Hitch 9: Kiavah invades Grass Valley [1]
Tank tops, shorts, and flip flops were worn. Winter coats were left at home. It was light out after dishes. Flowers bloomed. Spring had sprung in Grass Valley!
Grass Valley? What was the Kiavah crew doing in the Grass Valley Wilderness, you ask? We were playing Bananagrams, cribbage, and Settlers of Catan. We were learning how to Double Dutch jump rope and how to set up two Green Monsters joined at one of the doors! We also finally got to experience gorgeous sunsets every night (in Kiavah the sunset is blocked by mountains) and saw a gopher snake and a huge flock of migrating birds. Camping with the Grass Valley crew was a blast and we got to help them welcome Adam, their new member!
In between sunsets, games, and learning new wildflowers the fourteen of us built two kilometers of fence along the wilderness boundary in Grass Valley. Mr. Matt Duarte—our outstanding program coordinator—came to visit, learn how to Double Dutch, and teach us how to fence. For Kiavah it was a refresher course, but for Grass Valley it was new material. We worked with our respective crews for the first few days: Kiavah constructed the quarter mile section of fence farthest from the road while Grass Valley worked on the section closest to the road. Finishing the first section and the middle section were joint efforts; working with members of the opposite crew was a learning experience as we sought to find a common process of fence construction. Upon completion of that initial kilometer of fence we moved to a new work site and began building what will be a three or four mile fence.
The Kiavah crew is looking forward to our SEEP day next hitch! SEEP is the Sand Canyon Environmental Education Program, designed for area 4th graders to learn about water conservation in the riparian ecosystem of Sand Canyon in the Owens Peak Wilderness. Sand Canyon is the perfect juxtaposition of an aquatic system and the dry desert ecosystem; we also cannot wait to get back to Owens to see how it looks covered with wildflowers!
Until next time,
Molly for Kiavah
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Hitch 8, In Like a Lamb, Out Like a Lion [10]
We returned to the Kiavah Wilderness for Hitch 8 for another exciting and challenging hitch! With Charlie as Hitch Leader, we headed to the desert.
Kiavah Crew began this particular desert stint finishing up several restoration projects and eventually finishing all of our work in Horse Canyon. Earlier in the season, we started a project to build a hard barrier arc and make another campsite along the road. However, the soil was too rocky and at a rate of about 6 inches an hour, we decided the manual digging was not worth our time. Luckily, the Friends of Jawbone came out to help. The Friends of Jawbone are a group of responsible OHVers that partner with the BLM and are generally nice folks, but most importantly- they have an auger!! With the auger and the chainsaw, we got the campsite finished in a single day! Thanks Friends of Jawbone!
Mid-hitch our dusty trusty diesel truck had some issues with the security system. While it got towed to be fixed, we got a flashy rental truck with XM radio- what a treat!
As usual, there were many beautiful sunsets, sunrises, and amazing cloud formations above the Eastern Sierras. Yet, the most beautiful moment of all came on our last day of fieldwork. Waking up in the morning to fog, the weather quickly turned. Soon, the largest snowflakes we have ever seen (Even Molly from Wisconsin thought so!) began to drop from the sky by the bucket load. Taking advantage of the moisture, we broadcast seeded some desert seeds on the hill we restored two hitches before. With intermittent snowball fights and general rejoicing, we finished out Hitch 8 cold, wet, but in good spirits. Never have I seen the El Paso and Southern Sierra mountain ranges so picturesque! We returned to our green monster for tea, toast, and to wrap up a successful hitch.
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Hitch 7: All Corps! [16]
For All-Corps, every crew banded together east of Death Valley, in the wonderful area of Shoshone. We were right next to Tecopa, home of hot springs and a date farm. The day after pre-hitch, we struck out through the desert towards our destination, going south through Barstow and then back up to Tecopa.
