Lake Mead Athel!

While we hunt for athel (another invasive species, much like tamarisk) we walk in a grid and GPS every tree we find, girdle and spray with herbicide. As you can see, there are tons of clouds in this picture and the week was filled with some awful weather, but good patches like this day. Open view of the Lake. This is around Bonelli Landing, AZ.
An abandoned boat by Overton Beach.
SNOW! Ach!
Hunting for Athel!
We went to Death Valley for an educational day, and this is our group photo. It's one of our best yet!

Death Valley

Jesse about to kill Tamarisk. It's an invasive species of Salt Cedar that has completely taken over Death Valley. We had backpack sprayers and heavy duty latex gloves in order to handle the herbicide needed. Death Valley does have water! And actually, a lot of it. . .
Our campsite at Breakfast Canyon! It was kind of cool, because we were surrounded by high cliffs, but there was really no where to camp.
A view from about 2000 ft up looking down on the entirity of Death Valley. It was beautiful!
Group shot of the crew. We decided to climb up a ways up the side of a mountain and took a shot there.

Lovell Canyon - Oct. 13th to Dec. 4th

I have been terribe at updating, so I'm going to try and get all of this up to date from Lovell Canyon, to Lake Mead!

Last of the Jeruselum crickets. They started to go into hibernation halfway through our time in Lovell.
Andy, hard at work on the trail. When we finished doing all of the trail to be finished, we had to move on to about a month's worth of rock work and random finishing jobs. Not gonna lie, that got old realllly fast, and I know the whole crew is glad to be done with Lovell Canyon.

Two of our Korean international volunteers decided to take a nap on the way to work one Monday morning. I don't think I blame them.
Clearing up slash! (Seriously, not that exciting, but you have to make it fun somehow, right?)
On top of "Jesus Peak" for an educational luncheon hour.

Cicada larvae. They look REALLY weird, and we could have sworn they were some kind of alien creature from another planet. Now onto Death Valley!

The big move is coming!

So the last two weeks have been relatively chill at work and I haven't really had much of a chance to take pictures. Starting this next week though, I'll be living and working out of Las Vegas, so the scenery will be changing and the projects, very different. The old camera will have to make a visit to the worksite in order to document said move, as well as the first week with the whole crew for the first time! Get ready for some pictures of the middle of California during my drive to Las Vegas and the first week of work in Lovell Canyon...

A training session!

So, last week, I was still with my normal crew, but we have been shoved together with another crew to allow a supervisor to take a sabbatical. it made our crew grow from 4 to 8, which was really cool! It gave me and Andy a chance to really try out our ability to lead more people.


But! after a day off, I was asked to be apart of a National Civilian Conservation Corps Team Leader training. They needed to learn how to build trail and then be able to teach their new crews how to build trail without us. They are a great group of people, FILLED with positivity and excitement. They've been with each other and only each other for the last 2 weeks, but you would never know! They manage to work with each other as a great team no matter who is put together and they work so hard it's ridiculous. We managed to redo an entire trail (3 miles) of the historic Flume Trail at Lake Tahoe. It was mostly moving sand, which is normally a boring job but they made it so much fun for me and them.



This is my excitement at working with the ever positive NCCC.
They loved the views and enjoyed eating lunch at some amazing vistas.

They get all of their gear given to them from the government (they are a national program instead of a state program like the NCC) and they rock it so hard!
Break time!
NCCC love! These boys worked like BEASTS all 3 days of training.


Safety meeting in the morning was freezing. Literally we were waking up to less than 32 degree weather. Every night was extraordinarily cold, and yet they kept an amazingly happy attitude.

I leave you with a beautiful view of Tahoe, but sadly it could never show how beautiful it is in real life. It is something all of those team leaders will hopefully keep in their mind while they are leading their new teams throughout the southwest and south in general. I loved working with them and they really brought a new light to my job that I can only hope I can pass on to my own crew. They taught me some things that I'm not sure I could even explain to them when they left because it's so ethereal and extraordinary, and I am bringing it next week to my crew as best as I can. I thank them for their excitement and teaching me how our job can continue to be fabulous no matter the downturn of events. Thank you thank you thank you NCCC!

The beginning of a new era...

Thus begins the a new era of NCC members. Year-long of course, and far more hardcore then I ever had to be. These guys are not only working and camping during the week, they are also camping on the weekends as well because we are all moving down to Vegas starting in October. This is a new way to run things, but it's definitely going to be interesting.
This is a chipmunk, blown up in size, that was staring at us, literally for minutes. Super creepy, and I had to show how weird this little creatures can be.
The new crew on break.
Rachel looking out over Tahoe...
Dustin and Sarah eating lunch on a nice outlook.
And a sweet group pic on a Thursday.

Orientation!

Well, Orientation started off with a bang, and tons of new people enjoying their new times. It definitely was a new beginning for a lot of them, and there was a lot of new tasks to learn, especially the swinging of a tool. As you can see below...

Or the sawing of trees...
They learned the names of tools and how to use them/carry them.
Or how to move rocks around with large sticks of steel.
They learned the 6 steps of Kate's trailbuilding.
And especially how to make funny faces at me while I'm trying to take pictures.
Mark Twain is from Nevada, and he graces the bench of a gas station on the way to work, Topher decided to sit with him for a while.
Nina, with her morning coffee!

All of the leaders getting ready for the days events.
And making faces at our new plans...
All ending with the Overall Triplets...