Hitch 6

Hitch Overview:
Day one of hitch six was spent doing community outreach. The Rands Crew handed out a total of 235 permits. The evening was spent listening to jazz, reading, writing, coloring, drawing, and eating amazing lasagna.
More community outreach was scheduled for day two, but due to a lack of OHV-ers on day one, the Rands Crew decided our time would be best spent by getting back to our roots with some good old restoration. The team headed out to the Northside of the Rand Mountains where we successfully completed four incursions.
On day three, the team traveled to Golden Valley, were we bestowed our much-sought-after restoration knowledge. We taught the Golden Valley team how to collect vertical mulch, dig holes for Creosote bushes, and even let them in on the secret Rand’s Creosote weaving technique. In return for our knowledge, Golden Valley invited us to hang out at their camp for a few hours were they fed us some very delicious veggie chili.
The environmental education for hitch six focused on the ethnobotany of plants native to the Rand Mountain Management Area. A power-point presentation about seven native plants was given. Then, some of the remedies, such as drinking Mormon tea to purify the blood, were tried.
Days four through six were spent with the Jawbone Crew in chainsaw training. During the first two days we learned all about the mechanics of the chainsaw, how to clean the chainsaw, how to sharpen the chain, and, most importantly, chainsaw safety and the required personal protective equipment (PPE). On the third day, we donned our PPE, and adventured out to the horse and burrow yard to put everything we learned to the test. Each crew member got to buck one ballard, and put two face-cuts and back-cuts in another. At the end of the day, we all received our S-212 Power Saw certification.
Day seven was spent back out in the field doing fence monitoring. We successfully repaired two fence cuts, one small downed section of fence, and monitored an un-marked section of road.
The team finished off hitch six with some more restoration during days eight and nine. We successfully completed three incursions, and opened a fourth that will be completed during hitch seven or eight.

Work Totals:
Number of permits distributed: 235
Incursions completed: 7
Fence monitored: 20 miles
Fence repairs: 3
Linear meters restored: 223
Area restored: 443 m2
Number of vertical mulch bushes: 84
Number of seed pits: 90
Number of check dams: 5
People hours: 513.5

Lessons Learned:
Make sure to have extra bar nuts, because they are easily lost.
You just can’t think of absolutely everything.