The next day was really pretty nice. The whole trail crew, including Colin, had hiked down the night before because they had a search and rescue training to go to, so we were on our own. Colin’s instructions were to just clean drains in partners on the Boot Canyon trail, then up to the South Rim (where we went on the day we “learned how to mellow”), down Laguna, then ending with the Colima Trail, the trail our campsite was on. That whole thing makes a big loop. Elena was my partner for the first time. We had a bit too much fun for most of the day. We had a few drains to clean that had a kind of little lake near them. When you clean drains, it’s usually just clearing out rocks and leaves that are clogging it. Elena and I both got really distracted for a while by throwing the rocks from our drain into the lake just to enjoy the sound. Isn’t throwing rocks in water one of the best sounds ever? The first time we did it, we ended up falling WAY behind everyone else. We started walking down the trail and came to a fork. One way was labeled Northeast Rim and the other was labeled South Rim. Elena remembered that when we went this way before, we took the trail to the Northeast Rim, which lead to the South Rim. But I remembered hearing Colin’s instructions, and he just said to go up the South Rim. We decided to take the South Rim fork for a while, and just turn around if we didn’t see anyone soon. We walked for a while, and just as we were thinking we were wrong and were about to turn back, we ran into Ryan. Whew. We were really behind. We fell behind again when we found another lake to throw rocks into, but not as bad that time. Everyone had a pretty good time that day. Cleaning drains isn’t hard work physically so we mostly just got to enjoy the nice day and pretty scenery. Scott kept trying to hurry us along, but he clearly didn’t get that Colin was purposefully giving us a nice easy day while he wasn’t there. Oh well. We never really paid much attention to what Scott said anyway. By the end of the day when we were nearing the end of the trail, everyone got pretty silly. Everyone kept singing Disney songs as they would pass by other pairs to get to the next drain. It was fun.
That night, Amy had to go to the bathroom at like 4am like I did the night before. And just like when I needed to go, she couldn’t get the Crappy Tent zipper open more than just that little slit and she had to crawl out through the bottom like I did. Since I was awake, while she was gone I managed to get it open the rest of the way for her. The Crappy Tent strikes again.
The next day, we saw Colin in a bad mood for the first time. He is normally one of the most good humored and mellow people I’ve ever met, but not that day. Most of us were just a couple minutes late to meet up with him at the cabin for some reason. I think that was the main reason for his bad mood, but I think it was also an accumulation of things Scott did. I haven’t written about it much before, and I won’t go into detail on the internet, but Scott was a pretty bad team leader and it frustrated Colin a lot of the time. Anyway, we hiked the two miles or so up to our regular worksite and changed into our steel toes like usual. Then, Marc, Tabitha, Amy, Marie, and Davis found out that we were being sent back down all the way to the Pinnacles Trial. That’s one of the trails we use to get up to Emory, which means it’s pretty far from where we were right then. It also means that we hiked like a mile and a half up to our regular worksite for nothing, and would now have to go back the way we came. We were also told to just keep our steel toes on, not change back into hiking boots. Our task was just to go partway down Pinnacles and clean any drains that might need cleaning (even though we had cleaned those drains about three weeks ago) and get rid of any big rocks that are in the trail (and we knew from hiking that trail several times that there were a lot). We were all as sure as we could be that this was punishment. It was kind of sad. The work wasn’t hard once we got there but I for one wasn’t very happy about hiking an extra three miles or so for nothing.
It was about 11:30 by the time we finished that and got back to our regular worksite. For the half hour before lunch we just had to go along the new trail and collect brush that had been piled along it and carry it down to where it intersects with the old trial. Apparently this was so that next round, when another NCCC team would be in Big Bend, they could use that brush to stuff that part of the old trail. So essentially we were kind of doing that team’s work for them.
After lunch, Tabitha and I were sent back to our logs. We really didn’t want to because of how frustrating it was the last time we worked on them, when we thought we had gotten a log in tightly and it just popped out. We took that log out and put another in its place, and got like two more logs I think. They worked this time. Also, it had been really pretty cold all day. In the afternoon when we were working on our logs, it actually started snowing. It was May 1. In the desert. Colin and Ryan passed us to go work on something and they stopped to talk for a minute. Colin made us all hold hands and reflect upon the fact that it was snowing on May 1 on the Mexico border and said this would be a day we would tell our grandkids about. Apparently his bad mood was over and he was back to his usual goofy self.
We were coming down from Emory the next day, but we had to work for a while first. Since Tabitha and I were finally done with our logs we had another job. A few other pairs had been working on doing that several logs right next to each other thing. After those logs are in really tightly, you’re supposed to cover them with dirt since the purpose of those logs is to raise the level of the trail back up to where it was before it was eroded and to get vegetation to grow on it again. Tabitha and I were sent to plant Prickly Pears on all the spots with the dirt-covered logs. Planting Prickly Pears is probably the easiest thing ever. All you have to do is cut a pad off of one and lay the pad down on the dirt. It will just drop roots right there and grow a whole new plant. We made that last until lunch time because there wasn’t a whole lot we needed to do that day. We had our usual hour-long lunch with most of the team. After an hour, Colin came over to tell us all to get back to work, but then everyone (including Colin) ended up sitting back down and talking for like another half hour. We were pretty sure Colin was getting pretty sad about us leaving soon.
Something I haven’t written about before: Almost the whole trail crew at Big Bend loves to hula hoop. Not kidding. Apparently it was Laura who started it. She’s the one that was on Colin’s team when he was a Sun Unit Team Leader two years ago. She makes her own hula hoops out of gardening irrigation pipe and tape. She got most of the rest of the trail crew into hooping, who then got a bunch of rangers and other park employees into it. Pretty soon after we got there, Colin had brought out a few extra hoops they had for us to play with. We all decided we wanted to make our own hoops, so we bought a bunch of irrigation pipe, decided what colors we wanted, and ordered our tape from some website that had a bazillion different kinds of tape in a bazillion different colors. Our tape had finally arrived while we were on Emory that second time, so we made our hoops the night we came back down. Colin let us come upstairs in the Remuda and we watched a Tenacious D DVD and ate some delicious cake Colin had made while we put our hoops together and taped them up.
The next day we worked at Santa Elena Canyon. There’s a longish sandy walk to get from the parking area to the river and canyon which apparently some people have trouble walking on. There were rolls of this kind of boardwalk stuff that we needed to lay out. It wasn’t hard. The hardest part was carrying the rolls out to where they needed to go because they were pretty heavy. You literally just line the roll up with the boardwalk section before it and unroll it. We also kicked sand on top of it a little and into the cracks between boards so it would stay put a little better, but that was it. Since that was not a task for 11 people, Colin sent Marie, Ryan, Churchill, and I down to the beginning of the trail that leads a mile or so into the canyon. The trailhead wasn’t very obvious because there were a lot of plants growing around there so he just wanted us to clear the plants to make the trailhead look nicer. It was during this task that Scott came over with his phone for me to find out that I had been hired as next year’s UDA. Yay!
That job at the canyon only took us till lunch. After lunch, we went and checked out all the gear we would need for our river trip the next day. The crew had very nicely planned a river trip for us to go on with the crew. The best part is that the crew got to come down from Emory early and the trip was counted as a work day for us and for them. Colin, Julie, Matt, Alex, Laura, and Rachel were the members of the crew who hadn’t left for the summer yet. Shaggy, the Trail Supervisor, and Joseph, the crew’s packer (he does all the stuff with the mules), also came. It was pretty fun. I was in a boat with Marie. We went back to Santa Elena Canyon and paddled our canoes about three miles upstream. We pulled off on the Mexico side of the river and ate lunch. Then, we explored the canyon on the Mexico side. The crew had been to this place before, called Fern Canyon. Right there on the Mexico side you can climb pretty far back into the canyon walls. There weren’t as man ferns as there usually are (I think it was still too early in the year for them or something) but it was SO COOL. The funniest part was the Birth Canal. This was where there were two rock walls close-ish together with a boulder balanced on top of them. There was a pool above the boulder that sent a waterfall down between the boulder and rock walls. The only way to get past this part was to wade across the pool at the bottom and climb up that waterfall between the rock walls and boulder. Ridicuous. There were a few places that a few of us wouldn’t have been able to climb up if it weren’t for Colin climbing up first (he is super tall and super strong) and giving us a hand up. We climbed way back until we couldn’t go any farther without climbing equipment (it was a pretty sheer rock wall without a way to go around it). I think that was one of my favorite memories of Big Bend.
