Hitch 10 began with our crew scouting the Dry Creek Trail to determine the projects that needed to be completed. We spent 4 long days hiking and brushing the trail and making notes of larger projects to be completed. We completed a rocky stream ford across the creek and broke ground on new trail for the upproach to the ford.
We spent 3 days on the Lena Lakes trail brushing and cleaning out drainages. One of the main issues with the Lena Lakes trail is that there are many long switchbacks that can be seen from other parts of the trail and many visitors cut the switchbacks. We tried to mitigate this issue by closing up the trails hikers use to cut the switchbacks with logs and plants. Our crew is now fiercely passionate about not cutting switchbacks!
The crew also had the chance to attend the forest-wide New Fiscal Year meeting in Quilcene where the successes from the previous year were noted and future projects on the forest were discussed. It was interesting to learn about all of the different projects that are going on in the forest at the same time and learning about the tasks of different departments within the Forest Service. The meeting ended with a potluck where we were able to talk with Forest Service employees about our crew and their jobs.
