Oh Montana! We arrived at Camp Marshall just outside of Polson MT. on Tuesday night welcomed by a dusting of snow, warm camp cabins, and just-out-of-the-oven gooey brownies & milk.
Pit stops on our adventure here included a visit to Eugene OR. along with an overnight stay with Dan's family friends in Portland where we really only had time to chat for a bit, go visit voodoo doughnuts, fall asleep then wake up and continue another 10 hour day of driving. Really wish I could have visited in Portland a bit longer, the sun-set drive in made the city look like a super cool place that NEEEDS at least a full weekend to be explored. After spending a few days starting to get comfortable in our new 2 month groove here at Camp Marshall, this place has continued to amaze me with its beauty. Last night was the first night I wasn't too exhausted (or worried about having to wake up at 6 a.m. the next morning) that I was able to spend some time to look up at the night sky for awhile. You learn somewhere that there are millions of stars in the sky, but to see them all is really a spectacular thing. There is so little "light" interruption here that you can even see the reflection of some bright stars on the lake! Our cabins are right on Flathead lake, with layers of mountains and several small islands coloring our landscape. 1 large island thats fairly close by that intrigues me is Wild Horse Island, ooooohh yes, an island for wild horses, I say! Small detail there is only 1 horse left on the island because the rest died last summer, not quite sure of the details but I'm on a mission to kayak over to the island and find the last wild horse standing. Anyways our sponsor is very laid back and there is a lot of work for us to do around here. I'm confident that we'll manage to get it all done especially if we continue the pace that we've been working the past few days. There are several trees we get to cut down, only a small amount of brush (thankfully), LOTS to burn (which I'm finding that burning piles is truly a love hate relationship. I love to watch fires but these piles are BIG and super HOT! standing as close as 10 ft. is sometimes unbearable during the day. Julie (our site supervisor) hired a logger to cut down some big hazard trees around some cabins on our first day of work to get us started, one tree included a Bee-tree. We found soon after it was down a gold mine of some bomb-ass honey. I've never eaten honey so fresh. I feel like I got the full experience, chewed on the honey comb, licked honey off of my fingers like a bear would if he busted open a honey hive, and was more than satisfied with bee's wax in my teeth when I was finished. Things are relatively easy out here in Montana, though some days may feel long (appx. 10 hour days) Our meals are made for us by "Awesome" Austin. He worked at the camp here last year as an asst. chef and at 18 years old surprises us every day by his delicious meals. He makes reaaaallly good meatloaf, home-made granola, french toast, and the list continues to grow. I have a feeling once I can get a kayak/canoe out on the water and if it warms up a little bit, leaving here is going to be
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SOO, for over the past few weeks we have been camping for 2 separate weeks. and clearing brush from around protected historic sites on the in-between. Our first week of camping we were down by Mariposa about an hour from Yosemite which we took advantage of the Saturday after the work week. We spent the day in Yosemite at a perfectly opportune time as the sun was warm and melted the dusting of snow from the Yosemite Falls trail. It seemed too early in the season that most tourists hadn't made it to the park so it left us plenty of room on the trails to hike and explore. The work week was an interesting week to say the least. Three of the 5 days it ranged from a slight drizzle to absolute downpour on our campsite. Our work consisted of clearing 40 years worth of collected trash from the top of a mountain side, everything from broken mirrors, glass, old rugs, irrigation hose, toasters, tires,30+ year old books, vhs and cassette tapes + everything else you could possibly imagine someone to collect in 35 years. The story of the trash was all but a tale we had to deduce ourselves about a man named Helmuth. Helmuth had claimed the top of this mountain as his mining claim which he had acquired with the help of a few wealthy investors. The mine consisted of a small wheel barrow sized hole carved in the side of the mountain that stuffed with trash. The story of Helmuth concluded that as he managed to live on the land for 30+ years he recruited about 60 people, with vans and RV's in tow to live in a commune atop this mountain collecting trash awaiting the arrival of the Mother Ship. Sadly it never arrived, but the BLM did with court papers and after 20 years of battling in court Helmuth and his clan were finally ordered to leave, and left all there trash behind. Lots of treasures were found among the trash, it was a great adventure to say the least. We were visited by 2 baby scorpions, a rattlesnake, we caught a tarantula, and spotted a Bald Eagle.
In the interim of our camping adventures we cut brush by the Davis Mill and the Indiana Ravine. For our last week 1/2 of our project they sent us out yet again to camp. This time we are slightly closer to base near Hetch Hetchy in Moccasin CA. We are camped comfortably at the Don Pedro Reservoir Campsite with available hot showers to boot! Internet service provided, the sun shining all week, it has hardly seemed like camping. We have been hiking out to several locations with the National Guard, BLM, Park Service, Fish & Game, and the Air Force to remove even more trash deep into the BLM land. Its exciting to get to see areas of California that most of the public never get to see. Last week was spent piling up the trash and creating landing zones (LZ's) for a Pave Hawk helicopter to drop their nets for pick-ups. Today and tomorrow we are loading the trash into dumpsters after the helicopter brings us the trash from the LZ's. Wednesday morning we're out of here. As long as it doesn't rain this has been a perfect ending to our time with the BLM and an awesome transition into our 4 day spring break. I wrote a volunteering article for a good friend of mine, she designed a super cool page for it.
