Hitch 7 Veg. This vegetation hitch was a little different than previous vegetation hitches, in more ways than one. We started out with Ponderosa Pine pinecone counts. This entailed looking at pinecones through binoculars to find ones that were the right size, shape, color, etc for a seed bank in Boise. They would eventually use these seeds for re-vegetation projects in post burn areas. Besides exploring new areas of the Salmon-Challis National Forest, we were staying at a firefighter’s memorial where a bunch of firefighters were staying for the fires that were occurring locally. This was a good way to meet new people with the USFS. Showers were available for everyone to clean up after a long days work, but the SCA crew opted to go swimming in the Salmon River instead….much more fun! We ended up finishing our work about four days sooner than expected so the Vegetation crew joined the U-Routes. After a full day and a half of work with U-Routes, Central Idaho Dispatch called us via radio deeming it necessary for everyone to evacuate to Salmon due to the local fire spreading too close to our housing corridors. With only about 9 out of 15 of our crew members there, we had a Hot shot crew get flown in via chopper to drive the remaining vehicles down to Salmon. Once at the incident camp, our hitch resumed by learning all the inner workings of what makes a fire camp run. Talk about organization. New people and new experiences can’t complain about that.
