

Our crosscut looks similar to the one above, but it has another handle on the other end so two people can use it. We cut notches into the length of the stringers, about 8 feet worth, and thawked them out. It's much harder than it sounds. You have to keep the log in between you and the cut for safety reasons, hips square, and shins in front of the swing. It forces you to essentially swing backwards and to the side, which is really awkward and takes a lot of practice. The cuts also require accuracy to be effective, something that is very difficult to achieve without significant practice time. We carried the logs down with timber carriers, aka torture devices. 

Archaic Torture Device / Timber Carrier

It was a fun but tiring process, and it made me appreciate how easy the other bog bridges had been by comparison.

Tuesday - Thursday (supposed to be Friday) we headed out to Mt. Everett, which is just down the street from us. We hiked out Tuesday to set up camp, luckily it was a very short hike since we were carrying all of our gear, tents, sleeping bags, clothes, and group gear and food. Our first task was to hang out bear bags, which is easily the most annoying task to do in the backcountry. All told it took about 45 minutes from start to finish. No bears were getting our "smelly things", though. After camp was set up we hiked back to the van and carried all of our tools up to our worksite on the north side of Mt. Everett. We were split into two teams, one installing a "check step" and one building a rock water bar. I was on Team Nasty Gnarly Gargoyle responsible for making a new rock bar to replace a poorly built one just down the trail. Water bars direct water off the the trail and help prevent erosion. We spent a little while making our plan, then set out to the woods to quarry rocks. Easier said than done; we had to find "perfect" rocks that would set in the ground well, have a good stepping surface, and have a nice "face" that water would run off of. Again, easier said than done. Then we had to pry them out of the ground with rock bars, 18 pounds of steel and mechanical advantage that allows you to and several friends to roll several hundred pound rocks around. /End day 1.

Not us, but rock bar users nonetheless

Day 2, or The Day It Rained, wasn't quite so joyous. It dumped on us once we got to the worksite, which made things mildly miserable but much more dangerous. We worked to "set" our rocks, which involved measuring dimensions of the rock to figure out how big our hole had to be. A perfectly set rock is one that is placed in its hole and doesn't move. It has to have 4-6 inches above ground with usually 6-24 inches underground and sit steadily without anything else supporting it. Our measurements are taken with handles of other tools, but mostly our own eyes and vision of how the rock looks and how we think it'll set in the ground. Again, easier said than done. Oh, and if you dig you hole too big you have to find a bigger rock to fit in it. No thanks.  It took us all day to set two rocks and get one more into the hole (so the hole didn't become a mud pit overnight). One of the rocks was very long and it took 2 hours to dig the hole. New England soil is... well, terrible. It's rocky, rooty, and a pain in the ass to dig through. We hit a huge sheet of rock about a foot down that we had to bash apart with rock bars, dig out, bash, dig out, over and over again to make our rock fit. Just getting the rock into the hole without damaging your surrounding walls is very difficult and requires a lot of precision work with non-precision tools. We were all going a little nutty by the end of the day.

Day 3, or The Second Day It Rained, was even less pleasant. It didn't rain quite as hard, but getting into wet and mud covered clothing was less than ideal. Everyone was in good spirits but definitely tired. We scrambled to get all of our work done, including setting two more rocks and two "gargoyles", or nasty ugly rocks at either end of the structure put there for support and to keep hikers on the trail. We also had to dig out an "apron", or path for our water to flow, and an outflow ditch, a path we wanted our water to flow after it ran down the water bar. The final touches were putting "crush" (small rocks that we made small by smashing with a sledgehammer) and "fill" (mineral soil) around our rocks to level them out to the tread. Our tread had to be built up on one side so hikers don't have to take a big step up to get over the rocks. At that point we had run out of our stash of fill, so we hastily tried to dig up more. Again, New England soil isn't conducive to speedy digging. You hit a new rock or root about every second shovelful. It wasn't perfect, but we got it done just in time. We had to continue to keep digging and hauling bags of fill up to the second worksite, because they couldn't find a place decent enough to dig for mineral soil up there. We all finally straggled out of the woods wet, covered in mud, and carrying many pounds of tools. We looked insane, and we were just on the verge of going insane, too. Luckily, our fearless leaders made the decision that we would pack up and head back to the KCC instead of spending another night in wet tents. It was still wet here (and, surprise, it's raining again today), but at least we got hot showers and a meal indoors.

