Week 7: End of Lake Tahoe

October 14th, 2007

Day 1: Probably the most barren lot we've ever worked in, and there were 2 fences to put in to keep out the neighbours. They went in like butter, and even though we were tired and overall not willing to work hard, we got a lot done.

















Jen, our project partner from the US Forest Service is absolutely amazing and surprised us with lunch! Homemade pizzas! It was delicious... we took quite a long lunch break because we were so full, and there was so little work to do at the end of the season like this.
























Soo full! But there was still work to do.













There were fences to finish, and we were there to do it. We only split one pole, which we marked and went back the next day to finish...











Night/Morning of Day 3! Holy Wah there was more then 2 inches of snow on the ground! It was outrageous, and totally chilly...











These were taken at 6 am, so by 10 am or so it was much clearer and we were able to do normal work.











Instead, we spent our Wednesday morning sharpening tools and doing overall cleaning of the bays that we keep the Forest Service tools.











Wednesday afternoon almost all of the snow was gone and it was much warmer. I took off like 3 layers, completely ridiculous. We built this sweet little diddy of a fence. The neighbour we were building it because did NOT like that we were there. He was taking our pictures and we had to be very careful not to walk on his land.







Magically, our project partner, Jen, is not only hospitable with her food but also offered us her house because of the extraordinary cold. So Thursday morning, we took our sweet time getting ready for work, and by 9 am we were on our way up an educational hike outside of her neighbourhood in Christmas Valley in South Lake Tahoe. These are the views from the small mountain/hill we climbed.



















We got a little frisky and decided to have some fun with pictures. The girl in red, Stephanie (not my roommate) is actually standing on a rock below, but they wanted it to look otherwise. I feel as though we pulled this off...









Group shot! From left to right starting in the far back: Our new supervisor, Matt (standing), Nick, Stephanie, Eric (our current sup), Jen (project partner with Jasper the puppy in front of Eric), Lara, Colton, Becky, Stephanie, Kate, Andrew (our crew leader) and myself.








That afternoon we got to some actual work and finished cleaning up around the bays. Behind Colton is our pile of wood that we harvested 3 weeks ago... it is practically gone. We used an impressive amount of wood in 3 weeks.









Jen's boyfriend (who is an artist), while we were staying at their house decided that it would be a great idea to shave a star in my head. Who am I to say 'no' to an artist? So there is my starfish named Gordon. Unfortunately you can barely see it now because I trimmed the rest of my head but for a while Gordon was prominent.







Instead of cleaning, some of us went to another site to fix a very bashed up fence. It took us an hour and a half to do something that shouldn't have taken so long but there was a lot more work then the Forest Service knew about. Being a thorough crew we couldn't leave something half done.





















Like I said, there wasn't much work for us this week, so we went on another educational experience to the salmon spawning grounds a ways from South Lake.










These are the salmon. They aren't normally so bright red, they turn from a sparkly blue to this vivid red to pick up the ladies during spawning time.










This is our drive home this week. We were far to the West side of the Lake so we went past Emerald Bay which is probably one of the prettiest places on the Lake.









Next week begins our treks down south, beginning with Ash Meadows. This will be a new experience for most of us because it's 8 days out, and we have a brand new supervisor and new kinds of work. So be prepared for a new kind of work and pictures!