The day after that we had a day off, and Colin and Rachel were leaving for a trip to Mexico (a real trip, not just crossing the river like we did). They were leaving at like 6am, meaning we wouldn’t see them again because we were going out in Terlingua and spending the night there after the river trip. (That night was ridiculously fun. We ended up sleeping just in our sleeping bags under the stars again, but this time in the “parking lot” which is on the main road. We literally slept 10 feet off the main road. That’s how safe Terlingua is.) Anyway, when we got back to the Remuda the next morning, Colin and Rachel were gone. Colin had left us some candy and some cookies he baked the day before. He also left us the best note ever. It was all about how much he enjoyed having us there and how much fun he had with us. It was just the right combination of sentimental and hilarious. We were all really sad to be leaving the park and our awesome supervisor.
We left the next day. For some reason, even though we didn’t have that far to drive before arriving at our hotel in Roswell, NM, everyone decided they wanted to get on the road at 6am. To accomplish this, we agreed to the idea Colin had given us. He said we should pack up EVERYTHING, including our tents, the night before. Basically just have our bags and everything ready so that we could just sleep outside in our sleeping bags and then in the morning all we would have to do would be to roll up our bags and pillows and throw them in the truck. Everyone liked this idea except for the part where there were gigantic ant hills all over where our usual camping area is at the Remuda. The ants weren’t really a problem when we were in a tent, but no one really wanted to sleep without a tent there. We discovered that there weren’t any ants in the corral behind the Remuda. (The mules don’t live in this corral all the time, only when Joseph is getting the mules ready to go bring the trail crew their supplies, so the mules weren’t there that night.) That’s right, we decided to sleep in the corral. And no, it didn’t smell too bad. It was actually really nice. The corral has a perfect view of the Window. I laid there with my glasses on for a while after going to bed just looking at the night sky and scenery. It was probably a perfect last night.
And that’s the story of Big Bend! I can’t believe I’m finally done with it! Pictures will be coming eventually (and oh my goodness, there are a lot of them). In the meantime, like I said, there are a lot of pictures already on facebook, as well as the slideshow video we made for our debrief.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Almost Done!
The next day was our last real day of work for the nine-day week. We did another rotation thing with small groups. In the morning, Davis, Churchill, Scott and I had to find rocks for Matthew and Alex from the trail crew, who were building a rock wall. I think this was the job that everyone disliked the most. The rocks they needed for their wall had to be as big as possible (if you could carry it by yourself, it was too small) with a flat rectangular face that was within a specific set of measurements. And since they’ve been working on this wall for a while, all the rocks anywhere nearby had already been found. The other guys found a few, but I didn’t find a single rock that would work after looking ALL MORNING. I was just climbing around through the trees feeling useless.
After lunch, Erin, Marie, Davis and I got a turn on the Pionjar. Unfortunately, we only got one short turn each. It took Colin a really long time to get it started (sometimes the Pionjar gets cranky) and hikers kept going past. The section of the new trail we were working on had already been opened and every time a hiker would approach we would have to turn the Pionjar completely off so they could go past and not go deaf (you have to wear earplugs). So we only got one turn that day. After that, it was back to finding rocks. I was about as helpful this time as I was earlier in the morning.
The next day was coming down from Emory. We just had to wake up and pack up our campsite then hike down. Since the rest of the trial crew was coming down that day also, Colin wanted them to have a chance to take a warm shower before we used all the hot water. (We hadn’t showered for nine days, remember?) He said we couldn’t use hot water until after 5:00. Some people said they were going to wait until after 5 or even the next day to shower, but one by one everyone decided they couldn’t wait. We all took cold showers. Let me tell you, it was the most glorious shower of my life.
And then we had our last 5-day weekend. Ryan, Marc, and Churchill went on a 30-mile hike called the Outer Mountain Loop. They had to camp overnight and finished in like a day and a half. It was pretty impressive. One day while they were doing that, everyone else except Marie, Tabitha and I went on a shorter hike. Tabitha had been tanning like it was her job and she made it look pretty relaxing. She laid her sleeping pad out on top of the bear boxes because there were way too many ants in our campsite to lie on the ground. I ended up laying my sleeping pad out on top of the picnic table and just laying in the sun with her for a while. It was really nice. That weekend was also Davis’s 21st birthday so we went out in Terlingua. We were planning on spending the night there again but the weather didn’t seem very conducive to sleeping outside. We ended up sleeping in the van. Word of advice – never sleep in a van. Even if you have a whole bench to yourself. You will not get a good night’s sleep.
The morning after that was I think one of my funniest experiences of AmeriCorps. We went to the Ghost Town Café for breakfast. (I keep saying Terlingua, but the town is actually the Terlingua Ghost Town. Or something. There’s a chance the Ghost Town is only a part of the town of Terlingua. We always went to the Ghost Town part.) When we walked in, we saw that we would need to sit outside on the patio because there wasn’t enough room for us inside. When we started toward the door to the patio, the waitress started yelling that it was a $20 fine if anyone jumps on or off the patio. She was also saying that they were out of pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and toast. How can you be out of toast? The waitress was also scarily mean when she came out to take our drink orders. “So how many waters, and how many coffees?” When we were thinking about what we wanted to order, some people were wondering if they could make French toast or not, since they were out of toast. Are they out of toast because the toaster is broken, or because they’re out of bread? Erin asked the scary waitress (we found out her name is Deena) if they had French toast, and she said emphatically “We’re out of pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and toast.” Also, Davis was sitting between Amy and I. Davis and I both got bacon omelets, and Amy (a vegetarian) got a veggie omelet. When Deena was bringing out food, she called “Veggie omelet.” Amy said “That’s me.” And Deena seemed to look right at her and called “Bacon!” Also, the water was served in glasses that only held about three sips of water. I was really thirsty and wanted more, but I knew she would yell at me if I asked before she was done serving food. I waited until everyone had a plate in front of them, then said as politely as I could “Could I please have some more water when you get a chance?” She said “Well you’ll have to wait until I’ve served all the food, won’t you?” I thought I had waited. We also noticed that she would be really mean when we asked for anything, but then when she brought us things and we said thank you, she would always say “You’re welcome” really sweetly. It was so weird. We all found the whole thing completely hilarious. We were laughing about it and telling Ryan, Marc, and Churchill (who were still on their 30-mile hike) about it for days.
We also did another ISP at the Terlingua Community Garden that weekend. This time, everyone but Ryan, Marie, and Scott came. Erin, Lindsey, and I had talked up the garden so much from the last time we did ISP there that everyone was excited to go. Zoey, the woman who runs it, is so awesome. Our task this time was to work in the trench. There’s like a tunnel about a half mile from the garden that was built during Terlingua’s mining days (there used to be a mine there – I think it was mercury). Nowadays, the tunnel catches pretty much all the rain in the whole town and sends it gushing down the tunnel and through the trench that it made all the way to the garden, where it continues to cut away the edges of the trench and invade the garden’s space. The garden ladies wanted to try a solution they had read about. Apparently if you put long rectangular things coming out at an angle from the wall of the trench, the water will hit the thing instead of the wall and not eat away at the wall more. Since the garden operates almost solely on donations, they could only complete this project little by little as materials get donated. Someone had just donated a huge wire box thing that kind of looked like a crab cage. Our job was to put it where it needs to go and then fill it with rocks so it wouldn’t go anywhere with the force of the water. It was really hard for me to wrap my mind around huge amounts of water gushing down this trench in the desert, but Zoey had shown us how much damage had been done in a short amount of time, so I guess it happens. It took us all morning to fill the cage thing because it was so big and we had to walk pretty far down the trench to find rocks that were big enough. After we were done, just like last time we were there, Zoey and a few other ladies gave us a delicious lunch.
That day was really nice. We had all brought clothes to change into because we planned to hang out in Terlingua for a little while after we were done at the garden and didn’t want to stay in uniform. We did a lot of good quality porch-sitting. I’ve talked about the Terlingua porch, right? It’s the long porch that goes across the front of Starlight and the trading company next door. There are benches across the whole porch, and useful things like fly swatters, binoculars, and bottle openers hanging on the posts. If you say “the porch” to anyone in Terlingua, they know exactly what you mean. The porch also faces the park so you can have some really nice views of the mountains in Big Bend, especially at sunset. We spent a lot of time on that porch. While we were there that day, Erin had a great idea. Tabitha and Marc were cooking that night, and they planned to cook burgers on the grill. Erin suggested calling Ryan, Marie, and Scott, who were still back home at the Remuda (the house next to our campsite where the trail crew lives) and seeing if they would bring the food to Terlingua so we could have a cookout with the grill in the park on the other side of the Starlight parking lot. They agreed to it and everyone had a really nice time. I even discovered a hidden talent. People drink a lot of Lonestar beer in Texas (it’s a local beer that’s not bad, and it’s pretty cheap). On the bottom of the bottle caps they have those little puzzles where a series of pictures represents a phrase. Most of the time, no one can figure them out. I had never been any better at figuring them out than anyone else, but for some reason that day I could get almost all of them. I really kind of miss Terlingua sometimes, but the tiny town I’m in now for my current project is pretty nice also.
