Hitch 8 South Zone Trails
So Long Stanley…….Another trails hitch at Cape Horn! You know what that means don’t ya?! We have to work hard but we also get to play hard. Thanks to the Cape Horn Guard Station, every work day was followed by our crew coming “home,” turning on the music, cooking and eating dinner as a family, jokes and laughs, maybe a shower, and a movie. Sounds pretty rough huh?
Our first week out, the crew was at fast Valley Creek Trail. Our mission? A few checks steps, filling in a 40ft. entrenchment with rock, re-din two ditches for culverts, and replace the curbs o either side of the bridge. The idea was to build a sort of ramp on either side of the bridge to make it an easier pass for the ATV’s. So we hauled rock in for that and put in a check step on each side to keep those rocks from rolling away. There were culverts placed in both sides already but since they were poking out we had to dig them out, make the hole bigger, and then bury them in again. We joked about how much we just loved to dig a hole, then fill it back in. We then had to replace the log curbs on the bridge. Our sawyer felled us two nice trees, we limbed them and used some draw knives to remove the bark. That was a nice break from hauling and crushing rock. We wound up finishing early and scrambled a bit to stay busy the last day. What can I say, we’re just that good!
The next week we had to finish up some projects from the previous crew. Our mission? To become best friends with shovels and double jacks. We had to haul rocks and dirt to fill and cover two causeways. They both are on Knapp Creek a ways and it took us about an hour to hike into each morning. At 2:40, it’s just a nice way to start the day. We put four check steps in the second causeway and we all know what the entails. Lots of rock and lots of crushing went down after those check steps. To pass the time we counted how many times we each got hit from the flying shards. I didn’t get to see a moose on this hitch either, but there’s still time I suppose.
This was our last hitch in Stanley, Idaho, I’d say we went out with a BANG!!!