Day One consisted of visiting the nearby Dumont sand dunes and a wonderful little hot springs. We walked all over the dunes, and tried (unsuccessfully) to slide down them on cooler lids. After we got all sandy, it was time to sink down and relax at the hot springs. We talked with some of the locals (very nice people), and had a mini-mud fight. Getting out of the water wasn’t fun, though.
On Day Two, we trekked over to the China Ranch Date Farm where we would be working for the next five days. We got a brief introduction, and then got down to business. We were divided into groups of six people, mostly from different crews, and we were all lead by a WildCorps personnel and a member of the Barstow BLM. There were a few different things that each individual crew was doing. We hiked around the perimeter of the date farm clearing the trail up, did trail work along the Amargosa from the north end of Slot Canyon down to the date farm, cleaned up a small trail along the front side of the date farm, and cut back mesquite to make a new trail. It was hard going, but we were rewarded with date shakes at the end of the five days we spent there (go try their date shakes, they’re delicious).
Then, it was time for Jawbone and Rands to go home. Kiavah, Grass Valley, and WildCorps stayed for the Shoshone conference, a group of wilderness activists, members of the BLM, and national park workers. It was a very informative two days, full of different concerns and cheers. For instance, I never knew that wind farms were so problematic!
We got to camp out on a lawn not far from the conference center (grass, sweet grass beneath my feet). They had a library and a hot water pool! It was very fun hanging out with Grass Valley and WildCorps for two extra days, and all too soon, it was time to go home.
Kiavah and Grass Valley drove through the Death Valley National Park, and stopped at Badwater Basin (lowest place in the United States, wow!), the visitor’s center (they had a nice film about Death Valley and its history), Salt Water interpretive trail, and the Artist’s Palette. We even visited a ghost town! Not quite what we thought it would be, but very cool nonetheless.
Finally, we arrived back at home for post-hitch. Everyone’s worn out from a long hitch, but we all had a ton of fun! I can’t wait for next hitch.
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Hitch 6 [24]
After spending all 12 days at the house during Hitch 5, Kiavah crew was back working on a plethora of projects in the Kiavah and Jawbone area. We camped alongside the Jawbone crew as we experienced many different climates that included rain, clouds, extreme wind speed, cold days and nights, and hot and sunny days. Kiavah crew endured through the obstacles to camp out in the wilderness but also complete a lot of great work.
The big project of Hitch 6 was building an erosion control system on a very large hill climb. Using wooden bollards placed at the right proximity to one another, the bollards will disallow rainfall to trickle down the hill in the same path and erosion will be prevented. This was easily one of our hardest projects all season because we had to carry all our tools and material, including 40 Lbs. bollards, up a steep slope. Even with the high degree of difficulty, we did an excellent job while enjoying our time on the project. Even Marty, our BLM contact, came out to help us with our project!
It wasn’t all an uphill battle; we took a day off from our big project and teamed up with Jawbone to restore more than 900 meters of illegal routes! While restoring the incursions, we used methods like planting vertical mulch, laying Joshua trees on the path, and we broke out the rock bar and teamed up to move boulders on the incursion. While moving rocks, our fearless leader Will Hagen, displayed his super natural strength and moved a massive boulder all by himself! Other projects we completed were putting in hard barriers and restoring the area to block off an incursion and we also used hard barriers to create a turn-around while defining and blocking off an illegal route.
Hitch 6 was full of different climates, beautiful sun rises/sets, amazing work, and great people. After a great 12 day hitch, we are all glad to be back at our “Half-way Home” and to be on break. And we ended just in time for the super bowl!!!
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Hitch 5 [32]
Back from break and better than ever, Kiavah Crew jumped into the New Year and into a rather unusual hitch. Smack dab in the middle of our twelve day stint was nestled a three day Chainsaw Training Session put on by the BLM Firefighters at Salt Wells Fire Station. Realizing the inefficiency of setting up camp in the field for the first four days only to take it all down for the Chainsaw training and then doing it again for that last few days, Hitch 5 became Hitch Ridgecrest as the crew spent each night in town.