I also got to see some live theatre that weekend! Last Minute Low Budget Productions, the theatre company in Terlingua (yeah, I was surprised it existed also) was doing a play that weekend called Hunter Gatherers. Amy, Tabitha, Elena, Erin, and I were the only ones that wanted to go. It really wasn’t bad for such a small community. And the set was really good, considering it was in some kind of building that looked like it used to be a warehouse. The posters for the play said the location was “Behind the store in Terlingua.” I think that is its official address. We all had a really good time. The others totally missed out.
After that lovely weekend, we had to make the long trek back up to Emory. This time, we had to go to work after dropping our stuff off at the campsite. Marc, Tabitha, Elena, Marie, and I went along and got rid of piles of brush that had been left right next to the new trail from where trees had to be cut down to make way for the trail. It wasn’t hard work, but doing pretty much anything that involves moving your body after hiking up to Emory is hard.
The next day started pretty easily. There were a bunch of logs that needed to be taken a pretty long way down the trail, so we spread out and just passed them down the line. It was way easier to just carry logs down to the next person than it would have been to carry them ALL THE WAY DOWN. And because Colin is silly, we played conga line telephone. You would pass the log and whatever the sentence was that the person before you told you down the line. After that, Tabitha, Elena, and I went with Colin to put several logs in the old trail. If you put like 6 or 8 logs in really tight right next to each other, the hope is that dirt will just fill in on top of them to raise the level of the trail. The old trail was really eroded, remember? None of us, including Colin, really felt like working that day though. Ryan, Davis, and Erin had all come to help or bring us tools, and all ten of us just ended up sitting around trying to write limericks for a while.
After lunch, Tabitha and I were sent back to our logs. We were both SO TIRED for some reason. It was also really hot that day. We talked a lot about how much we wished we had some ice cream. Needless to say, we didn’t get very many logs done that day. What little wind was left in our sails completely died when we had just put in another log and spent forever smashing little rocks in the cracks to hold it in place. We thought we finally managed to make it tight, then the whole log just completely came loose. We kind of gave us after that.
The next day, Tabitha and I were back on those stupid logs all day. Remember how Tabitha and I are always together when we’re working on something all day that drives us crazy? Yep. It happened again. We hated those logs. We could never find a good pinner rock (the big rocks you put at the ends of the logs to hold them in place) and all of the logs we had were different lengths and widths and most of them were all curvy. That makes it really hard to jam them in tightly right next to each other. It was really frustrating. The only good part of the day was that every once in a while Colin would come down to see how we were doing, and then the three of us would just sit and talk for a while. Colin hadn’t been feeling like working lately either. We thought he was also getting sad that we were leaving soon.
That night was really windy for the first time at that campsite. It would get REALLY windy at night down in the basin, but up on Emory, our campsite was pretty protected by hills and trees. We would sometimes hear the wind, but it wouldn’t blow our tents around like it would in the basin. But that night, the tents were shaking. I ended up just lying there awake from like 2:00 till 4:30am. It was awful. Also, the Crappy Tent struck again. At about 4am, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. Our tent door had two zippers, so obviously when the two zippers are together the door is closed. The bottom zipper never worked, so we had to close the door at the bottom. When I had to get out for the bathroom (and when I say bathroom, I mean large rock a little ways from the campsite) and started to unzip the top zipper, it got stuck after just going across the bottom of the door before it even started to go upward. I tried for several minutes to get it open, but it wouldn’t budge. I ended up having to kind of slide out feet first through the little slit that was open. Ridiculous. Luckily, when I was coming back and had my headlamp on, I could see the problem and get it open the rest of the way to come back in. I kept my headlamp off while I was still in the tent because I didn’t want to wake Amy up.
After lunch, Erin, Marie, Davis and I got a turn on the Pionjar. Unfortunately, we only got one short turn each. It took Colin a really long time to get it started (sometimes the Pionjar gets cranky) and hikers kept going past. The section of the new trail we were working on had already been opened and every time a hiker would approach we would have to turn the Pionjar completely off so they could go past and not go deaf (you have to wear earplugs). So we only got one turn that day. After that, it was back to finding rocks. I was about as helpful this time as I was earlier in the morning.
The next day was coming down from Emory. We just had to wake up and pack up our campsite then hike down. Since the rest of the trial crew was coming down that day also, Colin wanted them to have a chance to take a warm shower before we used all the hot water. (We hadn’t showered for nine days, remember?) He said we couldn’t use hot water until after 5:00. Some people said they were going to wait until after 5 or even the next day to shower, but one by one everyone decided they couldn’t wait. We all took cold showers. Let me tell you, it was the most glorious shower of my life.
And then we had our last 5-day weekend. Ryan, Marc, and Churchill went on a 30-mile hike called the Outer Mountain Loop. They had to camp overnight and finished in like a day and a half. It was pretty impressive. One day while they were doing that, everyone else except Marie, Tabitha and I went on a shorter hike. Tabitha had been tanning like it was her job and she made it look pretty relaxing. She laid her sleeping pad out on top of the bear boxes because there were way too many ants in our campsite to lie on the ground. I ended up laying my sleeping pad out on top of the picnic table and just laying in the sun with her for a while. It was really nice. That weekend was also Davis’s 21st birthday so we went out in Terlingua. We were planning on spending the night there again but the weather didn’t seem very conducive to sleeping outside. We ended up sleeping in the van. Word of advice – never sleep in a van. Even if you have a whole bench to yourself. You will not get a good night’s sleep.
The morning after that was I think one of my funniest experiences of AmeriCorps. We went to the Ghost Town Café for breakfast. (I keep saying Terlingua, but the town is actually the Terlingua Ghost Town. Or something. There’s a chance the Ghost Town is only a part of the town of Terlingua. We always went to the Ghost Town part.) When we walked in, we saw that we would need to sit outside on the patio because there wasn’t enough room for us inside. When we started toward the door to the patio, the waitress started yelling that it was a $20 fine if anyone jumps on or off the patio. She was also saying that they were out of pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and toast. How can you be out of toast? The waitress was also scarily mean when she came out to take our drink orders. “So how many waters, and how many coffees?” When we were thinking about what we wanted to order, some people were wondering if they could make French toast or not, since they were out of toast. Are they out of toast because the toaster is broken, or because they’re out of bread? Erin asked the scary waitress (we found out her name is Deena) if they had French toast, and she said emphatically “We’re out of pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and toast.” Also, Davis was sitting between Amy and I. Davis and I both got bacon omelets, and Amy (a vegetarian) got a veggie omelet. When Deena was bringing out food, she called “Veggie omelet.” Amy said “That’s me.” And Deena seemed to look right at her and called “Bacon!” Also, the water was served in glasses that only held about three sips of water. I was really thirsty and wanted more, but I knew she would yell at me if I asked before she was done serving food. I waited until everyone had a plate in front of them, then said as politely as I could “Could I please have some more water when you get a chance?” She said “Well you’ll have to wait until I’ve served all the food, won’t you?” I thought I had waited. We also noticed that she would be really mean when we asked for anything, but then when she brought us things and we said thank you, she would always say “You’re welcome” really sweetly. It was so weird. We all found the whole thing completely hilarious. We were laughing about it and telling Ryan, Marc, and Churchill (who were still on their 30-mile hike) about it for days.
We also did another ISP at the Terlingua Community Garden that weekend. This time, everyone but Ryan, Marie, and Scott came. Erin, Lindsey, and I had talked up the garden so much from the last time we did ISP there that everyone was excited to go. Zoey, the woman who runs it, is so awesome. Our task this time was to work in the trench. There’s like a tunnel about a half mile from the garden that was built during Terlingua’s mining days (there used to be a mine there – I think it was mercury). Nowadays, the tunnel catches pretty much all the rain in the whole town and sends it gushing down the tunnel and through the trench that it made all the way to the garden, where it continues to cut away the edges of the trench and invade the garden’s space. The garden ladies wanted to try a solution they had read about. Apparently if you put long rectangular things coming out at an angle from the wall of the trench, the water will hit the thing instead of the wall and not eat away at the wall more. Since the garden operates almost solely on donations, they could only complete this project little by little as materials get donated. Someone had just donated a huge wire box thing that kind of looked like a crab cage. Our job was to put it where it needs to go and then fill it with rocks so it wouldn’t go anywhere with the force of the water. It was really hard for me to wrap my mind around huge amounts of water gushing down this trench in the desert, but Zoey had shown us how much damage had been done in a short amount of time, so I guess it happens. It took us all morning to fill the cage thing because it was so big and we had to walk pretty far down the trench to find rocks that were big enough. After we were done, just like last time we were there, Zoey and a few other ladies gave us a delicious lunch.
