Well hitch nine is over and what a fun hitch it was.
For the first two days the Rands Crew teamed up with the o so lovely Boners and did some awesome outreach together. It was Presidents Day, which means it was a busy riding weekend in the Rand Mountains. Similar to our Thanksgiving hitch, we teamed up with the Boners and members from the BLM and set up stations all over the Rands. We educated riders and passed out permits. It wasn’t quite as busy as Thanksgiving, but we still talked to and gave out over 500 permits.
We also spent three days of this hitch at the Salt Flats BLM Fire station and got certified in chainsaw usage. We learned all about the safety of chain sawing, as well as learning about various techniques. We spent the first day doing a lot of classroom work, and then moved onto actually using chainsaws on the second say. We made many pie cuts, back cuts, and made many holding blocks. It was a lot of fun and all the fire guys treated us great. On the third day we had our exam, and after we all passed with flying colors, we were federally certified to use a chainsaw. Even though we don’t use chainsaws too much in our normal work, it sure is a great way to beef up our resumes. Gotta love the SCA and BLM!
During hitch there was also two solid days of restoration in which we did some of our best work and restored four whole incursions as well as some data monitoring and updating. Steve our BLM contact also came to help us out a bit and brought us some excellent sticky buns. We love you Steve.
Then Saturday morning we woke up well before the sunrise and took off for the fabulous Kern River Hot Springs. Here we learned a great deal about how hot springs work plus all the beneficial health effects of soaking in hot springs. It was very educational. Not to mention we met four very interesting (and naked!) locals who gave us some history on the area as well as immersing us in some very interesting conversations.
It was a great hitch. The weather was great (we can feel spring approaching very quickly), and it was the birthday of our awesome crew member Abigail Brokaw. So happy 24th Abby, hope it will be great year.
As always, thanks for reading and we will talk to you soon.
Randals
Well hitch nine is over and what a fun hitch it was.
For the first two days the Rands Crew teamed up with the o so lovely Boners and did some awesome outreach together. It was Presidents Day, which means it was a busy riding weekend in the Rand Mountains. Similar to our Thanksgiving hitch, we teamed up with the Boners and members from the BLM and set up stations all over the Rands. We educated riders and passed out permits. It wasn’t quite as busy as Thanksgiving, but we still talked to and gave out over 500 permits.
We also spent three days of this hitch at the Salt Flats BLM Fire station and got certified in chainsaw usage. We learned all about the safety of chain sawing, as well as learning about various techniques. We spent the first day doing a lot of classroom work, and then moved onto actually using chainsaws on the second say. We made many pie cuts, back cuts, and made many holding blocks. It was a lot of fun and all the fire guys treated us great. On the third day we had our exam, and after we all passed with flying colors, we were federally certified to use a chainsaw. Even though we don’t use chainsaws too much in our normal work, it sure is a great way to beef up our resumes. Gotta love the SCA and BLM!
During hitch there was also two solid days of restoration in which we did some of our best work and restored four whole incursions as well as some data monitoring and updating. Steve our BLM contact also came to help us out a bit and brought us some excellent sticky buns. We love you Steve.
Then Saturday morning we woke up well before the sunrise and took off for the fabulous Kern River Hot Springs. Here we learned a great deal about how hot springs work plus all the beneficial health effects of soaking in hot springs. It was very educational. Not to mention we met four very interesting (and naked!) locals who gave us some history on the area as well as immersing us in some very interesting conversations.
It was a great hitch. The weather was great (we can feel spring approaching very quickly), and it was the birthday of our awesome crew member Abigail Brokaw. So happy 24th Abby, hope it will be great year.
As always, thanks for reading and we will talk to you soon.
Randals
