Hitch Four - San Bernardino National Forest

Our 4th hitch was not as we had anticipated, due to mountain biker activists, missing paperwork and Congressional delays. But we soon found ourselves (only a day late) back at the location of our 2nd hitch: San Bernardino National Forest. Once again we had a whole campsite loop to ourselves, and we felt so at home, we decided to bring along one of our couches. It made a lovely addition to our campsite decor!

We were able to get a good workout every day, our hike to work started at about 3 miles. It was great to hike over our previous work, enjoy the wide, freshly brushed corridor, and see how well our rock structures were holding up. After we completed two rock retaining walls that were started by another crew, we tackled the thick brush up trail. We played many a game whilst we lopped. Ada had many boxes of mysterious contents, hinky pinky's abounded, and I learned that you can't tow a head of lettuce across a stream so that a goat won't eat it. We lopped until we got a little bit loopy, but eventually we worked so far up the trail that we could enjoy views of snow capped peaks, our previous work looked far far below us.

The last two days of work, we were able to drive our truck to the top of the ridge and hike down (1 mile) instead of up (3 miles) to work. This was quite a relief, although it did get us into a bit of car trouble. But the Forest Service and their glorious mustaches came to the rescue. Over the course of the hitch we worked hard, had glorious weather, a campfire most nights, and many a delicious meal. Now we're all looking forward to our next, and sadly last, hitch at Laguna Mountain!

- Heather