That day was really nice. We had all brought clothes to change into because we planned to hang out in Terlingua for a little while after we were done at the garden and didn’t want to stay in uniform. We did a lot of good quality porch-sitting. I’ve talked about the Terlingua porch, right? It’s the long porch that goes across the front of Starlight and the trading company next door. There are benches across the whole porch, and useful things like fly swatters, binoculars, and bottle openers hanging on the posts. If you say “the porch” to anyone in Terlingua, they know exactly what you mean. The porch also faces the park so you can have some really nice views of the mountains in Big Bend, especially at sunset. We spent a lot of time on that porch. While we were there that day, Erin had a great idea. Tabitha and Marc were cooking that night, and they planned to cook burgers on the grill. Erin suggested calling Ryan, Marie, and Scott, who were still back home at the Remuda (the house next to our campsite where the trail crew lives) and seeing if they would bring the food to Terlingua so we could have a cookout with the grill in the park on the other side of the Starlight parking lot. They agreed to it and everyone had a really nice time. I even discovered a hidden talent. People drink a lot of Lonestar beer in Texas (it’s a local beer that’s not bad, and it’s pretty cheap). On the bottom of the bottle caps they have those little puzzles where a series of pictures represents a phrase. Most of the time, no one can figure them out. I had never been any better at figuring them out than anyone else, but for some reason that day I could get almost all of them. I really kind of miss Terlingua sometimes, but the tiny town I’m in now for my current project is pretty nice also.
I also got to see some live theatre that weekend! Last Minute Low Budget Productions, the theatre company in Terlingua (yeah, I was surprised it existed also) was doing a play that weekend called Hunter Gatherers. Amy, Tabitha, Elena, Erin, and I were the only ones that wanted to go. It really wasn’t bad for such a small community. And the set was really good, considering it was in some kind of building that looked like it used to be a warehouse. The posters for the play said the location was “Behind the store in Terlingua.” I think that is its official address. We all had a really good time. The others totally missed out.
After that lovely weekend, we had to make the long trek back up to Emory. This time, we had to go to work after dropping our stuff off at the campsite. Marc, Tabitha, Elena, Marie, and I went along and got rid of piles of brush that had been left right next to the new trail from where trees had to be cut down to make way for the trail. It wasn’t hard work, but doing pretty much anything that involves moving your body after hiking up to Emory is hard.
The next day started pretty easily. There were a bunch of logs that needed to be taken a pretty long way down the trail, so we spread out and just passed them down the line. It was way easier to just carry logs down to the next person than it would have been to carry them ALL THE WAY DOWN. And because Colin is silly, we played conga line telephone. You would pass the log and whatever the sentence was that the person before you told you down the line. After that, Tabitha, Elena, and I went with Colin to put several logs in the old trail. If you put like 6 or 8 logs in really tight right next to each other, the hope is that dirt will just fill in on top of them to raise the level of the trail. The old trail was really eroded, remember? None of us, including Colin, really felt like working that day though. Ryan, Davis, and Erin had all come to help or bring us tools, and all ten of us just ended up sitting around trying to write limericks for a while.
After lunch, Tabitha and I were sent back to our logs. We were both SO TIRED for some reason. It was also really hot that day. We talked a lot about how much we wished we had some ice cream. Needless to say, we didn’t get very many logs done that day. What little wind was left in our sails completely died when we had just put in another log and spent forever smashing little rocks in the cracks to hold it in place. We thought we finally managed to make it tight, then the whole log just completely came loose. We kind of gave us after that.
The next day, Tabitha and I were back on those stupid logs all day. Remember how Tabitha and I are always together when we’re working on something all day that drives us crazy? Yep. It happened again. We hated those logs. We could never find a good pinner rock (the big rocks you put at the ends of the logs to hold them in place) and all of the logs we had were different lengths and widths and most of them were all curvy. That makes it really hard to jam them in tightly right next to each other. It was really frustrating. The only good part of the day was that every once in a while Colin would come down to see how we were doing, and then the three of us would just sit and talk for a while. Colin hadn’t been feeling like working lately either. We thought he was also getting sad that we were leaving soon.
That night was really windy for the first time at that campsite. It would get REALLY windy at night down in the basin, but up on Emory, our campsite was pretty protected by hills and trees. We would sometimes hear the wind, but it wouldn’t blow our tents around like it would in the basin. But that night, the tents were shaking. I ended up just lying there awake from like 2:00 till 4:30am. It was awful. Also, the Crappy Tent struck again. At about 4am, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. Our tent door had two zippers, so obviously when the two zippers are together the door is closed. The bottom zipper never worked, so we had to close the door at the bottom. When I had to get out for the bathroom (and when I say bathroom, I mean large rock a little ways from the campsite) and started to unzip the top zipper, it got stuck after just going across the bottom of the door before it even started to go upward. I tried for several minutes to get it open, but it wouldn’t budge. I ended up having to kind of slide out feet first through the little slit that was open. Ridiculous. Luckily, when I was coming back and had my headlamp on, I could see the problem and get it open the rest of the way to come back in. I kept my headlamp off while I was still in the tent because I didn’t want to wake Amy up.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
More...
The next day was the infamous Pionjar Day (pronounced POON-jar). Colin split us into three groups and we would rotate so everyone could have a turn. Tabitha, Churchill, and I were first. As I think I’ve said already on here, the Pionjar is kind of like a giant gas-powered drill that is used to break up rocks although instead of the bit spinning like a drill, I think it just vibrates really hard. Standing up on its bit, it comes up to like a few inches above my waist. It is heavy and awkward and smelly, but so much fun. Colin had to help everyone quite a bit at first. Sometimes he would have to help people hold it, sometimes he would grab the bit and put it where it needed to be, and sometimes he would just point to where you should aim. Everyone got much better pretty quickly and didn’t need as much help. Let me tell you, that thing is a good workout. It works your upper body because it’s so heavy and it works your legs because you usually have to squat and lunge in all different ways to get it at the right angle, all while the Pionjar is shaking your whole body. I wish we had gotten a little more time with it.
Unfortunately, my group’s turn with the Pionjar only lasted between 10:00 break and lunch. Then we rotated out, and got stuck on the same project all afternoon. While we were Pioning, another group was working on rehabbing a pretty long section of the old trail. Rehabbing is what we did to that old campsite, where we try to make it disappear and grow new vegetation. The group that was working on it while we were Pioning had already tilled and duffed it, so all that was left was filling it with dead branches. Sounds easy, right? Not when most of the dead branches already seem to have been found. It felt like we were making almost no progress because the section of trail was so long and it took so long to find branches. Tabitha and I getting stuck working on the same tedious job for long periods of time seemed to be a recurring theme. We worked in small groups or pairs a lot on Emory, but I was always with Tabitha when it was a task that would slowly drive you crazy.
It rained after work again that day. We had already scheduled who would be cooking every night, and the system was that you always clean up the day before you cook. Tabitha and I were cooking the next day, so we had to clean and wash dishes in the rain. And Amy and my rain fly still leaked, even after we covered all the seams with duct tape after the first time it rained. Grr. Never use a Crappy Tent.
Yeah, this one is short. It was a busy weekend. I’m doing my best!
Oh, but I realized that I haven’t mentioned this bit of news: I applied to be a Team Leader for next year, and I got the job! Well, sort of. Each unit has two TLs who don’t go out in the field with a team, they work in the office. One is a Support Team Leader (STL) who does…something I’m not really sure of. They all have different jobs, even though they have the same title. It’s confusing. But the other is the Unit Development Assistant (UDA – pronounced YOU-da), who is like the right-hand man of the Unit Leader. This person is responsible for making sure all the field TLs get in all the necessary paperwork (and there’s a lot) and apparently also provides emotional support for those poor stressed out TLs. Also, if there’s a national disaster, UDAs and STLs are usually the first people to be sent out. Also, if something happens to a field TL where they can’t stay out with their team anymore, the UDA from their unit will usually be sent to take over their team. So long story short (whoops, too late for that), I’m going to be the Sun UDA next year! I start September 7.
And now the library is about to close, so I need to post this thing and make like a tree and get out of here. (Back to the Future reference, anyone?)
Unfortunately, my group’s turn with the Pionjar only lasted between 10:00 break and lunch. Then we rotated out, and got stuck on the same project all afternoon. While we were Pioning, another group was working on rehabbing a pretty long section of the old trail. Rehabbing is what we did to that old campsite, where we try to make it disappear and grow new vegetation. The group that was working on it while we were Pioning had already tilled and duffed it, so all that was left was filling it with dead branches. Sounds easy, right? Not when most of the dead branches already seem to have been found. It felt like we were making almost no progress because the section of trail was so long and it took so long to find branches. Tabitha and I getting stuck working on the same tedious job for long periods of time seemed to be a recurring theme. We worked in small groups or pairs a lot on Emory, but I was always with Tabitha when it was a task that would slowly drive you crazy.
