Au Revoir

I write this from a hot, humid, loud, crowded, chaotic existence known as "Boston during moving week". It's been quite the transition from living in a peaceful, quiet tent for the past three months. Sounds of birds and wind and rain and grass rustling have been replaced with car horns, ambulance sirens, the hum of the fan, and noisy neighbors.

I reread my entire blog from the beginning out of curiosity. I wanted to see what my thoughts were when I started this journey until now. You may not think three months is a long time, and it isn't, but a lot can happen in that time. And it did.

Uprooting your life to go to a new place and a new job and a new life for a summer isn't easy. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I lost, what I was missing out on. I had been in Boston for 6 years with the exception of one summer at home. I spent the last year and a half out of college working, and a year of that working an average of 50 hours a week. As draining as it was, it was my life.

Giving up two jobs and saying "seeya soon" to my family and friends was stressful. In the beginning I thought about things in terms of what I would be losing or missing out on. I would miss out on the things I love most about summer. I wouldn't get to spend precious time with my family and my niece, I would miss out on three months of her growing up. I would miss BBQs, boat rides, camping trips. I would miss all of the simple joys that come from living day-to-day with the people you love. I was losing the ability to plan little day trips, go on hikes, go to my favorite swimming holes. It hurt to leave, even though I was excited for what was to come.

Now instead of thinking of what I missed out on this summer, I think of all the things I gained.

What started as curious anticipation about who I would be paired with all summer ended in a solid partnership. I gained a friend in my fearless co-leader, Lumberjack. We lived together day in and day out for three months, we learned each others quirks, passions, pet peeves, and many other things. We gained the ability to work together without words.

End of Season Beers

I gained even more knowledge and appreciation for the environment. I learned how much work it takes to construct and maintain trails, and I learned how to do so from some great teachers. Speaking of which, I learned more about trees, plants, and animals than I anticipated, especially birds thanks to Collin. I was able to cash in on my love for the outdoors for three whole months.

Sunset atop Mt. Grace

I gained an appreciation for truly difficult work, I had pride in what we did. Trail work is not easy. It's physically demanding, it's muddy, it's mentally taxing, but it's really fucking fun.

You Got GOOD BOOTS

I got to do something I'm truly passionate about; getting people outdoors and providing an experience that fosters learning and growth. Teenagers can be a really difficult age group to work with. Some kids didn't want to be there, some would have rather been inside playing video games than ever pick up a tool in their lives. We weren't successful every time, but most often we were able to get those that hated it to have fun for the week. On the other end of the spectrum, we had superstars that were just amazing. I was blown away by the energy, perseverance, endurance, and maturity of some our kids. Some kids loved it, some kids hated it, but in the end we got them outdoors and doing meaningful, difficult, and rewarding work while teaching them about teamwork, about nature, and the value or preserving the wild lands that we have left.

Nature Walk

I gained a love for the quiet moments. In the beginning of the season the quiet moments were hard for me. It was then that I really missed home, my family, my friends. By the end I cherished those quiet moments, either by myself or with friends. It's not often these days that you can truly sit in silence without the noise of modern life bugging you. It's not often you can get a group of teenagers to quiet down long enough to enjoy their surroundings in nature. It carries a weight and a sense of freedom at the same time.

Quiet moments atop a mountain

Last but not least, I gained a love for the Berkshires and for our little trail system at Noble View. We were the first to ever take trail crews on the trail system, and we did a massive overhaul of the system itself. We also made vast improvements to sections that needed it. It may not have carried the grandeur, allure, or high number of users like some other trails our crews worked on, but it was ours.

What a summer it has been!

Pro Crew

Our last week of the season promised to be an awesome one. We would have a "pro crew" of just us co-leaders minus the two that had a teen crew, and we would get some serious work done at Noble View. There were talks of doing a particularly difficult re-route or doing more timber work (my personal fave). Most importantly, it would just be us leaders without any teens. We could just go do the work without having to manage anyone else, and we could drink beer at the end of the day, goddamnit!

Hallelujah!

As with everything this season, plans didn't work out as they were supposed to. Originally it was supposed to be me, Lumberjack, Rosalie, and Wiley. Then I was told that Rosalie was being put on the other crew. Lumberjack had to deal with a lot of insurance nonsense with his accident, so he left early to go home to NY to do so. A crew of 4 went to a crew of 2, and we quickly realized that our hopes of doing more technical and demanding trail work were squashed. That was okay, though, since our priority was to get all sign posts in the ground and all signs on said posts.

