Idaho AmeriCorps 2011

Hitch 5 Travel/Vegetation

A small crew of core members Kyle and Eric spent the first week of
this hitch finishing up the BLM Travel Management project. This
involved using GPS and maps to find primitive roads and install signs.
Kyle and Eric continued the vegetation project during the second week,hiking through previously burned areas to measure tree re-growth.Megan and Jenna also helped with the vegetation project.
We spent our time sampling seedling regen near Blackbird Mine. For 10 hours a day, we traversed through fallen trees and debris looking for plots using Garmin GPS units, topomaps, and compii. We also sampled huckleberries from time-to-time, which grew in thick mats on the forest floor, lush from the acidic soil and burn debris. Lodgepole pine were struggling for recruitment, bunching in waist high clusters. Even the devastating clear creek fire eventually mends. 10 years later, early succession is in full swing in the Salmon-Challis.

Dan and Kelly returned to Red Rock Peak for Hitch #4, eager to survey the area's remaining U-routes. Walking a total of 25.3 miles of routes in four days, the abbreviated crew returned to Moyer for GIS data management on July 22nd. The two had ample opportunities to bond during the hitch. They enjoyed each other's company in the beautiful, remote wilds of the Idaho summer.

The project was working for the Forest Service and assisting in implementing the newest Travel Plan for the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Our job began with an early departure from Moyer in an old Dodge extended cab 4x4 truck to meet our Forest Service Contact Ken in Salmon. Ken set us up with large maps of the travel plan, a packet of map enlargements with numbers indicating intersections and a long list of the hundreds of numbers with their corresponding road names, road numbers and road classifications. Our job was to post carsonite signs on all class 2 roads- unimproved dirt roads designated for 4x4 access. It’s amazing what they call accessible to 4x4 trucks! Our area of focus was forest surrounding the town of Leadore. A population of 90, but only maybe if you count the cows! The high school has 9 kids…total! We were fortunate enough to be put up in the old ranger’s house, an unfurnished 3 bedroom, stove AND refrigerator including STRUCTURE! By far the most posh floor/ accommodation we have slept on in 3 months.

Ken took us out on the first day to show us how to pound the carosnite, demonstrate the proper labeling methods, and explain the proper placement etc. He poked fun when we would get out and check shallow stream crossings or put the truck in 4-wheel drive. Apparently, we are more cautious than the average forest service employee, but he didn’t mind. The two of us would switch off driving and navigating. There are an ungodly number of roads traversing in and around the forest. Most of them unauthorized, so finding the designated route became a guess and check- hot and cold game with the GPS.

Our most exciting story of the excursion shadows the fact that we saw some of the most beautiful country, visited amazing campsites and enjoyed the thrill of stepping foot, for the first time, on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). Nina spotted, galloping in the distance, (dum da DA)… A MOOSE!! The gate, size shape and color distinguished the beast from anything we had ever seen before. Its legs were so long that it simply walked/stepped over a 4 foot barbwire cow fence and lifted its hind legs over together without a thought. How Cool! We wished we could have been closer, but the gal was moving through the sage and we heard coyotes howling from its presence. We were both really hoping to see the northwestern king of big game and we did! Wahoo!

It was a great opportunity to see a lot of the forest, visit a few new campgrounds and sleep in a house. A half hitch of something new and heavily reliant on navigation skills was enjoyable. We are getting pretty good at planning routes, reading the map and GPS simultaneously and can rock crawl the truck over some serious terrain.

Hitch 4 Wildlife in the Lost Range
We started out Monday not knowing much of where we were going to be. Once we met with Mike, our Agency contact with the Forest Service, we thought we had a better understanding but apparently it’s called the Lost Range for a reason. The roads and the map did not match the best. We were told to work Arco Pass and north. When we made our way out to the pass we discovered it’s a very dry place; not a good area for aspen. We roamed the area for three days in search of aspen. The beginning attempts did not go so well but by the last day we found a good area. It was back in the mountains around the Pass Creek. Our inventory came out to be 16 aspen stands, about 6 canyons explored, and hundreds of miles driven. Camping in the Lost Range was another task after trying to decide on a decent place we still ended up sleeping the night in a windstorm. The second night and third night were better but, many bugs to deal with. Thankfully Jason and I were all about being positive no matter what. I think it also helped that we had good hot meals to end the long days. When it came to wild life viewing; Jason and I sadly did not have much luck! In the Lost Range we saw birds and cows. Our drive out from Moyer was much more exciting. We got to see elk, deer, rabbits, and of course birds and livestock. This journey was fun and exciting from an exploring perspective but not a good area for aspen. We are happy with what we did find though because this area has not been surveyed. It’s exciting to know we’ve done the first research.