For the past few days we've been at Skunk Hollow which is at the tip of Folsom Lake completing a hiking trail that has been a 10 year project. One of the reasons that it hasn't been completed thus far was because the last section we are doing the parks service didn't want to work on the steep slope we have found ourselves cutting through the past 2 days. So hopefully by the time a bridge is built across a stream the trail will finally be complete. We chipped all of our branches and brush today also, the first bit of chipping we've gotten to do, it was spectacular. It's hard to say what else is in store for later this week because the weather is seeming to be less than favorable for standing on a 45 degree angle slope on loose dirt and funny shaped basketball sized rocks with chainsaws.
We DO know that on Monday we will be headed for Mariposa County which is within 25 miles from Yosemite National Park! My favorite thing about this part of the project is not that we will be camping for a week but we will be picking up after people who were waiting for the Mothership to arrive; picking up their garbage and shrines. I can't wait to see what they left, even though I can imagine I may think otherwise once I see what kind of mess they could have left. We still have a few weeks before this round is over. We are only certain of what we will be doing next week. It is still up in the air of weather our camping trip in Mariposa county will be for just a single week, two weeks (consecutively or not) or for the rest of the round. The projects within that time are also uncertain. We could be building a fence, burning piles, clearing more brush, clearing a marijuana field. Its exciting that the possibilities are endless, As long as this cold rain doesn't follow us to Mariposa while we camp I know I'll be okay. The worst thing is being wet, cold and not being able to really get out of it. In other news I finally bought a new lens! 35-135mm Nikon DX lens. . . SOOOO awesome better than both of my old lenses combined. More than stoked I finally buckled down to have it for Yosemite. So last week I learned to listen to my body and break more often so I could last most of the day, in doing so my love of using the chainsaw has sky rocketed. I may have only spent 3 days actually using the chainsaw since my last post, but either way my overall outlook on second round has completely turned around for the better. We finished our fire line and went over their expectations of what we could actually complete. Today we moved on to Auburn Ranch where we cleared overhead branches on trails for horse riders. The scenery was beautiful with rolling green hills and the clear, American River rapids flowing close by. As long as the weather doesn't continue to get worse, (colder/windy-er/rainy-er) we are going to use the chipper to fix some trails by Nevada City for the rest of the week. Chipping gets me so pumped up. Some would argue that chainsaws are more bad-ass, I however disagree and stand up for the chipper.
Last week I also played my first open mic at Old Ironsides in downtown Sac. Liberating experience, glad I did it, encourages me to write more. I'm working on being confident enough to remember and sing 2 songs for the next time. Our time spent with Bolinas was seemingly short lived but we made the best of every second. We cataloged 1700 books for their library, power washed, bleached and scrubbed many steps, houses and porches. Created trails painted the inside and outside of structures that needed sprucing up. All in all it was a spectacular project.
Transition was fun having everyone back on campus before departing our separate ways. Silver 1 however is perched right here in Sacramento with 5 other teams for the entire second round. Last week we spent with Dave, Moses, Aaron and Monty -awesome guys from the BLM, where we spent the entirety of our days holding 360 chainsaws with 28'' bars. HUGE chainsaws especially in my 5'' 115lb eyes. It was a challenge all week for me mentally and physically. The work is the hardest work I have ever been asked to do and when I feel I can't pull my weight because just holding the chainsaw is a workout, really tore me down by the end of the week. Because we have such great site supervisors they were sympathetic to my woes and gave me a pep talk of how, cutting brush on a hillside is probably some of the hardest work some people could ever do in their lifetime, and even they would prefer to use a smaller saw to do any kind of work because they do get heavy fast. Then Moses starting calling me Titan, which made me feel tough. Along with the insider information we're only going to be doing this chainsaw work until the end of next week. This part of the project has been the most stressful, challenge for me yet. I was quick to say how much I despised chainsaws at the beginning of the week. Currently I'm trying to stay more positive because cutting down trees like butter wouldn't be as enjoyable without a chainsaw in hand, along with how much stronger I feel at the end of the week because of the work. When you're sweating because your hiking up and down the hill holding a chainsaw with the warm sun hitting your face and a gentle breeze rushes past to cool you off a bit I think of how wonderful it is that it's really only February and I'm on the West Coast with a dozen of my new close friends who all have chainsaws or gas cans in hand; and how bad ass are we? By special request Silver 1 has been invited back to Bolinas to spend 2 weeks to finish our first spike round. My 24th birthday will be spent by the ocean with my new extended family. We arrived after dinner on Monday, settled in and played a little Pathfinder (pen and paper game) to lull us to sleep. Waking up to the sound of the ocean again was as refreshing as it was the first round. We went for a run adjacent to the ocean. The wind blew in gusts as we ran through a warm rain for 40 minutes. I run and stretch so much better in this place and I still haven't been able to figure out why.