Sounds easy, yeah? Well, it is and it isn't. We still had 10 posts to get in the ground. Each post can take anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours to get in the ground, depending on what the ground is like and how easy/hard it is to dig and get rocks for crush. The process averages about an hour/post, so we were looking at a full 8 hour day spent just digging postholes. Hanging signs is a difficult one person job or reasonably easy two person job. With two people you can have one person hold the sign straight and one person drill or hammer it in. Two people can also carry many more signs, preventing more trips to and from base camp.

We were ready to get our week started and I was looking forward to a quieter, easier week. My back was feeling better but not quite to 100% yet, so it seemed ideal. Monday started off at the KCC with food planning and shopping, which only took half a day. Packing and getting to Noble View took most of the afternoon, so the only trail work we got to do that day was hammering spikes into our bog bridges. Thrilling.

Solo Posthole digging makes for a funky pack

Tuesday was spent post hole digging solo. The scattered locations of the posts meant it was more logical for us to split up and cover more ground, but it meant we had to carry all of the tools we needed and do all of the work ourselves. Ideally, two people per post is best so one person can dig and one person get make crush and get wedge rocks, and carrying tools is much easier. Not only were we taking on the workload of double the people, but it was hotter than hell. I started off the morning in great spirits and got two posts in the ground. By post # 3 I was feeling beat, by post # 4 I wanted to lay down on trail and pass out.

The posts were finished by Wednesday at lunch, and we were more than ready to switch gears and hang signs instead. True to fashion, the bit we had for our drill didn't match the screws. It worked, but it would have been stripped after just a few signs. Big Ben ventured to three hardware stores while Wiley and I organized the 75 signs to be hung and planned out efficient routes. We finished the day with bad news: the bit was nowhere to be found, not even at Home Depot; we would be packing up EVERYTHING (personal stuff, all of Noble View group gear and tools) and joining the other crew for Thursday instead. On top of that, we realized that despite following the specific instruction of where to place the posts some of them were in the wrong spots. The signs have arrows that only make sense when the sign is hung a certain way (like <----- Noble View 0.5 miles), and to hang the signs in that certain way meant the user was seeing the back of it, not the front. It's confusing, but all you need to know is that we learned that we had to potentially redig MANY postholes. 

Redig. Many. Postholes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

If I had a desk to flip, I would have

It was a defeating realization because we were tasked with getting all of the posts in the ground and signs hung before the end of the season. We didn't get our posthole diggers until well into the season, and we didn't get the hardware to hang the signs until we left for the backcountry weeks. Had we gotten the tools/hardware earlier in the season we could have seen this issue long before the last full work day. On top of that, we couldn't even fix things since we were going to be sent to the other crew. We had to repack the signs we had just neatly organized and start to pack our own things and all of the group gear.

UNTIL!

Big Ben decided to try one last hardware store on his way back to the KCC and they HAD THE CORRECT BIT! He came racing back to Noble View to tell us we were back on to hang signs the next day. Hallelujah!

Post with new signs

We knew we wouldn't be able to hang all of the signs; there's something like 15 miles of trail and we could only carry so many signs at a time. The signs we packed away the day before had to be unpacked again and the routes re-planned to hit the most highly used areas. We decided that we would go until we had 4 postholes to re-dig, and we had no idea how long that would be. We could have to re-dig 10% of the posts or 40% or 85%, we had no idea. Each time we were able to get signs on a post we celebrated like little kids. NO REDIGGING!

The morning came and went with only one post needing to be re-dug, and we were going to revisit it later and do all the digging in one shot. It was going pretty well, and it was nice to just hike around and do pretty mindless work. 

UNTIL!

After lunch. We planned our next route and decided to start at the post furthest away and work our way back. We had hiked maybe 2 miles so far and were feeling good, so the mile hike down to that post was pretty easy. UNTIL! We realized that the signs didn't sit on the post right, meaning it had to be relocated.

"This cannot be happening"

Our options were to not hang the signs and carry three extra signs around with us for the remainder of the day, or put them on how they should be and come back to re-dig the posthole at the end of the day. We decided to put the signs on and come back, adding another two miles (with tools) to a ~5-6 mile day. We were exhausted by the end of the second half of the day, especially since we had already re-dug one post hole, so having to revisit what we called the "Death Post" was a real punch in the face. It ended up being a 10 hour day, but it was a productive one.