It rained after work again that day. We had already scheduled who would be cooking every night, and the system was that you always clean up the day before you cook. Tabitha and I were cooking the next day, so we had to clean and wash dishes in the rain. And Amy and my rain fly still leaked, even after we covered all the seams with duct tape after the first time it rained. Grr. Never use a Crappy Tent.
Yeah, this one is short. It was a busy weekend. I’m doing my best!
Oh, but I realized that I haven’t mentioned this bit of news: I applied to be a Team Leader for next year, and I got the job! Well, sort of. Each unit has two TLs who don’t go out in the field with a team, they work in the office. One is a Support Team Leader (STL) who does…something I’m not really sure of. They all have different jobs, even though they have the same title. It’s confusing. But the other is the Unit Development Assistant (UDA – pronounced YOU-da), who is like the right-hand man of the Unit Leader. This person is responsible for making sure all the field TLs get in all the necessary paperwork (and there’s a lot) and apparently also provides emotional support for those poor stressed out TLs. Also, if there’s a national disaster, UDAs and STLs are usually the first people to be sent out. Also, if something happens to a field TL where they can’t stay out with their team anymore, the UDA from their unit will usually be sent to take over their team. So long story short (whoops, too late for that), I’m going to be the Sun UDA next year! I start September 7.
And now the library is about to close, so I need to post this thing and make like a tree and get out of here. (Back to the Future reference, anyone?)
Friday, May 28, 2010
More Catching Up
A couple days after Green Scene, most of the team went to Boquillas Canyon. I went again since I didn't get to go into the canyon when I went with Lindsey and Davis. Obviously, it was beautiful. I'm at the public library to get internet right now on my current project, and it is apparently not letting me upload pictures. So I guess no pictures this time. Sorry! This post almost seems pointless without pictures. When we were at the canyon, the regular trail ends at this really pretty spot where you can see pretty far in either direction, but we found another little social trail that went even farther into the canyon. (A social trail is one that was not intentionally built, but formed over time from multiple people walking the same path over and over.) It was really narrow and went through all these bamboo stalks. It felt like we were foraging through the jungle. It was worth it though, because at the end of it was a nice little area that was the perfect size for us all to just sit by the river and look at the water.
After that weekend was our first real hitch working on Emory Peak. (A hitch is what the trail crew calls their work weeks. Nine days on, five days off, remember?) I can't remember if I've already explained it, but the main project for the trail crew right now is building a new trail to Emory Peak, the highest peak in the park. The old trail is horrible. It pretty much just goes straight up the mountain which makes it extremely steep. It also means that when it rains, the water just pours down the trail and erodes it. The new trail winds around the mountain more, so it is not as steep and is also better for the land. The crew's packer, Joseph, had agreed to bring up all of our food, our tents, and our sleeping bags on the mules, but we would have to carry everything else we wanted up there with us ourselves. I somehow managed to fit everything in the new backpack that I bought in Austin, which is quite a bit smaller than the yellow one I've had since 6th grade that it was replacing (I guess backpacks have to break eventually, right?). The new backpack is much more comfortable than my old one, but it was HEAVY. The hike up to where we would camp on Emory is somewhere between 4 and 6 miles, obviously uphill the whole way. Usually STEEP uphill. I'm not going to lie, the hike up there with a super heavy backpack was fairly miserable. When the trail crew is working up there, they live in/around Boot Cabin near Boot Canyon. They usually sleep either in tents near the cabin or just outside if the weather is good. They had a campsite near there for us, on the Colima Trail. We hiked to the cabin, then dropped off our stuff at our campsite. Then Colin took us to hike another 5 or 6 miles. Seriously. We set off along the new trail to see what the rest of the crew was working on then went up to the peak. Since only a small section of the new trail is ready, most of the hike to the peak was on the old trail. I'm not a very experienced hiker, but even I could tell that they were doing the right thing by building a new trail. The old one is just covered in rocks and is full of steps that are a foot or more high. I fell way behind the rest of the group because it was so hard. When I got to the almost peak, Amy and Marie were sitting and resting. To get to the very top, you have to do some rock climbing. They didn't think they had it in them right then to climb up there right then, and neither did I. The rest of the team was already up there. While we were sitting there, I casually said "I wonder how much I'll regret not going to the top." And Amy said "That's it, we're going up. Come on!" I love her. So up we went. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It's kind of fun when you have to look for places to put your hands and feet. More fun than hiking miles and miles of relentless uphills, I'd say. It was gorgeous at the top. As it's the highest peak in the park, you have an unobstructed view for miles all around you. (Except for the large ugly solar panel that was up there, but let's not talk about that.) We got some pretty nice pictures up there which I will post at some point. The climb down wasn't even that hard. I felt a little like a cat stuck in a tree for a minute, but I found the path I used to come up and just went on down.
The next day we worked on a campsite on the old trail that was closing. We pretty much just had to make it so that no one would even want to walk around there, let alone camp there. First we would till the soil then plant some prickly pears and agaves. To plant an agave you have to dig up the whole plant and put it in a hole in the ground, but to plant a prickly pear all you have to do is cut off a pad on an existing plant and lay it down on the ground. That's it. Just from that, the pad can take root and grow a whole new plant. Then we had to spread duff everywhere. Duff is like a mixture of fertile dirt and dead leaves and stuff. You have to go out into the trees to find it, fill a dirt bag with it, then bring it back to spread. We also went out and found a bunch of dead branches and stuff to spread everywhere. The hope is that eventually, vegetation will begin to grow eventually, and it will be like that campsite never existed.
It started to rain on our hike back to our campsite after work that day. Camping in the rain is not much fun. We had to cook dinner, eat, and make our lunches for the next day, all in the rain. Colin brought us a tent rain fly to string up between trees so we had a little bit of shelter, but we still got wet. Everyone went in their tents for the night at like 6:30, as soon as possible after dinner. I'm sure everyone read or something for a while before actually going to bed, but I think we all got a lot of sleep that night. Amy and I also discovered that our rain fly leaked, thus continuing the saga of the Crappy Tent. Fabulous.
On the 5th of those 9 days, Colin had a surprise for us. We wouldn't be going to work that day. He was "teaching us how to mellow." By this, he meant taking us on a leisurely hike to the Northeast Rim and the South Rim, which have some of the best views in the park. It wasn't as relaxing for me because almost everyone else on the team hikes much faster than I do, but it was still really nice. We took LOTS of breaks. We would hike to a cool view and sit for a while. Then hike to another cool view and sit for a while. Lunch lasted about an hour and a half that day. Colin said the goal of the day was to "mellow as hard as possible." During an hour-long break in the afternoon, he taught us to do a few of the acrobalance tricks that he and Laura did at Green Scene. It was a really nice day.
The day after that, Tabitha and I were sent to work with Julie and Matt from the trail crew. They were working on rip rap rocks. No, I don't know why it's called that. Rip rap rocks are used to prevent erosion on places in the trail where erosion is especially bad. Rip rap rocks are like big flat rocks that you install in the trail. The end result looks kind of like cobblestone. What Tabitha and I were sent to do was find small wedge-shaped rocks that Julie and Matt can use to go between the big rocks and make them really tight. Some of it was a matter of looking around and finding wedges, but most of the day was spent gathering an armload of rocks and then sitting with a rock hammer trying to make wedges. It was nice for a while. It wasn't too hard physically, we got to sit a lot of the time, and Tabitha is fun to talk to. However, do this all day, and you are likely to go a little crazy. Like we did. We eventually realized how much we felt like cave people. We were pretty slap happy by the end of the day. We were just laughing at everything. We were pretty much by ourselves, but later when we met up with the rest of the team, they said they could hear us laughing. It was ridiculous.
And that's all I have time for right now. This might go a little faster now that I know I can't really post pictures yet. If you are my facebook friend, you can look at the pictures tagged of me (that button under my profile picture). You can also look at my videos. I posted the slide show thing we made for our debrief presentation. Enjoy!