Today we tied up some odds and ends, got our schedules, and "graduated" from training with a BBQ. An indoor BBQ, of course, because it's still raining. Rain rain rain rain. My co-leader Dave and I are about to pack up and head to Noble View. Our first crew comes in Sunday, no rest for the weary! And weary I am. It was a crazy few days in the mud and rain, and it's left me pretty pooped. I'm excited to do NOTHING tomorrow and then meet our first crew on Sunday.

Weekend Update

Updated Bog Bridges

Hello all! It's been a busy yet low key weekend for me here. Saturday was National Trails Day, typically working on a Saturday is a bummer but this was the opposite. Usually we have a 7am breakfast call time, so not having to be ready until 9am was amazing. We teamed up with folks from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy + a few more volunteers to build bog bridges and remove invasive species. Many of us had not built bog bridges before, and this was supposed to be our hard and fast introduction to doing so. The existing bog bridges were rotting and sinking into the ground, so our first task was to rip them apart via brute force, hammers, and hand saws. Let me back up... first we had to carry all of our supplies in, so all of the long boards and base blocks you see had to be carried down the trail to our work site. It wasn't too bad since we had a lot of people, but my shoulder is a bit bruised nonetheless. Anyway, once the rotten bridges were taken apart we set the precut timber aside to carry out and then tossed the natural stuff back in the woods. Each of the base block had to be set evenly and without wobble, which was a task within itself. Next, holes were drilled in and hammers nailed to keep it all together. Once we got a system going it was pretty fast. The longest part was carrying the materials for six bridges in and out (there's two that can't be seen in the photo). We also got to say hello to a few AT thruhikers, all of whom thanked us for our work. Carrying out semi-rotted, wet timber wasn't quite as fun, but necessarily!

Cinnamon Roll of Glory

We were treated to a BBQ later in the day, but in between the work day and BBQ I rode to town with another co-leader to check out Main St. Great Barrington is a cute little town with a typical New England Main Street, except everything is a million dollars. Everything except my MASSIVE CINNAMON ROLL as pictured to the right, which was only $5.34. I've eaten less than half of it so far. It may be the best $5.34 I've ever spent. Aside from the Cinnamon Roll of Glory, it was nice to just get out and do something different. There was a ton of little shops to check out, from thrift shops, vintage book stores, an amazing leather footwear store, restaurants, cafes, antique stores, and something called "Bra & Girl". Cinnamon Roll of Glory came from a place called the Gypsy Joint, a local favorite. We got back for the BBQ just in time to gorge ourselves until we were on the verge of illness. Blissful, blissful illness.

My axe also got some love this weekend. The first time I spread linseed oil over the handle it didn't quite dry right. I suspected it was because of how it was hanging on the tool shed. I re-linseed-oiled the handle and stuck it in a stump with a satisfying thud to dry overnight. I came back the next morning to find a wonderfully darkened, evenly treated wood handle. So satisfying. I also made a temporary sheath out of fire hose and paracord. I plan to get a leather one sooner rather than later.

Freshly oiled

Today I ventured out on my bicycle to the wondrous world of K-Mart. I had four main objectives: find a cheap rug, find a cheap camp chair, find a cheap replacement bike lock, and figure out how to strap it to my pack and get it back. The rug is for my canvas tent since there is no barrier between us and the tent platform (unlike a traditional tent that has a bottom to it). The rug will give me a decent place to walk around and put my boots. I also wanted a camp chair because ... why the hell not? I need the replacement bike lock because my bike lock is somehow missing (grrrrrrrrrrr). I accomplished all of my goals, including strapping it all to the butt of my pack. It was actually pretty comfortable, all things considered. I did look a little funny with 2.5 feet of rug sticking out of either side of my pack, but whatever. It was a rough ride all around, mostly because I didn't have enough air in my tires and didn't realize it until I was about halfway through the first leg of my ride. It was a really hot, sweaty, awkward 15 miles, but it was worth it.

My Kingdom

I have the tent platform to myself until tomorrow night, and I am taking full advantage to set up my kingdom until my platform-mate comes back tomorrow. It's awesome. I went on a hike with a few people here, only to find out at the top of the steepest section that I was pretty damn dehydrated. I barely drank water after riding hard in 85 degree weather, and I was feeling it. I turned around after chugging some water, I did feel better but it was best to go get more water. I took a quick trip down to the bog bridges and ran into a deer on the trail (almost literally). It was too quick to snap a photo! I then came across a guy sitting on our front lawn. I assumed he was a thruhiker due to his giant pack, so I asked him if he needed me to fill up his water. He politely declined and said "I just landed my paraglider in the field. I'm relaxing until I have to hitchhike back to the mountain". Stranger things have happened, I suppose. A group of us went to town for dinner, where I blissfully gorged myself on BBQ pulled pork sandwich, fries, and beer. We'll be out in the field for four days, three nights this week, so we figured we should stuff ourselves with non-trail food before then. It was a fantastic idea. 