Post to be relocated. User would walk up to see the back of the sign

After relocation

Friday was supposed to just be packing up and leaving Noble View, but instead we had to go fix one more post. THE FINAL POSTHOLE. It didn't take long, thankfully, and we were on the road at a decent time. I was and still am bummed that we weren't able to complete the project, but I got to the point where I was satisfied with the fact that we did as much as we could with the time and tools we had. It's frustrating to know that if we had the tools/hardware much earlier in the season like we were supposed to we could have finished. Such is life.

Tools

The last workday ended with a deep clean of our van, group gear, and tools. It was weird to know that it was the last day and not have it feel like it. I guess the end never feels like the end until it comes and goes.

I'm Baaaaaaaack

What's the best solution to a recurring back injury that's all like "hey, I'm baaaaaack"? Sitting on your butt in the office all week!

That's right, I got my one and only office week of the summer. Nearly all of the other crew leaders got one or two scheduled office weeks this summer, it's a great way to take a mental and physical break while still working. Lumberjack and I were the only ones that did not have a scheduled office week because we're an hour east of the office, so my impromptu off week was my only experience in the office.

Office week began with being in the field on Monday, as any good office week should. I didn't get swapped out until dinnertime because of scheduling shtuff, so my office work actually began on Tuesday. I started off with data entry, quite possibly the worst task to transition from being in the field for 2.5 months to being in the office. Even being in an unsupervised office with my own music on wasn't enough to make me not feel like a caged animal. I spent a lot of time watching the groundskeeper mow and rake the grass with his dog, wondering if he needed my help. "Please, sir, I could assist you in picking up the grass... right? Yeah? You need my help, right?"

Office Week

I survived data entry (just barely), and the next two days were centered around FOOD. Planning, shopping for, and repackaging food for three crews of up to 12 people each is NOT easy. It is an absurd logistical and budgetary nightmare that would make anyone's head brain out of their ears. I am a good food shopper. I know my way around a supermarket. My six years of experience planning and buying my own meals on a budget did not prepare me for the madness of trail crew shopping. The menus were already made but had to be modified to cater to allergies and use all the leftovers from the entire season. It took me half a day just to inventory and modify the menus.

Sorry, Great Barrington shoppers

Shopping was actually very fun, though I could have used a cart pushing assistant. The fuller it got the more I chuckled when I precariously stacked another item on top. The box you see balancing on top came from a sympathetic Price Chopper employee. The conversation when as such:

"Do you know where the Jambalaya box mixes are?"

"Aisle 8, it's at the other end of the store... let me go down there and check before you go over there"

"Okay, great."
"Looks like we have nine boxes down there. How many do you need?"
"... Twelve."
"Well. Let me get you nine... and a box to put them in."

 

~$630 (significantly under budget, I may add) and two hours later, I was heaving the cart out to the parking lot feeling pretty good about my food shopping skills. My Thursday was spent driving to and from Mt. Grace, about two+ hours each way, to swap out one of my co-leaders that replaced me for the week because of scheduling conflicts.  Friday was a "half" day, I put half in quotes because it didn't turn out to be so. I tried to repackage and organize three crews worth of meals amidst the chaos of two crews returning, cleaning gear and tools and vans, preparing to go home, and preparing for a BBQ. Teens are a funny breed, and they don't always follow instruction well. They tend to need a significant amount of guidance on every single thing. Because of this, I had to say "I'm not the person to ask" about 1,492 times while drowning in a sea of food. It was one of my least favorite days all summer.

As I was contemplating whether I should take another "off" week or return to the field I got a call from Lumberjack. He told me he had been T-boned and flipped his truck. It sounded like he was going to be fine, but suddenly there was a chance that neither of us would be able to lead for the last week at Noble View. Once Lumberjack got the seal of approval to work I decided I would also return to the field for our last week together.

Hey trail work, I'm baaaaaack!

After three weeks in the backcountry, there was plenty to do at Noble View. The highest priority was to get all the sign posts into the ground, but two post hole diggers and ten participants does not a fun week make. We decided to return to an unfinished section where we put in three bog bridges and install stepping stones to span the rest of the mud. We would take small groups out with the post hole diggers to get as many posts in the ground as possible. 

It was a nice plan, but as Murphy says, "what can go wrong, will go wrong". It was the week of incident reports. The entire season we had four total incident reports for very minor things (ticks, mostly), and in our last week we had FIVE for not so minor things. We also lost half a day to the worst rain storm of the summer. It produced more rain than Hurricane Arthur earlier in the summer. There was no lightning in the morning, so we went into the field and worked in the rain. As the morning progressed the rain steadily got worse until it was absolutely dumping water on us. We called it early because our entire worksite was flooded with a few inches of water. There was a small river running through it. Being soaked to the bone was an understatement.

