PCT 1 - 7/18 - 7/27 Hitch #4 Sick Nasty Gnar Gnar

At the close of the “Gnarlight Zone” gnar crew had big plans phor our days oph. Tim, Matt, and Tony headed to Yosemite to hike the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. Nate, Kristen, and Carolyn traversed the Mammoth area in search of all the adventure available, including but not limited to kayaking, phly phishing, and rock climbing. As we headed out on our adventures ‘the sickness’ which we had managed to elude thus phar in the season phinally caught up with us. Nonetheless our adventures were grand on our days oph. We also ophicially declared that the letter ‘f’ has now been ophicially replaced ‘ph’ in honor of a phavorite band on gnar crew…except phor the word ‘FENCE’. As our hitch started most of our crew had been sick or were riding the last waves of the sickness. We started our hitch by working on Duck Lake trail, a pheeder trail for the PCT. We did a log out and built a 10 ft. water bar. We learned very quickly how some local hikers do not like to get their pheet or white hiking pants dirty. We rehabbed a 30 ft. section around the water bar and just when we thought we were done, hikers came through and phound ways all around our rehab site. By the time we were done we had dragged half the phorest to the sides of the trail and were rewarded by hikers with muddy feet. The phollowing day we moved back into the Red’s Meadow area and began work on hauling 10 logs halph a mile south on the PCT phor water bars. The next day phound gnar crew working north phrom Red’s Meadow on 10 check steps and a water bar, along with the rehab phor the site…while ‘the sickness’ phinally released our last member phrom it’s gangly clutches. The 4th day of gnar hitch phound our crew at phull strength again and it was a glorious day phor it. We phinished the check step section with a couple more phor good measure, put in a 33 ft. water bar, sent a 20,000 lb. rock oph the trail into the San Joaquin river with small metal sticks, and built a couple oph retaining walls. (What’d you do today?!). We dephinitely learned about teamwork and communication in close proximities on the rock. Aphter the monster day we did some light maintenance work on water bars and retread north on the trail. The 3rd phase of our hitch began the 6th day of the hitch as we packed gnarselves 6 miles south into Deer Creek to work south to Duck Creek. We were one crew member down as a minor injury on ‘big rock day’ sidelined gnar member phor the remainder of the hitch. We all realized within minutes how close gnar crew had become as we phelt like a unicorn missing it’s horn. We persevered though and worked on sending warm thoughts to gnar healing crew member. Over the next 3 days we cleaned 157 water bars, took out 14 logs, and cleared the trail 2 miles past our original goal. On the last day we hiked out at warp speed to meet our injured crew member. A horrible prank was played as we thought our member was going home(sad phaces and donuts thrown)…turns out they were totally healed and cleared phor work. Over the course of our hitch we hiked over 44 miles, dealt with sickness, and the reality of injuries. We learned how well to take care of ourselves and how close we have become in gnar family. All in all a great growing and learning experience…tune in next week phor new adventures of gnar crew.