Pacific Crest Trail 2 - Summer 2010

Why hello there, my name is Lori Barrow. I'm originally from an extremely small town of Brimfield, IL, but now call the beautiful city of Carbondale home. You can usually find me running around the woods on any given day with my dogs, leaping from rock to rock, or causing a hula hooping ruckus about town. After I received my B.S. in Forestry, I was ready to get out into the world and experience the great outdoors - to actually be a part of what I talk about! I have always found my solace among the trees and look forward to what the great western states have to offer. Hope to see you on the trails!

Our penultimate hitch put us in the heart of the Kiava Wilderness, just south of Sequoia National Forest. We drove about two hours in on some windy back roads that clung to the hillside all the way up to our camp at 7500 ft in the Skodie Mountains. He had heard that bad weather was approaching so we psyched ourselves up to get snowed on. We put in two full days of work before our old buddy the rogue volunteer came by in a Jeep and told us that we should plan on at least 8 inches. We got up the next morning with an inch on the ground and it still falling steadily. We decided the safe thing to do was drive out then, while we knew we could make it. So we headed for Ridgecrest with ideas to wait out the storm and attempt to find another place to work. The next morning we went back to Walker pass where we had stayed the previous hitch… it lies around 5000 ft so we assumed we would see some trail… we were mistaken. But we did have a great time playing in the snow. We made the safe decision and got off the mountain and had to sacrifice a few days of work. Like any trail crew member will tell you, the job takes sacrifices.

On our next hitch we were treated to nights indoors. We were again working with the other SCA-PCT crew but this time staying in a Forest Service cabin overlooking Lake Arrowhead and working in Deep Creek. We put in at Splinters Cabin and worked South doing some treadwork and the routine lopping. The other crew found some spots that would benefit from a retaining wall and worked with the PCTA and some rigging equipment. We moved ahead the first few days but then worked North from the cabin on some rock checks and drainage structures. Much of the trail was severely eroded and there were many sections where exposed rock made travel dangerous. It was an opportunity to employ our critical thinking and use a combination of techniques and structures we had learned earlier. Having been at it for three months it was a great to get a project that let us flex out creative muscle. Having learned the building blocks and essential elements of trailwork, the crew was able to begin combining and altering the concepts to create sustainable solutions. Unfortunately we forgot to photograph these amazing structures. But we had another fun hitch with ideal weather and a great time in the house with the other crew.

My name is Matt Shea and I am a liver of life. My Mother gave birth to me in Connecticut and I lived there for nearly 20 years. In fact I think it was almost exactly twenty years. But then I heard the mountains call (it went something like: "cuckoo cuckoo"), and so I packed up my car and hit the road for Oregon. Now, two and a half years and a thousand adventures later I live in Connecticut again, working part time shoveling snow off the sides of a giant inflatable dome.

Our next hitch brought us to the Columbia River National Scenic Area. Constituting a good part of the border between Washington and Oregon “The Gorge” is quintessential Pacific Northwest; it has unique geology, a wide variety of flora and fauna and breathtaking scenic vistas. We were located on the shoulder of Table Mountain, just over the Bridge of the Gods on the Washington side. We created a campsite near where the PCT crosses an old logging road and not far from a small creek. We worked North from the campsite doing some brushing, outsloping and a few small drainage structures. Much of our time was also spent in a stream crossing that was blown out annually due to the spring runoff and the steep grade with which it crossed the trail. To prevent this from happening again we built a gabion: a wire mesh box filled with rocks. After constructing the box, we set it into the slope and filled it with rock before sewing it shut and stacking another on top it. The two boxes ran 14 feet long, three deep and, three tall, thus tying into the solid mineral soil on both ends and elevating the trail to the proper height. It was another great project that allowed us to practice what we had learned earlier and challenge us with new construction ideas and techniques. We had invaluable assistance from both the Forest Service and PCTA and were helped by volunteers with some of the treadwork. We were also joined by our slimy friends the slugs, some of which made it onto a helmet which we all took turns wearing.

I grew up in the midwest where I attended St Olaf College in Minnesota, majoring in Environmental Studies with a focus on the humanities. Following my graduation in May '09 I took an SCA internship in Lake Clark National Park in Alaska, and since then I've been involved with the SCA as a member of the Desert Restoration Corps, a high school crew leader, and now am looking forward to trail work on the Pacific Crest Trail. My family tells me I'll soon tire of sleeping on the ground and working out in the elements-- but that's something I look forward to most in this upcoming crew. I find that while many things are simplified living outdoors, relationships are stronger and more genuine in the woods.

Hitch number three put us in the Wenatchee National Forest, just Southeast of spectacular Mt. Ranier, near White Pass, Washington. We were also finally made a complete crew by the addition of Alex Aaker, an SCA alumna an seasoned outdoors-woman. We rode the chairlift to the top of Pigtail Peak and set up camp right under the chairlift terminal. We were then introduced the world of check steps: structures that run perpendicular to the tread and retain soil thus mitigating the effects of erosion and elevating the height of the tread, making travel much easier. We were assisted by some fine US Forest Service people in the falling of trees and then set to work debarking and bucking them up into 6-8 foot lengths. We dug anchor points into the slope on both sides of the trail, making sure they were deep enough to prevent water from seeping underneath. We back-filled them with rock and capped them with soil, packing and tamping them down all the while. We had our first volunteers of the season as well as our first rain... no connection of course. We also had two days off in the middle of our long hitch and made an overnight trek into the Goat Rocks Wilderness. It was another fantastic time in which we furthered our construction skills and our connection to the land.

After the drive to Oregon our season began with a couple of reroutes near Mt. Washington in the Willamette Nation Forest. Sections of the trail were so badly eroded that the rocky bench was nearly impassible. We started by cutting the corridor through thick Pacific Northwest forests. There were trees and bushes to plow through, downed logs to remove, rocks to avoid and a number of other obstacles to tackle before we began cutting actual trail. We had a blast swing axes, working the crosscut saws and using all of our new skills to give the trail those nice curves and scenic vistas. Once the corridor was cut we set to making the smooth bench and gentle grades that western trails are known for. It was hugely rewarding to create such a nice piece of trail from scratch and then get to rehabilitate the old section in attempts to restore it to its natural state. We worked really hard in the beautiful weather and only got more excited for the work to come.