Hitch Lead – Bri
Hitch Member – Steph Hanshaw (and Rango the Durango!)
Timber was fortunate enough to have work this hitch. This was my second Timber hitch but I hadn’t done any actual Timber work last hitch, so I was excited to get into the field and do some vegetation work. This was Steph’s first vegetation hitch in general so first we headed into the office where Jim (our contact for Timber) gave us a crash course on what he wanted us to look for and how he wanted the paperwork filled out.
We then headed out with Mike to the Hale and Sawlog China stands. These stands were in part of the forest I had never been to before and overlooked the Mustang Complex forest fire. This was an old burn area that had been replanted and we were looking to see how many trees were still living. The work was really hard; the slopes were steep and the smoke didn’t make physical exertion an easier, but Steph and I got a lot of work done. Steph and I also had a competition to see who could fall the most. I think Steph won, but I took harder falls. For week two we moved on to Withington creek where we worked hard and were able to finish up the stands there.
Some hitch highlights were: volunteering at the animal shelter one afternoon (right now they’re overwhelmed with animals from people who have been evacuated because of the fire), our first night camping at Wallace Lake when we were scared that there was a creepy murderer in the forest so I told Steph the entire synopsis of the third season of Glee to get our minds off of it, winning Steph over to my ‘no cooking while on hitch’ philosophy, and lastly having Jim complement us on our work.