LNT Trainer Course:
Master LNT Trainer: Jackie Lucero LNT Trainer Assistant: Megan Petermann: LNT Trainer Students: John Matthews, Daniel Perez, Jessica Macy, Kyle Taylor, Kelly Krieves.
Location: Bighorn Crags July 23-25, 2011
The goal of Leave No Trace (LNT) is to teach principles and guidelines not rules. LNT encourages responsibility of folks in the outdoors by reducing or preventing their impact on the environment they so greatly respect. The seven principles are: 1. Plan Ahead and Prepare 2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces 3. Dispose of Waste Properly 4. Leave What you Find 5. Minimize Campfire Impacts 6. Respect Wildlife 7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors. Each corps member was assigned one principle and had to educate the group on the meaning behind it in an outdoor setting.

On our first day we met up and had a discussion on Planning Ahead and Being Prepared. Group gear and food was laid out and divided up between us all. We were on our way to The Crags! One vehicle was in much delight of a very good CD mix of tastes across the board focusing on the early 90’s to get us pumped up for our backpacking trip. Upon Arrive to the Trail Head we gave ourselves a quick bite to eat and a snap of the camera and we were on our way; 7 miles to Wilson Lake. Many a beautiful site was seen as we hiked along the mountain ridges and rims, trekked through snow, and hiked across granite slabs. Several stunning alpine lakes, white bark pine, lodge pole pine, and remarkable spires of granite were gazed upon. Weather could not have been better with temperatures in the 70’s and cool breezes on our faces. Getting to Wilson Lake was easy enough but, some time was taken to select a place we would call home and classroom for the next few days. We trekked through waist deep snow (for some knee) to get to the other side where we would find a spot to camp. A spot was decided upon beside the lake and would do more than suffice. An early night was called for some to rest their weary bodies.
Our first morning in the Crags was spent making delectable almond pancakes with real maple syrup and butter. Nice hot cups of tea and coffee were served as well as good conversation with good folks. After our breakfast we had a lesson in Being Considerate of others presented by Nina in a discussion form based around people and technology vs. people and nature. Lunches making time came as well as clean up. We resourcefully used the snow to our advantage by storing our bear bins of freshies and cheese to keep them cool. Off we went on our day hike across a large granite slab down to the valley bottom where the snow and sites were again plentiful. Boot skiing and sledding was taken advantage of in full. Our Lunch spot brought on another lesson of Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces. Kyle had us hiking around the immediate area to find where we would camp, cook, set up a latrine and travel and why. The latrine leads right into Jess’s lesson of Dispose of Waste Properly wherein she gave us statistics on how long popular items took to decompose. Did you know that it takes roughly 2 years to for an orange peel to decompose? Jess also shared with us the proper way to dispose of our own human waste and led to our turn around back to camp. Along long the route back, we stopped for another quick sled run. Retuning to our camp, we took some down time while John geared up for his Respect Wildlife lesson. John discussed with us why respecting wildlife from a distance is as important to an animal’s health as is properly storing your food with bear hangs and or bear bins so that an animal cannot obtain it. We had a lovely little classroom session by our bear hang and what proper distances for them are. Some reflection time came for folks as did dinner of curry lentil soup with quinoa, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. With our bellies full Kelly began her lesson of Minimizing Campfire Impact. Kelly constructed a small mound fire on top of a fire blanket. A small fire was produced as were the fixing for smores; none of which were wasted. Through full bellies and minds at ease it was time to clean up and head for bed to get the much needed rest for the hike out. Our final morning came with winds, thunder, and light rain; enough to motivate us to get going on our way. Breakfast was a quick and easy of Granola, dried milk, and coffee and tea. The last of our freshies were used to make our last lunches as was good old fashion peanut butter and d jelly. Pack up cam and we were on our approach to the Trail Head and one final lesson along the way. Leave What You Find was the last lesson given by Dan at our final break before the end of the trail. Dan gave us some word teasers to prove the point that you don’t get the whole story if something is missing. Taking objects can take away from other peoples experience and disturb the land. All of our lessons were now complete; we had the last leg of our trail and the drive home to complete prior to a home cooked meal, shower, and bed. A successful LNT course for sure with great memories to share.

Hitch #3 U-routes Synopsis:

Brett and Kelly attacked the Yellowjacket Mine area during Hitch #3, surveying over 90 U-Routes, including three near the Middle Fork Lookout that were only accessible via an 18-mile trek. They were able to meet with the owners of both Yellowjacket and Blackeagle, incredibly generous Idaho mountain residents who took pity on the tired workers, repeatedly inviting them in for conversation and delicious burgers. The pair also struck gold near their campsite at Yellowjacket Creek and spent hours excitedly panning with their dinner plates. It was an excellent hitch over-all, resulting in much work accomplished and many mountains conquered.