Alright kids, let's get on outta here.

Despite the all of the bumps in the road, and there were many, we managed to get 16 posts in the ground and a large step stone segment completed. We were eager to say goodbye to the group because it felt like the longest, most mentally demanding week of the season. Lumberjack and I decompressed with laundry and booze-buying in preparation for STAFF PARTY.

The last full day was a muddy one!

STAFF PARTY '14 was a great success. Everyone came to Noble View for one last night of debauchery together, and debauchery was certainly achieved. I received the "Overall Badass Award" and Lumberjack decided to stay the night instead of going home, so it was a fantastic night for me.

"STAFF PARTY '14, official sponsor of water chugging contests"

Back Again

Our second backcountry week has come and gone, which leaves us with two weeks of teen crews left for the season. It looks like they may be a rocky two weeks.

We met our crew on Sunday and hit the road on Monday to tackle work on Section 15 of the New England Scenic Trail, but we had no idea what the work was going to be. Are you sensing a theme here? Me, too. We arrived at Wendell State Forest to find that our lean-to was very near to the parking lot, which is not really the backcountry experience the volunteers wanted. We also had no tent platforms, so we had to stealth camp in the most LNT way possible. It worked out fine, though, and we were lucky to be nearby to a pond and privy that gave us some simple comforts during the week. Luckily we were also decently close to the ranger station which had clean water, because our water source was so heavily filled with sediment that it clogged our three pump water filters after filling half a water bottle.

Filtering water

On Tuesday I finally addressed a nagging pain in my knees and back that wouldn't quit. Trail work isn't easy, and it's normal to have aches and pains throughout the week. This kind of pain was a step above my average qualms (which there are many of), so I was advised to "sit and supervise" for the week. It's about the last thing I wanted to hear, but it was better than being pulled out of the field. Sitting and supervising is incredibly boring and makes the day pass ever so slowly. I decided to stay in the field and modify my work, which included a little less back breaking work and a little more delegation. It didn't address the fact that I carry many many pounds in my pack and tools every day, but it was something. I called all of our hikes my personal death marches (only slightly dramatic).

 

Digging in the mud

I may have been "modified", but the crew still took on pretty big projects involving installing a waterbar, nine step stones, clearing corridor, taking out blowdowns, and a day of tread work. It was Lumberjack and I's third straight week in thick mud, so I was happy to pass the digging and heavy lifting duties over to my crew. The waterbar in particular was a nightmare, as a natural spring in the hillside filled the hole with a foot of cold, murky mud water that was, at the very least, very annoying to work through.

Crew at the lookout

I was more engaged with the group this week, which made things vastly better than last week. Last week I was a grumpy old lady, this week I was just an injured old lady. I also got news this week that brightened my life up a bit; I was offered a position with AMC through AmeriCorps as a Community Outreach Coordinator in Boston. I gladly accepted the position on Friday once we left the field. I'm excited for a new opportunity, and I'm happy to be staying with the AMC when I return to Boston.

I knew by Friday without a doubt that my previous back issues were back again and it wasn't just any old ache. I few hours of my week were spent trying to coordinate a doctor's visit this weekend, but it turns out that small town doctors don't have many weekend options. I had to settle for a walk-in clinic outside of Great Barrington. I spent my Saturday morning at an "express care" clinic (basically a baby E.R.), and the outcome was exactly what I suspected. The doctor couldn't pinpoint exactly what the issue was, but she advised me to take two weeks off to let my back heal. I'm not to do any heavy lifting or carrying, so basically I am not to do my job. Thus sparks the logistical nightmare of trying to come up with a solution to give my back a break. Conflicting schedules are preventing me from just switching to an office week, and the only solution may to be have someone else carry my gear and have me truly "sit and supervise". It is nearly impossible for me to go into the field without carrying anything or using any tools, and if I did then I would just feel immensely guilty that I wasn't literally and figuratively pulling my weight. I'm happy that I've come this far through the season without any major mishaps, but it's frustrating to have such a clusterfuck pop up with only two weeks of teen crews left (and one week of "pro crew").

For now I'm going to continue lying down, as the only comfortable position for me is to be horizontal, and try to forget the frustrations for the rest of my day off. Only a month to go.