While sleeping in a warm house, 24 hour access to an actual oven, hot showers (note theme: warm things), and the disposal of the internet’s full entertainment value are certainly luxuries to relish, we refused to let these creature comforts make us soft. The crew took the opportunity to get good rest at night so as to perform quality work during the day, driving out to the Kiavah Wilderness and Owens Peak Wilderness while the sun shone. We continued our progression of restoration leading out of Horse Canyon, putting in hard barriers where needed to further protect the Wilderness spaces.
Of the work we did, not least of which was to completely update our Trimble GPS device with data of what we have accomplished so far. After having some setbacks with other devices earlier in the season it was great to have a fully functioning Trimble to get all our data in the right place. What this meant for us was that every day we would split into a Trimble Crew and a Restoration Crew, a one-two punch. After plugging in some steady days we’ve gotten everything recorded and put behind us (quite satisfying) and are now ready to keep chugging, Trimbling as we go.
Of course the hallmark of Hitch 5 was the Chainsaw training itself. Instructed by BLM Firefighter John Homer with added lessons from Chief Don Washington and firefighters Craig, Kenny, and Henry, Kiavah Crew joined Jawbone Crew for three days of class room and hands on training with the powersaws. We eased into what could be an intimidating enterprise with the Firefighters support and soon had a sound base for saw maintenance, saw safety, tree felling, limbing, and bucking, and H-brace/hard barrier construction. The lumberjack mythos has been kindled in our smoldering hearts!!
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The 12 days of Hitchmas! [43]
Greetings from the Kiavah Krew!
Our 4th hitch was just as ducky as the last, filled with snow, cookies, holiday cheer, and a few unexpected surprises to boot...
We started out our first day of hitch doing a multi-corp project alongside the Jawbone and Grass Valley crews. We were told it would be a "cabin clean-up", but our sneaky, albeit cheerful archaeologist- Ashley, pulled one over on us. After a short presentation on the historic significance of the site, we spent the remainder of the day day cleaning up the debris of the cabin that had actually burned down in March. Regardless, it was a fun day to collaborate with the Ridgecrest BLM office in the El Paso Mountain Wilderness.
After the cabin clean-up, we headed back to our favorite Mojave Wilderness- Kiavah! Loaded with everyone's favorite holiday cookies, (we used 8 sticks of butter in pre-hitch cooking) we spent the majority of the hitch restoring OHV incursions in Horse Canyon.
The main dirt road that connects highway 395 to the Kiavah Wilderness is known fondly to us as LA 2, and is also the main route of the L.A. aqueduct. Throughout the hitch we capitalized on Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power's graded road debris. The plants sacrificed in the name of smooth driving were collected to use as vertical mulch for our restoration sites!
On Monday the 17th during a particularly jovial run to the LA 2, Aurora, Sam, and Max felt sudden turbulence on the starboard side of our Heavy Duty Dodge Ram 2500. We immediately skidded to a halt to investigate, only to find a brand new Leatherman open and askew a few feet behind. The Leatherman punctured a rather large hole in our custom desert tires. Surprisingly, the accident left the Leatherman intact and unharmed, but our tire as flat as the four grain flapjacks we ate for breakfast that morning. We fixed the tire in a jiffy and continued with a great day of conservation.
That evening, the Jawbone crew came to visit for dinner and we shared our wares; enjoying some homemade s'mores and gourmet popcorn thanks to an awesome package from Sam's parents!
The next day, Tuesday the 18th brought an even more exciting surprise for many of us who miss that east coast weather. It was particularly exhilarating for Wisconsin Molly who loves weather phenomena more than all of us combined.
SNOW!!!