After that weekend was our first real hitch working on Emory Peak. (A hitch is what the trail crew calls their work weeks. Nine days on, five days off, remember?) I can't remember if I've already explained it, but the main project for the trail crew right now is building a new trail to Emory Peak, the highest peak in the park. The old trail is horrible. It pretty much just goes straight up the mountain which makes it extremely steep. It also means that when it rains, the water just pours down the trail and erodes it. The new trail winds around the mountain more, so it is not as steep and is also better for the land. The crew's packer, Joseph, had agreed to bring up all of our food, our tents, and our sleeping bags on the mules, but we would have to carry everything else we wanted up there with us ourselves. I somehow managed to fit everything in the new backpack that I bought in Austin, which is quite a bit smaller than the yellow one I've had since 6th grade that it was replacing (I guess backpacks have to break eventually, right?). The new backpack is much more comfortable than my old one, but it was HEAVY. The hike up to where we would camp on Emory is somewhere between 4 and 6 miles, obviously uphill the whole way. Usually STEEP uphill. I'm not going to lie, the hike up there with a super heavy backpack was fairly miserable. When the trail crew is working up there, they live in/around Boot Cabin near Boot Canyon. They usually sleep either in tents near the cabin or just outside if the weather is good. They had a campsite near there for us, on the Colima Trail. We hiked to the cabin, then dropped off our stuff at our campsite. Then Colin took us to hike another 5 or 6 miles. Seriously. We set off along the new trail to see what the rest of the crew was working on then went up to the peak. Since only a small section of the new trail is ready, most of the hike to the peak was on the old trail. I'm not a very experienced hiker, but even I could tell that they were doing the right thing by building a new trail. The old one is just covered in rocks and is full of steps that are a foot or more high. I fell way behind the rest of the group because it was so hard. When I got to the almost peak, Amy and Marie were sitting and resting. To get to the very top, you have to do some rock climbing. They didn't think they had it in them right then to climb up there right then, and neither did I. The rest of the team was already up there. While we were sitting there, I casually said "I wonder how much I'll regret not going to the top." And Amy said "That's it, we're going up. Come on!" I love her. So up we went. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It's kind of fun when you have to look for places to put your hands and feet. More fun than hiking miles and miles of relentless uphills, I'd say. It was gorgeous at the top. As it's the highest peak in the park, you have an unobstructed view for miles all around you. (Except for the large ugly solar panel that was up there, but let's not talk about that.) We got some pretty nice pictures up there which I will post at some point. The climb down wasn't even that hard. I felt a little like a cat stuck in a tree for a minute, but I found the path I used to come up and just went on down.
The next day we worked on a campsite on the old trail that was closing. We pretty much just had to make it so that no one would even want to walk around there, let alone camp there. First we would till the soil then plant some prickly pears and agaves. To plant an agave you have to dig up the whole plant and put it in a hole in the ground, but to plant a prickly pear all you have to do is cut off a pad on an existing plant and lay it down on the ground. That's it. Just from that, the pad can take root and grow a whole new plant. Then we had to spread duff everywhere. Duff is like a mixture of fertile dirt and dead leaves and stuff. You have to go out into the trees to find it, fill a dirt bag with it, then bring it back to spread. We also went out and found a bunch of dead branches and stuff to spread everywhere. The hope is that eventually, vegetation will begin to grow eventually, and it will be like that campsite never existed.
It started to rain on our hike back to our campsite after work that day. Camping in the rain is not much fun. We had to cook dinner, eat, and make our lunches for the next day, all in the rain. Colin brought us a tent rain fly to string up between trees so we had a little bit of shelter, but we still got wet. Everyone went in their tents for the night at like 6:30, as soon as possible after dinner. I'm sure everyone read or something for a while before actually going to bed, but I think we all got a lot of sleep that night. Amy and I also discovered that our rain fly leaked, thus continuing the saga of the Crappy Tent. Fabulous.
On the 5th of those 9 days, Colin had a surprise for us. We wouldn't be going to work that day. He was "teaching us how to mellow." By this, he meant taking us on a leisurely hike to the Northeast Rim and the South Rim, which have some of the best views in the park. It wasn't as relaxing for me because almost everyone else on the team hikes much faster than I do, but it was still really nice. We took LOTS of breaks. We would hike to a cool view and sit for a while. Then hike to another cool view and sit for a while. Lunch lasted about an hour and a half that day. Colin said the goal of the day was to "mellow as hard as possible." During an hour-long break in the afternoon, he taught us to do a few of the acrobalance tricks that he and Laura did at Green Scene. It was a really nice day.
The day after that, Tabitha and I were sent to work with Julie and Matt from the trail crew. They were working on rip rap rocks. No, I don't know why it's called that. Rip rap rocks are used to prevent erosion on places in the trail where erosion is especially bad. Rip rap rocks are like big flat rocks that you install in the trail. The end result looks kind of like cobblestone. What Tabitha and I were sent to do was find small wedge-shaped rocks that Julie and Matt can use to go between the big rocks and make them really tight. Some of it was a matter of looking around and finding wedges, but most of the day was spent gathering an armload of rocks and then sitting with a rock hammer trying to make wedges. It was nice for a while. It wasn't too hard physically, we got to sit a lot of the time, and Tabitha is fun to talk to. However, do this all day, and you are likely to go a little crazy. Like we did. We eventually realized how much we felt like cave people. We were pretty slap happy by the end of the day. We were just laughing at everything. We were pretty much by ourselves, but later when we met up with the rest of the team, they said they could hear us laughing. It was ridiculous.
And that's all I have time for right now. This might go a little faster now that I know I can't really post pictures yet. If you are my facebook friend, you can look at the pictures tagged of me (that button under my profile picture). You can also look at my videos. I posted the slide show thing we made for our debrief presentation. Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
I Miss You, Big Bend
So here I am back in Denver. I guess I'll kind of try to pick back up where I left off, but it'll be hard. We'll see how it goes.
Spring break in Austin was pretty cool. The only bad part was that on the first morning we were there, Lindsey hurt her foot pretty badly when we were walking to breakfast. She was stepping off a curb and her sandal got caught, but her foot kept going. She still walked all around the city with us, just a little slower. We came back to the park on Monday after spring break, and Lindsey wasn't able to go to work on Tuesday because she couldn't do the hike to our work site. Scott took her to the doctor in Alpine on Wednesday and we found out some horrible news. Her foot was broken and she was being sent back to Denver to work with a team from another unit who was living on campus and working at a school. We were all really sad that she had to leave and so was she.
That day while they were at the doctor was pretty interesting for the rest of us. It was a service learning day for us as well as for the whole trail crew. (They don't do service learning like we do, but they all came with us.) We took a tour with Tom, the park archaeologist, of an area called Indian Head. He showed us all kinds of evidence of people living there many many years ago. There were several pictographs and petroglyphs on the huge boulders around.
Do you see the little hand prints under the circle thing? Tom said they were probably made by like a 10-year-old. Crazy!
The next day, Scott assigned me to have another service learning day with Lindsey. I think it was mostly just to get her some hours since she had to miss work after spring break. Davis ended up coming with us because he had hurt his knee the day before. The three of us went to Boquillas Canyon. It was really pretty. (Surprising, huh?) To get from the parking area into the actual canyon was like a mile hike which unfortunately Lindsey and Davis couldn't do with their injuries. There were a couple of overlook things that we could drive to so we were still able to see some of it and get some good pictures. At one of the overlooks was a bunch of crafts set up on rocks. There were signs saying that they were made in Boquillas, Mexico with a list of prices for all the crafts. The sign said that buying them (putting money in the plastic containers next to the rocks) would benefit Boquillas schools. Unfortunately, none of us had money with us, but the things were really pretty.
That is obviously the Rio Grande behind us, with Mexico on the other side. We even got to see someone crossing the river back over to Mexico on a horse, most likely after dropping off more crafts or collecting money or something. It was a really nice day. We just drove around the Boquillas Canyon area and looked at pretty scenery then had lunch in Rio Grande Village. (The village isn't as cool as it sounds. It's just another visitor center and a store. But it was still nice.)
The day after that was our Alpine day. Alpine days, as I've mentioned, are just pretty horrible. Too much going on. And that day was even worse because I had my team leader phone interview scheduled for that day. (Yes, I applied to be a team leader for next year.) I thought it went pretty well. The Unit Leaders from all four units were on the phone but I didn't really feel nervous or anything.
Saturday April 10 was an all-day event in Terlingua called Green Scene. Terlingua has been trying to do a lot more recycling and move toward sustainability and the Green Scene was kind of a celebration of that. There were demonstrations on things like solar ovens and composting, and a lot of locals were selling their art and food. Terlingua only has like five or six hundred people, but a lot of them seem to be artists. All of the local art I've seen is really good. The Green Scene was really fun. I think probably the whole town was there as well as people from surrounding communities. One of the highlights was a demonstration by the local acro-balance yoga class. Colin, our supervisor, and Laura, another member of the trail crew, are part of this class. They were doing some crazy stuff!