One more week until our crews arrive!

Training Week 2

Today marks the end of week 2 of training, which means we're more than halfway through our training before the season starts!

The View at Noble View

This week we spent most of our time at Noble View, which is where I'll be living all summer. I was really excited to check out my new digs. The property is open to the public, so seeing people filter in and out was a much different experience than living at the KCC, where the rules are very strict and you live in your own little bubble. Granted there weren't many people, but I'm sure the summer will be a different story. The first two days were our Leave No Trace trainer courses, which was pretty entertaining and (more importantly) informative. My principle to present on was 'Proper disposal of waste', aka "The Fun One" aka "The Poop One". In between our two days of LNT training we checked out a nearby waterfall, which will be an awesome summer hungout. I'm sure it will be an awesome summer hangout for a lot of rowdy "public" teens, too.

After digging a drainage ditch

Thursday was our first day putting tools to the ground. We spent the morning talking and learning about different types of trail work, which was actually a lot more engaging than it sounds. It was also an excellent way to wait out the pounding rain that came through all morning. We got out in the field after lunch and worked on benching and drainage, aka digging up some dirt and sloshing around in mud. It was great. It was also a little overwhelming, especially since I'm new at this. Being in the woods a lot doesn't translate into knowing how to do all of these things. Either way, it was great fun and lots of mud. My blue boots won't be blue for long!

My co-leader chopping the tree

Today was (real) AXE DAY. I say "real" because I've said "today was axe day" so many times over the past two weeks. Today was the first time we really USED our axes. My boss' boss' boss came down from New Hampshire to give us a lesson on axes. It would have been beneficial to hear some of it before hanging my axe, but thankfully it was hung well enough that nothing went wrong (if it's not hung correctly you can have a loose head after a few swings). We went out to the woods and found a downed tree, got a lesson and demo on chopping it as if it were a blowdown across the trail, and got to work. It. Was. AWESOME. My co-leader Dave and I worked on the demo tree, so we had a nice starting point. It was still a massive dead, wet tree, which is particularly difficult to cut through. But, drum roll please, we chopped through the whole thing with only minimal help! It was very satisfying. I learned that I need to sharpen my axe, and I also learned that I love swinging my axe.

We're now back at the KCC, where we'll be for National Trails Day on the Appalachian Trail building a bog bridge with other volunteers. We have 1.5 days off before starting our final week of training! I'm cutting this short because the dinner bell just rang. Sorry, priorities.

Cheers!

AXE-iddental Wrist Damage

My unnamed axe is currently resting peacefully in the tool shed, soaking up linseed oil and its new sharp-ness. Unfortunately, my wrist has just come out of its ace bandage for the first time today, and the only sharpness it is feeling is pain.

I decided to make my axe experience as authentic and, at times annoying, as possible. That means I spent 8 total hours sanding the head of the axe to get as much rust off of it as I could by hand. Everyone did it by hand, but I decided I didn't want to use anything but my hands for as much of it as I could. Again, it wasn't more impressive than the work any of my teammates did. In fact, it's probably what killed my wrist. I held the head by hand instead of using a clamp, which meant just about 8 hours of repetitive motion on my joints. It didn't end well, but I'll just have to toughen up.

After getting all of the rust off I had to "hang" my axe, meaning get the head onto the handle. 99.5% of people have to painstakingly file their handle down to fit the head, then whack the butt of it to see how far it goes on, mark that place, then lather, rinse, repeat. It takes on average two hours, but it can take much longer. Mine, somehow, took ten minutes. It went on almost perfectly the first time. I got the head off once (not easy) to sand down very minor issues and hung it again. Then a wedge gets beat into the top to fill out the gaps so the head stays on. It was so freakin' gratifying.

Today was my "final" work day (I put final in quotes because it'll never really be done), which included sharpening, and then sanding and applying linseed oil to the handle. It was a much shorter process than the last two days, and blissfully so! I was one dominant down.

Casualty of the AXE. It could be worst.