Wildlife Hitch3 started off right after 4th of July break, with a bang! By the way, it’s quite challenging to find any open car-garages to get auto repairs; for that reason, I was late as hitch-leader, so my crewmate, Jenna took over and Megan subbed. The gals got 2 out of 3 assigned forest-service roads surveyed before I could make it back to trade spots. Being GPS-novices, we temporarily “lost” some of aspen-points they took, so we needed to retrace their steps in order to take duplicates, which later became a confusing mess we’d have to sort in the office. But in the field, I learned Jenna has amazing eyesight for wildlife, and could spot an elk hidden amongst crowded conifers while driving (carefully) on our way to scout near a beautiful alpine lake. We ended up inventorying aspen on an adjacent forest-service road (total of 29 stands after hiking about 8 miles). Camping near the river meant we were eaten alive by mosquitoes; there also happen to be inadequate windbreaks when a thunderstorm came through, thus our tent poles were bent by high-winds, but at least we stayed dry! We also had some time to explore the campgrounds, where we watched fish, found a tree that smelled of pina-colada, played horse-shoes and hooted at an owl that later responded with a screech! While coming back to base for the weekend, we saw a small herd of bighorn sheep!
Over the break, I decided to prepare meals a head of time instead of just surviving on cheese and “in-town” food, so I cooked way too much curry and pasta-sauce, but it was good to have free “real” meals and plenty of leftovers.

For the first few days of part2, we were blessed with Megan’s company again, who helped us eat some of that extra food, but more than that, she helped spot the driver turn around in narrow roads and together, we removed several obstacles along the route. I think she also appreciated my frequent stops to admire the local flora. Because the landscape was mostly steep scree slopes, we could only take 7 non-inventory points of aspen stands along 5miles, and then drove past an old forest-fire atop the summit, where there were epic views, white-pines, and tons of wildflowers from the recent snow-melt. After some gate-code mix-ups, we headed to a ridgeline, but our outdated maps didn’t show the many branches of fire-access roads; this led us to explore a dead-end before we took what we believe to be the right road and hiked over 3miles along almost entirely lodgepole dominated post-burn forest. Suddenly the weather changed, and we were pelted with hail as lightning flashed in the not-too-distant landscape. It was refreshing but definitely got the adrenaline going to help the rush back to the vehicle. This time we camped at higher elevations, so we weren’t bothered by insects as much. However, I learned free-range cattle can moo all night…and eventually begin to sound like fog-horns when drifting off to sleep. I also discovered my crewmate’s pyro-talent, and lovingly gave her the title, smore-technician; also, turns out, Nutella makes a tasty alternative to hershey’s chocolate! The rest of the hitch was spent doing office work, like uploading GPS data, photos, and organizing files, as well as running some SCA errands before heading back to home-base. Of course, we had to make a pit-stop to look at 4 different species of penstemmon.

During the second hitch of Wildlife, the crew consisted of Jeff (myself) and Jess. We continued to find and inventory Aspen stands in the area south of Moyer. The process went smoothly, with dozens of stands inventoried. The off-trail hikes needed to reach the stands brought us through a multitude of stunning forest locations that are rarely visited by people. Megan one of our project leaders came out with our small crew on several days, assisting in the inventories and enjoying the local environment with us. The 2 week hitch concluded with a night of camping in Salmon and then downloading and organizing our GPS data the following day. After this hitch, the Aspen stands near Moyer have essentially been fully inventoried.

Dear Diary,
We survived! All four of us managed to make it through our second hitch! We were doing trail work on the Wagon Hammer Trail, which was the way Lewis and Clark adventured through hundreds of years prior. Our crew was pretty excited because although we were in backcountry territory, we were packed in by The Back Country Horse men so we did not have to haul in all our equipment. It wound up being 98 F so the fact that mules were carrying our packs, tools, and food was just delightful! To say the least! The Forest Service was there to show us what needed to be done and help guide us through the work. This is a trail meant for horses so our first project was to fill in two large dips to make the trail even. We used rocks from the upslope and from where we were cutting in the bench to make the tread wider to fill in the dips then covered it with dirt. This is called a retaining wall which adds stability to the tread. This was one of the only parts of the trail we worked on that was in shade so it was hard to leave this spot! One of our other main priorities was digging post holes for the new signs to be put up that mark the trail. Once we installed the posts, we built up a cairn around it to prevent cattle from using it as a scratch post. This proved to be quite a challenge at times because rocks large enough for the base of the cairn were few and far between. For the whole duration of our hitch we were quite a sight for sore eyes! We were all covered with dirt, mosquito bites, and sweat scrambling up and down hills that were coated with cow pies, horse poop, and flies. Good times! All together we installed 9 signs and cairns. The rest of our time was spent removing brush, clearing tread, and putting objects and obstacles on game trails to divert attention from them and keep horses and other users on the actual trail. Our crew maintained and restored 3,890 feet of trail; which is amazing! But I don’t think any of us were too sad to leave Wagon Hammer and come back to Moyer for showers and a clean bed! Till the next adventure…….