Alex, a member of the trail crew, had given us a brilliant idea. There's a "camping hostel" in Terlingua, so we should just bring our sleeping bags and stuff and sleep there so no one would have to drive back (beer is a pretty important part of life in Terlingua) and so we could stay out as long as we want (the curfew for the van is midnight which means we would have to leave at 11:15 to get back in time). Such a good idea! At the end of the night, we slept beneath the stars in the campground. Stars in Terlingua/Big Bend are probably the prettiest I've seen. In the middle of the night, I woke up to a strange pattering sound that I didn't recognize at first. Then I realized it was rain. Only a little sprinkling. How ironic, that the first time we decide to sleep without tents in the desert is the first time it rains. It only lasted a few minutes so it was kind of refreshing. In the morning we had breakfast at a really good little cafe next to Starlight, then went back to the park.
Well I guess I might as well go ahead and post what I have so far. This is going to take a while.
Spring break in Austin was pretty cool. The only bad part was that on the first morning we were there, Lindsey hurt her foot pretty badly when we were walking to breakfast. She was stepping off a curb and her sandal got caught, but her foot kept going. She still walked all around the city with us, just a little slower. We came back to the park on Monday after spring break, and Lindsey wasn't able to go to work on Tuesday because she couldn't do the hike to our work site. Scott took her to the doctor in Alpine on Wednesday and we found out some horrible news. Her foot was broken and she was being sent back to Denver to work with a team from another unit who was living on campus and working at a school. We were all really sad that she had to leave and so was she.
That day while they were at the doctor was pretty interesting for the rest of us. It was a service learning day for us as well as for the whole trail crew. (They don't do service learning like we do, but they all came with us.) We took a tour with Tom, the park archaeologist, of an area called Indian Head. He showed us all kinds of evidence of people living there many many years ago. There were several pictographs and petroglyphs on the huge boulders around.
Do you see the little hand prints under the circle thing? Tom said they were probably made by like a 10-year-old. Crazy!The next day, Scott assigned me to have another service learning day with Lindsey. I think it was mostly just to get her some hours since she had to miss work after spring break. Davis ended up coming with us because he had hurt his knee the day before. The three of us went to Boquillas Canyon. It was really pretty. (Surprising, huh?) To get from the parking area into the actual canyon was like a mile hike which unfortunately Lindsey and Davis couldn't do with their injuries. There were a couple of overlook things that we could drive to so we were still able to see some of it and get some good pictures. At one of the overlooks was a bunch of crafts set up on rocks. There were signs saying that they were made in Boquillas, Mexico with a list of prices for all the crafts. The sign said that buying them (putting money in the plastic containers next to the rocks) would benefit Boquillas schools. Unfortunately, none of us had money with us, but the things were really pretty.
That is obviously the Rio Grande behind us, with Mexico on the other side. We even got to see someone crossing the river back over to Mexico on a horse, most likely after dropping off more crafts or collecting money or something. It was a really nice day. We just drove around the Boquillas Canyon area and looked at pretty scenery then had lunch in Rio Grande Village. (The village isn't as cool as it sounds. It's just another visitor center and a store. But it was still nice.)The day after that was our Alpine day. Alpine days, as I've mentioned, are just pretty horrible. Too much going on. And that day was even worse because I had my team leader phone interview scheduled for that day. (Yes, I applied to be a team leader for next year.) I thought it went pretty well. The Unit Leaders from all four units were on the phone but I didn't really feel nervous or anything.
Saturday April 10 was an all-day event in Terlingua called Green Scene. Terlingua has been trying to do a lot more recycling and move toward sustainability and the Green Scene was kind of a celebration of that. There were demonstrations on things like solar ovens and composting, and a lot of locals were selling their art and food. Terlingua only has like five or six hundred people, but a lot of them seem to be artists. All of the local art I've seen is really good. The Green Scene was really fun. I think probably the whole town was there as well as people from surrounding communities. One of the highlights was a demonstration by the local acro-balance yoga class. Colin, our supervisor, and Laura, another member of the trail crew, are part of this class. They were doing some crazy stuff!
Alex, a member of the trail crew, had given us a brilliant idea. There's a "camping hostel" in Terlingua, so we should just bring our sleeping bags and stuff and sleep there so no one would have to drive back (beer is a pretty important part of life in Terlingua) and so we could stay out as long as we want (the curfew for the van is midnight which means we would have to leave at 11:15 to get back in time). Such a good idea! At the end of the night, we slept beneath the stars in the campground. Stars in Terlingua/Big Bend are probably the prettiest I've seen. In the middle of the night, I woke up to a strange pattering sound that I didn't recognize at first. Then I realized it was rain. Only a little sprinkling. How ironic, that the first time we decide to sleep without tents in the desert is the first time it rains. It only lasted a few minutes so it was kind of refreshing. In the morning we had breakfast at a really good little cafe next to Starlight, then went back to the park.
Well I guess I might as well go ahead and post what I have so far. This is going to take a while.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Gah! No Time!
So I'm in Alpine right now, but there's never any time when we're here. Too much to do! I'll do a more detailed post when I can (which might not be until after the project is over), but we just got back yesterday from our first real work week. We hiked up to Emory Peak, the highest peak in the park and camped near Boot Cabin, where the trail crew stays when they go up there. Then we had seven straight days of work on the trail leading to Emory Peak. Some of it was working on the new trail they're building, some of it was making the old trail that's closing disappear. It was pretty awesome. Highlights include the Pionjar (there's an umlaut over the A, and it's pronounced POON-jar), which kind of like a jackhammer. Or maybe it IS a jackhammer. I just realized that I don't actually know what a jackhammer is. The Pionjar is used to break up rocks. It's pretty heavy and awkward but really fun.
I think that's all I have time for right now. It's so hard to get internet around here!
I think that's all I have time for right now. It's so hard to get internet around here!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The Desert = Hot, Prickly, and Beautiful
And as always, picking back up where I left off. The Saturday before last, we all went to Terlingua to the farmers market we had seen a flyer for. It wasn’t really anything special. There were only like six or seven tables and like half of them were art or crafts, not fruit or vegetables. It was kind of interesting though. Also, Colin had told us that there was an ISP opportunity at a community garden and Erin and Lindsey managed to talk to Zoey, the person in charge of it, to set up some ISP hours for the three of us (no one else wanted to go) the next day. Unfortunately, by the time the farmers market was over everything else in town was closed. I think Terlingua takes a bit of Mexican influence and has a siesta after lunchtime. There was an interesting time when Lindsey, Ryan and I went over to sit next to a school bus because it was the only shady spot and it was HOT that day, and it turned out that there was a campsite near there and the bus was the office for a “camping hostel,” and the area next to it where we wanted to sit was the outdoor kitchen for the hostel. While we were sitting there, a woman came over from the campsite and we talked to her for a while. She’s been living there for a little over a month because she just wanted to live in this area but hasn’t found a permanent place to live yet. It was a pretty nice afternoon.
We went back to the park to eat dinner, but then most of us went back to Terlingua that night. We first went to the Boathouse, the only bar we hadn’t been to yet. It was pretty empty there and we ended up sitting out on the patio playing cards for a bit. Then we went over to the Starlight because we had heard there would be live music there. They wouldn’t give us a table until after the kitchen closed if we weren’t eating dinner but we could still to in to the bar and hang out on the large porch. When we were able to get in, the band ended up being pretty decent. I think we all had a pretty good time that night.
Last Sunday, Erin, Lindsey and I went to Terlingua yet again for our ISP at the community garden. Who would have thought you could do much gardening in the desert? Our main task was just to till a plot of land because a new grower was coming into the garden soon. It was a little difficult because the ground was so packed and dry but not too bad. It was lunchtime by the time we were done and Zoey had made bean burritos for us. When we were done with her lovely lunch, she just kind of showed us around town a little. It was really enjoyable. We all really want to go back. The work was kind of fun, and Zoey was just a fun person to hang out with.
On Monday, all of us but Ryan, Marc, Marie, and Scott went to the hot springs by the Rio Grande. The others had all been there the day before when we were working at the garden. I didn’t actually go in the hot spring because it is usually like around 100 degrees and it was HOT again that day, but it was really nice to just sit by the river. The sand around there is really soft so we all mostly just laid around in the sand. It was another pleasant afternoon. That night, there was a ranger talk we wanted to go to. Every night, there is some sort of informational presentation by a ranger about something related to the park. That night there was one about the full moon. We thought it was going to be like taking a walk while the rangers told us about the moon, but it started before the moon came up. The rangers talked to us about the moon for a while then we just waited for the moon to rise. When it rose, it rose FAST. Have you ever just watched the moon rise? It was really cool. The moon had been so bright lately as it was moving toward being full. You almost don’t even need a headlamp at our campsite at night, the moon is so bright.
Finally on Tuesday, we had to go back to work. We learned how to clean out drains on trails, which usually isn’t too hard. It’s usually just shoveling out rocks. We worked on the Pinnacles Trail which we hadn’t been on yet. It is actually the trail up to Emory Peak, the highest peak in the park. You take Pinnacles up for a while, then veer off to go to Emory. We started at the bottom and worked our way up, which is the opposite of how we worked on our last trail. It makes it a little easier I think, because you only have to go uphill for short amounts at a time.
