For our third to last hitch dubC started with a Leave No Trace trainer course. Darren, our program coordinator, led the training in Joshua Tree National Park. Each of the members practiced teaching the LNT principles, incorporating fun games and activities for the kiddos. We also got to crawl through the Chasm of Doom! Then we spent a day in the house packing and cooking for our 6 days in the field. This day in the house also happened to be a member’s birthday so we had ice cream cake!! With candles!! In the morning we made the long, half hour trek to the Bighorn Mountains Wilderness, just north of our house. We met up with our stellar BLM contact, Big Tim, and got to work. We had some variety this hitch – we put up smooth and barbed wire fence, dug holes and concreted H-braces and poles, and even strung some cable to complete a short fence. We also got to restore some incursions with lots of vertical mulch, and a next level, 2 step mulch was created – a downed Joshua Tree was replanted, assuming it won’t stay up forever and will then morph in horizontal mulch. Brava! And huge, furry June beetles started to make an appearance as we all read around the propane lantern into the night. The sound of their flight is intimidating and they fly full force into whatever is in front of them, which was usually us. And an Air Force plane flew over us, probably only 1000 feet up; that was weird and exciting.