Our group broke up for the work day. 3 of us worked inside for the majority of the day tearing down a wall to make a new door, and creating a new framework for a new wall across the room. We worked closely with Charlie Brown and Mark the maintenance team for Commonweal. 2 very kind men with lots of knowledge on this terrific town. When the rain died down we went outside to mulch the back yard. It seems sun is a rarity in these winter months meant for rain and fog. That is seemingly, until we arrive. The sun shines warm and we revel in it. The rest of the team worked outside all day power washing and bleaching the other 2 houses on the grounds. They got to break in our new government issued rain gear. We end the day with a scary movie, pizza bagels a team meeting to figure out the logistics of what our next week and a half will be like without of Fearless Leader Dan and how to introduce our temp. team leader A.k.. As he travels home to sit in Shiva to remember his grandmother. We spent the week sitting in class for 8 hours straight, trying our hardest not to doze off from waking up at 5AM for P.T. All of us on the 4 Fuel reduction teams learned about fire behavior, dangers of wild land firefighting, what weather patterns to watch for and all the technical words to work better with other firefighters in the field. We took a small quiz than on Thursday we took our final exam to prep us for our field day on Friday.
We woke up early ready to hike. In our new FRT (fuel reduction team) uniforms, bright yellow shirts with forrest green pants. We packed up our new packs, well equipped with 2 water bottles, fire shelter, heat blanket, our lunches, extra water, paper and a pen. We drove the the Forrest Service in Pollack Pines, shortly after we arrived and were introduced we climbed to the Helipad where we had a beautiful view of the Tahoe Mountains. We spent all day climbing a vertical hill and practicing our trail building in the brush of the woods. The 3rd time we trekked the hill we were ordered to run up the second half of it to escape the "on-coming fire". By the time we made it to the top gasping for air we grabbed our fake shelters ran for cover and tried to communicate over blaring sirens and people yelling to discombobulate us from making sure everyone was accounted for. It was a great day and full workout. At the end of the day we had all officially qualified for our Red Cards that certified us as Wild Land firefighters. 2 days later I found out that I am severely allergic to poison oak even in its dormant stage. Monday I took my first sick call day to head to the Dr.'s to expedite my recovery with a few doses of steroids. What a nasty, nasty weed. The doctor told me to stay on the trail or out of the woods, funny thing how I'll be spending the rest of this year doing the complete opposite. We'll just have to see how it all plays ou For the second part of project 1, We 1 spent one week working and basking in the beautiful landscape-surrounding CommonWeal. CommonWeal is a non-profit cancer retreat center that focuses their attention on holistic and meditative well-being practices. In a small, happily secluded, beach town of Bolinas California. Set back from the road not more than a block away from the edge of where the California coastal cliffs meet the ocean we lived, and worked contently.
The consistent sound of the water crashing against the shore resonated the grounds while we put our FRT skills to use. We fell and bucked dead pine trees that were infected by beetles, collected and stacked branches and logs to mulch and improve the hiking trails on the grounds. We worked a stones throw through the trees, next to the breathtaking Pacific Ocean. We also worked five minutes up the road into town, in the garden of their Haiden Dahl house weeding around native plants, laying down cardboard and mulching to create rich dirt to help the plants grow. When we were not outside we scraped and re-painted a currently unfinished room to give them the opportunity to make it a useable space for other programs. We also moved books and helped to keep their space clutter free to allow them to concentrate on healing their patients. At the end of our workweek we were given the opportunity to experience a meditation practice led by our project sponsor Waz Thomas. Waz has been working with CommonWeal for about 25 years and has led patients through meditation and yoga since he started, he has been practicing on his own for about 30 years. Waz stressed that it was important to focus in on your breathing and concentrate on the present. As issues from the past and stress from the future cloud our minds and thoughts go through your head like a “drunk monkey stung by a scorpion” make sure to always concentrate on your breathing. We ended the meditation by taking a silent walk back to our housing, listening to the crunch of the rocks beneath our feet, the cows in the pasture and birds in the sky. The meditation was the perfect ending to reflect on our experience in CommonWeal. I know we couldn’t have asked for a better project location. If we had the option we would spend the rest of our year in Bolinas at CommonWeal. If you ever have the opportunity to travel along highway 1 do not hesitate to drive through the small town visit if you can. The view, ocean and welcoming nature of the CommonWeal staff will be a better payment than you could ever imagine. I am trained to use a chainsaw, but only mind to do it dangerously wrong. I threw threes into a wood chipper and bucked trees in the morning. Threes fell to the ground into the sunset. I raked away the remains from the trails and road.
After working all day. We drove to the beach to work out. I took off my socks and shoes and ran until the sun disappeared behind the oceans edge. It felt great to run on the sand and splash through the waves. I love the zen of this place. |
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April 2010
To Contact Me:Laura Heisig. Class 16 |