We were still cleaning drains on Wednesday. This time, we hiked up to the top of Pinnacles to work our way back to where we ended on Tuesday. Let me tell you, that is a tough hike. I think we went up about three and a half miles and it was pretty steep pretty much the whole time. There are also a lot of really high stairs you have to climb up. The work was the same, just cleaning out drains. Amy was my partner that day (we’ve been working in pairs everyday) and we had a pretty good time.
Thursday was different and it was really awesome. Colin taught us how to put logs in trails for steps or to prevent erosion. When he showed us, he just put one in for a step, but he wanted us to do the kind that hold the dirt in place. You have to use a pick axe to dig a fairly deep trench across the trail then put the log in. Then you find a huge rock (a pinner stone) to put at one end of the log to shove against it and pin it in place. Then you find a bunch of other rocks that are maybe a little bigger than your fist and shove them in around the edges of the log. Then you take a stone hammer (kind of like a miniature hand-held sledge hammer) and just beat on those rocks to shove them in place even more. The rocks will probably break, and that’s ok. The object is just to make it so the log can’t move at all. Then you cover the whole thing with dirt so the log and rocks are buried and you can’t tell that anything had ever been done. Colin kept apologizing for making us do such inglorious work but we all enjoyed it. Marc, my partner for the day, and I were pretty proud of our work. Our log didn’t move at all and it looked like nothing had ever happened there when we were done. It took each pair about two or three hours just to finish one log. It was tough swinging the pick axe all day, but I think this was everyone’s favorite work day so far. It finally felt like we were doing something productive even if no one will ever know about it.
On Thursday night, several of us went out in Terlingua. There was the 20th annual “Alter Ego Party” at La Kiva. What is it? You guessed it – you just dress up as your favorite “other personality.” We didn’t dress up because we didn’t know in time and even if we did, no one had any crazy clothes to dress up in, but it was ok. It was really fun to see like most of the town there all dressed up. There was a band there and most people were hanging out in the outside area of the bar, which was closed the only other time we had been to La Kiva. It was very enjoyable.
Friday was the beginning of spring break! Amy was going to Austin to meet her boyfriend, and Lindsey, Davis, and I wanted to go to Austin as well. Also, Scott was meeting people in San Antonio, so the five of us rented a car and drove over. It was a tiny tiny car which made the ride not so comfortable, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it would. TK and Tomm from my old team were coming to Austin for the break as well. Their current projects are both in New Orleans again. They drove up with Dylan and Matt, two other guys from the Sun Unit. It’s been a pretty nice weekend. Austin is really cool. There’s just like a good vibe here. Plus it was really nice to sleep in a bed and use a shower with decent water pressure. It was really weird when we got here. Three weeks in the desert made us forget what it's like to be somewhere with lots of people, cars, and buildings everywhere. There are even plants and grass that aren't prickly (yes, even the grass in Big Bend is really prickly, not to mention the numerous plants with spikes or thorns). It's also way more humid than we're used to, but it was fun to explore a new city. It is currently Sunday night, and we’re driving back to the park tomorrow. Then we have three more days of work starting Tuesday, then four days off, then our first nine-day work week up on Emory Peak. And now I’m all caught up again! Whew!
We went back to the park to eat dinner, but then most of us went back to Terlingua that night. We first went to the Boathouse, the only bar we hadn’t been to yet. It was pretty empty there and we ended up sitting out on the patio playing cards for a bit. Then we went over to the Starlight because we had heard there would be live music there. They wouldn’t give us a table until after the kitchen closed if we weren’t eating dinner but we could still to in to the bar and hang out on the large porch. When we were able to get in, the band ended up being pretty decent. I think we all had a pretty good time that night.
Last Sunday, Erin, Lindsey and I went to Terlingua yet again for our ISP at the community garden. Who would have thought you could do much gardening in the desert? Our main task was just to till a plot of land because a new grower was coming into the garden soon. It was a little difficult because the ground was so packed and dry but not too bad. It was lunchtime by the time we were done and Zoey had made bean burritos for us. When we were done with her lovely lunch, she just kind of showed us around town a little. It was really enjoyable. We all really want to go back. The work was kind of fun, and Zoey was just a fun person to hang out with.
On Monday, all of us but Ryan, Marc, Marie, and Scott went to the hot springs by the Rio Grande. The others had all been there the day before when we were working at the garden. I didn’t actually go in the hot spring because it is usually like around 100 degrees and it was HOT again that day, but it was really nice to just sit by the river. The sand around there is really soft so we all mostly just laid around in the sand. It was another pleasant afternoon. That night, there was a ranger talk we wanted to go to. Every night, there is some sort of informational presentation by a ranger about something related to the park. That night there was one about the full moon. We thought it was going to be like taking a walk while the rangers told us about the moon, but it started before the moon came up. The rangers talked to us about the moon for a while then we just waited for the moon to rise. When it rose, it rose FAST. Have you ever just watched the moon rise? It was really cool. The moon had been so bright lately as it was moving toward being full. You almost don’t even need a headlamp at our campsite at night, the moon is so bright.
Finally on Tuesday, we had to go back to work. We learned how to clean out drains on trails, which usually isn’t too hard. It’s usually just shoveling out rocks. We worked on the Pinnacles Trail which we hadn’t been on yet. It is actually the trail up to Emory Peak, the highest peak in the park. You take Pinnacles up for a while, then veer off to go to Emory. We started at the bottom and worked our way up, which is the opposite of how we worked on our last trail. It makes it a little easier I think, because you only have to go uphill for short amounts at a time.
We were still cleaning drains on Wednesday. This time, we hiked up to the top of Pinnacles to work our way back to where we ended on Tuesday. Let me tell you, that is a tough hike. I think we went up about three and a half miles and it was pretty steep pretty much the whole time. There are also a lot of really high stairs you have to climb up. The work was the same, just cleaning out drains. Amy was my partner that day (we’ve been working in pairs everyday) and we had a pretty good time.
Thursday was different and it was really awesome. Colin taught us how to put logs in trails for steps or to prevent erosion. When he showed us, he just put one in for a step, but he wanted us to do the kind that hold the dirt in place. You have to use a pick axe to dig a fairly deep trench across the trail then put the log in. Then you find a huge rock (a pinner stone) to put at one end of the log to shove against it and pin it in place. Then you find a bunch of other rocks that are maybe a little bigger than your fist and shove them in around the edges of the log. Then you take a stone hammer (kind of like a miniature hand-held sledge hammer) and just beat on those rocks to shove them in place even more. The rocks will probably break, and that’s ok. The object is just to make it so the log can’t move at all. Then you cover the whole thing with dirt so the log and rocks are buried and you can’t tell that anything had ever been done. Colin kept apologizing for making us do such inglorious work but we all enjoyed it. Marc, my partner for the day, and I were pretty proud of our work. Our log didn’t move at all and it looked like nothing had ever happened there when we were done. It took each pair about two or three hours just to finish one log. It was tough swinging the pick axe all day, but I think this was everyone’s favorite work day so far. It finally felt like we were doing something productive even if no one will ever know about it.
On Thursday night, several of us went out in Terlingua. There was the 20th annual “Alter Ego Party” at La Kiva. What is it? You guessed it – you just dress up as your favorite “other personality.” We didn’t dress up because we didn’t know in time and even if we did, no one had any crazy clothes to dress up in, but it was ok. It was really fun to see like most of the town there all dressed up. There was a band there and most people were hanging out in the outside area of the bar, which was closed the only other time we had been to La Kiva. It was very enjoyable.
Friday was the beginning of spring break! Amy was going to Austin to meet her boyfriend, and Lindsey, Davis, and I wanted to go to Austin as well. Also, Scott was meeting people in San Antonio, so the five of us rented a car and drove over. It was a tiny tiny car which made the ride not so comfortable, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it would. TK and Tomm from my old team were coming to Austin for the break as well. Their current projects are both in New Orleans again. They drove up with Dylan and Matt, two other guys from the Sun Unit. It’s been a pretty nice weekend. Austin is really cool. There’s just like a good vibe here. Plus it was really nice to sleep in a bed and use a shower with decent water pressure. It was really weird when we got here. Three weeks in the desert made us forget what it's like to be somewhere with lots of people, cars, and buildings everywhere. There are even plants and grass that aren't prickly (yes, even the grass in Big Bend is really prickly, not to mention the numerous plants with spikes or thorns). It's also way more humid than we're used to, but it was fun to explore a new city. It is currently Sunday night, and we’re driving back to the park tomorrow. Then we have three more days of work starting Tuesday, then four days off, then our first nine-day work week up on Emory Peak. And now I’m all caught up again! Whew!
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