It snows in the desert, who knew? After a stormy day, with menacing clouds blowing over the Eastern Sierras, the sky opened up and large white flakes began to fall! It is truly something to see the desert landscape, Joshua trees and all, blanketed in that white fluffy stuff. :)
We ended our hitch with ATV training from Ranger Jason Woods. I think everyone on the Kiavah crew got some insight into the psyche of why people ride OHV's so much in the desert- BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN! Ranger Jason spent all day teaching us safe quad riding. Now if only they were more responsible about staying on designated routes.
As the holidays and our winter break are fast approaching, Kiavah crew is currently busy in the kitchen cooking up a thunderstorm. Tonight we are heading to our BLM contact Marty's house for a holiday party and a white elephant with the Grass Valley crew! Will is "taste testing" the cookies, Molly is roasting fennel, Mal is wrapping white elephant presents, Max is putting the license plate on the trailer, Sam is making squash soup, Charlie is cleaning the kitchen, and I am writing the blog!
We are anxiously preparing to return home to our families for the holidays and the new year, but not before celebrating and saying goodbye to the desert.
See you soon and happy holidays!
-Kivah Krew
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Hitch 3 [50]
This hitch our crew finally got to work in our namesake, the Kiavah Wilderness. We managed to clear out all the incursions in Cow Heaven canyon, and when our BLM contact Marty came to visit she was quite impressed.
We had a strange first to days in the field. Our crew camped in the Jawbone Butterbrette ACEC, and as it turns out that is the place to be on the post Thanksgiving weekend. We soon became accustomed to the sounds of dirt bikes, gun shots, and even a few explosions. We were told afterword that the explosions we quite illegal.
All the interesting events aside, we got a good deal accomplished this hitch. Along with the four incursions in Cow Heaven we also started work on turning a large trampled area into a legal campsite as well as closed off the attached incursion. We also worked on a larger incursion further up the canyon and walked it's line of sight over a mountain to the next canyon where it finishes. On top of all this we found and dismantled a shooting range made of from I-beams sunk in the ground just outside of a campsite. it took us an hour to clear out the site, but it looked a whole lot more habitable afterwords.
Overall the work was hard, and at times the weather wasn't the most fun; but it's safe to say we're happy to in Kiavah.
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Will Hagen [58]
My name is Will Hagen and I am from the fine state of New Jersey. I grew up half an hour from New York City, an hour from the Pocono mountains, and two hours away from the Jersey Shore. During high school and much of college I was a volunteer firefighter in my hometown. The first half of my college experience was spent at the Military College of Vermont and the other at the Liberal Arts College of New Jersey which as you can imagine are two very different places. While in college I did everything from training with a mountain warfare unit to managing a neuroscience lab. I am currently the project leader for the DRC's Kiavah Wilderness crew. I love this job because it allows me to use so much of my previous training and life experience. The desert is an amazing place and I am looking forward to spending the next few months of my life here.
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Hitch 2 [62]
We spent this hitch doing restoration work and building hard barriers in several canyons in the Owens Peak Wilderness. It was awesome being able to see Owens Peak from different vantage points in each canyon (during our first hitch we only saw it from Indian Wells Canyon). We also got a chance to show off all of our hard work to Marty, our BLM contact, and to check on the condition of an old gold mine. During the last couple days of hitch we started work in the Kiavah Wilderness, monitoring fences and checking that no new incursions exist on Nelly's Nipple, a distinctive-looking peak. As much as we love the Owens Wilderness, it was nice to get a preview of where we will be working for the next six months.
Possibly the most memorable day of the hitch was when we climbed Owens Peak (except for Robin, who was sick and spending the day in town). Owens Peak is the highest mountain in the Southern Sierra; from the top we could see for miles. The hike was difficult--2850 feet of elevation gain in two miles--but definitely worth it! When we set out it was 37 degrees and Owens was blanketed in clouds, and the temperature only dropped as we gained elevation. After a while we started seeing frost on the trees and snowflakes piling in rock crevices. At one point we lost the trail, but soon found it and continued scrambling up the rocks toward the summit. Trees covered in snow framed our view of the desert and the clouds began to lift as we neared the summit. We reached the top of Owens after three hours of climbing and were rewarded with a view of the Sierra to the north and west, the Mojave to the south and east, and Clif Bar Shot Bloks in the summit registry box. It was definitely below freezing at the top, so we ate a quick lunch and most of a 100 piece bag of candy, wrote in the registry, and took some pictures before starting back down the mountain.
