Hitch 4

For hitch 4 our heroes continued on, this time for an 11 day stint in El Malpais with temperatures dropping quickly as winter began to set in. They worked at times in snow and heavy winds and woke up to temperatures as low as 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Were these conditions enough to discourage or even stop them?

NO, they were not.

Onward they continued, continuing to raise their standards of excellence as always. After a brief stint at vertical mulching the crew moved on to the CDT for 4 days to take only lunch breaks and leave only cairns (and tread) on a yet to be completed portion of the trail near the Chain of Craters.

Crew members were forced to endure a string of games imposed upon them by their ToCo including communication breakdown, and were likewise forced to submit themselves to a constant barrage of home made cookies and several pounds of peanut M&Ms. Additional activities included a WFR scenario to brush up on their first aid skills and a real-life barbeque with BLM employees at the El Malpais Ranger Station.

The crew started and nearly completed taking down their 3rd fencing exclosure at Armijo Canyon, this one measuring approximately 1.4 miles. At the end of the hitch crewmembers simultaneously looked forward to their last hitch in El Malpais and eagerly awaited their move to California where they will live (hopefully) within miles of Joshua Tree and will spend the winter months working in the milder conditions of Southern California.

More hitch photos can be viewed publically at Picasaweb.google.com/sjgarlejo and picasaweb.google.com/jaredfehr

The End.