It was a very welcome entrance into the rainforest from the desert to say the least! It couldn’t have differed from our season in the Mojave any more than it did. Some examples of the polarity: 100 degree days with 0 humidity to 60 degrees with a constant lingering fog; from lizards to slugs; seeing only dry lake beds to an ocean view; dry stale to soggy stale. It wasn’t completely different however; we were still doing restoration work connecting a meadow to its natural length pre human tampering. That being said, instead of restoring by picking up dead sticks and placing them in the ground to disguise the openness of an area, we were creating an opening in an area by chopping and lopping trees. It was a very welcome change to say the least.
Rewinding to where we left off with blogs. DRC now over, houses cleaned, and out the door to go on vacation/home visits. We came from a 7 day furlough at the end of the desert season to Klamath National Forest in order to gain new trail building knowledge at Work Skills training. We learned new trail terms and trail building techniques, and put them to use on a reconstruction of a failed turnpike and a decrepit retaining wall by Sulfur Springs. It was a great training session and it felt good to have our hands in mud again. A big thank you goes out to our patient trainers, Chris Olsen and Tom Moutsos.
Then it was off to the Coast where we met our sponsor and contact for the summer from the Save the Redwoods League, Richard Campbell. We were led on a tour of their site project and were informed about the League itself and the message they deliver. We are very excited to be working for such a prestigious and conservation minded group to say the least. Our two major projects on their site were to create a fuel break to slow down fire on the perimeter of the property, and the extension of the meadow. Both were completed by day 10, thanks to hard work from the crew and from extra helping hands from volunteer Sarah Morgan. We were also thrilled to geek out during this hitch with project manager Patrick Gallo about the hit series Firefly, and grateful to have his expertise and help on our projects.
Total work completed –
264,000 ft2 of underbrush cleared