After our descent of Owens we met up with Max's parents, who brought us a delicious meal of soup, sourdough bread, cookies, and oranges. They knew that Max and some other crew members had been sick earlier in the week, and wanted to do something nice for all of us. It was a great dinner and they got to experience the Green Monster! During this hitch we learned that while we eat super well and usually are very healthy, we have no collective self-control when it comes to candy, sweets, and Tang!
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Hitch 1 [70]
The Kiavah crew spent our first hitch in the Owen's Peak wilderness, a ruggedly beautiful expanse of land that borders the north eastern edge of the Kiavah Wilderness. Our main objective was to monitor and repair work done by previous SCA crews which included hard barriers, restoration sites, and fences.
Immediately upon our arrival in the field we were greeted by the infamous Owens Peak winds which made camp set up interesting to say the least. The next morning we had our first go at hard barriers and the results were impressive. On our third day in the field day we were joined program coordinator and master fence builder Matt Duarte. Over the next several days Matt helped us construct our first fence, which like the hard barriers turned out excellent.
The fence apparently satisfied the Ancient Spirits of the Mountains because upon its completion the winds stopped and our nights were calm and peaceful (but most importantly dust free). The remainder of our hitch was spent rebuilding damaged barriers, monitoring fence lines, and restoring vehicle incursions. In addition to our standard work we also had the exciting task of recording the locations of several archaeological artifacts including pictographs and an arrowhead.
Although Owen's Peak isn't our crew's main assignment, its a place we have grown attached to. Its an amazing, beautiful, and rugged place. We will not be there for long, but its a place we will never forget.
During our time in Owen's Peak we faced many challenges such as dust, wind, and cold but because of it we are a stronger, wiser, and closer crew. Kiavah's first hitch was an overwhelming success; we were safe, productive, and we had a blast.
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Kiavah Wilderness [78]
This wilderness encompasses the eroded hills, canyons and bajadas of the Scodie Mountains Unit within the Sequoia National Forest -- the southern extremity of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. A unique mixing of several different species of plants and animals occurs within the transition zone between the Mojave Desert and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Desert plants such as creosote bush, Joshua tree, burro bush and shadscale may be found in close association with pinyon pine, juniper, canyon oak and digger/grey pine. The varied vegetation provides habitat for a great diversity of wildlife over a small geographic area. Species of note include raptors, the yellow-eared pocket mouse, a variety of lizards and a number of migrant and resident bird species. This wilderness is part of a National Cooperative Land and Wildlife Management Area and the BLM Jawbone Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern , which was designated to protect outstanding wildlife and Native American values.
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Robin Sillars [82]
I’m very excited to start working in the desert! I graduated from Pioneer Valley Performing Arts this June, and am very happy I got the opportunity to join this group of amazing people for eight months. I can’t wait for it to start!
I’ve done a lot of traveling around Europe, mostly as a kid, so this will be my first out-of-state experience in nearly six years. I can’t wait to face the challenges this will bring.
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Charlie Scirbona [85]
My name is Charlie B. Scirbona, I am 25 soon to be 26 and I’m originally from Cornwall-on-Hudson New York. I was a journalist for a year and a half before I decided I wanted to go back to working outside. I stared looking for SCA positions this past spring and eventually I was landed with the Nevada Resource Stewardship Corps. I flew out June 2nd and have been in the desert ever since. I‘ve loved almost every minute of it. The desert is like no place I have ever been, and I’m doing my best to stay out here as long as possible.
I know the Mojave will be a lot different from the Great Basin of Nevada, but that makes me even more excited to get out there. Likewise I’ve found a certain kind of Zen that comes with restoration work, as I’ve already got a taste of the work during one of my NV- RES crew’s most recent hitches.
I’ve found life in the desert a constant adventure, which means there are plenty of times where it’s beyond difficult. The desert gets desperately hot during the day and sometimes miserably cold at night. The wind never really stops and I think by this point I’ve forgotten what rain sounds like. However, it makes those moments where I see a beautiful sunset or sit back and watch satellites go by on a clear night even more worth it. If you asked me a year ago if I wanted to go live in the desert I think I may have laughed at the very possibility of it, now I think I’d laugh about wanting to live anywhere else.
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Aurora Pinkey-Drobnis [88]
I grew up in Rhode Island, the smallest state in the union. However, growing up in a small place inspired big dreams. I went to Skidmore College in Upstate New York and spent a lot of time playing around in the Adirondacks. It was here that I began to foster my love of my mountains, and a hunger for taller ones to climb. I spent my junior year of college studying abroad. First, in Costa Rica and Nicaragua studying tropical ecology, hanging out in the rainforest and befriending spider monkeys. Then, I skipped on over to New Zealand where I mapped lava flows and learned a heck of a lot about earthquakes.
I graduated in May 2012 with a degree in Geology and Environmental Studies. I enjoy eating/growing veggies, blowing bubbles, looking at rocks, crocheting, competitive games of banana-grams and general backcountry shenanigans. I am excited to spend the coming months in California, learning about the desert, meeting great people, and working for an organization that fosters a conservation ethic I believe in.
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Molly Dieterich [91]
I grew up in southwestern Wisconsin in an old farmhouse surrounded by cows, pastures, and corn fields. I am a recent alumna of the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, where I double majored in Biology (Ecology) & Mathematics (Statistics) and was on the cross country ski team. During my time in California I will be applying to graduate school for Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development.
Last summer I served as an SCA intern with the U.S. Forest Service in Juneau, Alaska collecting data on the vegetation growing in areas that had been logged five years ago on Prince of Wales Island. It was my first SCA program and it was awesome! The other interns and I thoroughly explored the island during our off time, backpacking over mountains and through muskegs to cabins that were generally float plane destinations.
I have never been to a desert and am stoked to live in a completely new ecosystem for eight months!
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Sam Cox [94]
Born in the Virginia piedmont, it was there, where the Appalachians continue their slow drip into the Atlantic and the quiet Blue Ridge keep the horizon, where I first came to know myself. With my two brothers and sisters, I explored old trails, made new ones, and worshiped the snow. At 15 my family jumped the border into the Tar Heel State where I found good friends, good teachers, and good music. In 2011 I graduated from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Anthropology. From then on I began my search for the best way to be in the world and for new spaces. After spending time in Birmingham, Alabama and Portland, Oregon I was thrilled to join the SCA for the 2012 summer conducting Visitor Use Surveys for the United States Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District. And although middle Tennessee was gracious in offering us her lakes and swimming holes, the call of the desert has now entered my bones. I look forward to this new terrain and what I can learn from it, to connecting with the power of the Mojave, with the work, and with the people I will share this experience with.
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Max Carter [97]
My name is Max Carter, and I am a high school graduate from the class of 2012. I have decided to apply for SCA as a gap year in-between high school and college, and I am very excited to be a member of the Kiavah Crew. I have SCA experience from a 21-day National Crew when I was a part of the 2011 Delaware Water Gap crew. This crew was my inspiration to look at SCA for my gap year.
I am looking at applying to colleges in So-Cal, Colorado, or New England. Schools such as Syracuse, SDSU, BU, and CSSBU are on my list.
I have lived in Southern California my whole life in the city of Riverside, an hour out of L.A. and 45 minutes from the Pacific coast. I surf, and I played 3 varsity sports in HS including basketball, x-country, and track and field. I love staying active and doing things outdoors. I have many hobbies, but I still love expanding my activities any chance I get.
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