Progress Reports from the Field

SCA Conservation Corps – Restoration 2010 – 2011 Season
Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest – Ely District

Hitch: 2
Dates: 6/15/10 – 6/24/10
Field Office / Ranger District: USFS Ely Ranger District
Report Prepared by: Zachary McBride, Project Leader
Corps Members Present:
Isaac Wright
Dylan French
Ruby Madden
Megan Kaiser
Rachel King

Field Office Interests:
• Continued restoration and completion of restoration efforts in the South East corner of the High Schells Wilderness.

Hitch Overview:
The hitch was spent doing intensive restoration of routes in the Southwestern Portion of the High Schells range. We focused around the Cleve Creek area and Southward. The incursions were closed, vertical mulched, and decompacted for further restoration efforts.

Work Totals:
Vertical Mulch: 1,788
Meters Restored: 1,223 m
Area Restored: 24,460 mxm
Incursion Restored: 11

ToCo Notes / Narrative:
The hitch went on without a hitch. The crew felt good about the hard work they had been doing. As they had worked very hard and had completed 9 days worth of work in 8 days, the project leader gave them some time to swim in Cave Lake. The crew also discovered no-see-ums in swarms. There were two campfires and apple crisps were made one night.

SCA Conservation Corps – Restoration 2010 – 2011 Season
Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest – Ely District

Hitch: 1
Dates: 6/1/10 – 6/12/10
Field Office / Ranger District: USFS Ely Ranger District
Report Prepared by: Zachary McBride, Project Leader
Corps Members Present:
Isaac Wright
Dylan French
Ruby Madden
Megan Kaiser
Rachel King

Field Office Interests:
• Training and beginning of restoration for the Ely Conservation Crew.

Hitch Overview:
The first half of the hitch was spent training Corps Members in various field living and work skills. After, the crew began restoration work.

Work Totals:
Vertical Mulch: 578
Meters Restored: 835m
Area Restored: 14195 (mxm)
Incursion Restored: 6

ToCo Notes / Narrative:
The hitch went on without a hitch. We are now a very well trained and safe crew. Much work will be done this season.

The Team has returned from corps member training at the McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS) in McCall, ID. Trainings included: Wilderness First Aid (WFA), SCA's: Mission / Program Overview / Risk Management Protocols, Conservation Ethics, Fire Ecology, Tree Measurements, Plant Identification, Navigation, GPS, FIREMON & FFI Database.

The Team is now enjoying some much needed time off and preparing for more training, this time with our Agency Partners, in Wayne National Forest. Topics on the schedule include: Local Fire Ecology, Local Field Sampling Techniques, Vegetation, Cultural Awareness, and USFS Radio Protocols.

Like Greensboro’s many black snakes who sun themselves in its 95-degree afternoons, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan team has been lying low and soaking up the ambiance this month in the Randolph County Fire District.

After returning from Corps training in McCall, Idaho, the CWPP team completed a week of training under their agency partner James Rogers of North Carolina’s Division of Forest Resources. The team was versed in the FireWise program for managing Wildland Urban Interface areas, and quickly became acquainted with the ins-and-outs of mapmaking with Microsoft Access and ESRI ArcMap.

Over the past two weeks the CWPP team has visited five fire stations across North Carolina’s Fire District 10. With the assistance of Randolph’s Assistant County Ranger Glen Coley, they have documented the preparedness data of each station in their CWPP database.

The team is now completing CWPP reports for the five stations they visited. They are also planning a river excursion for the coming weekend.

For the first few days our group was together we spent it in learning about what a community is, how we all play a part in the community we form and how to deal with conflict within it. We also had training seminars including sexual harassment and Drive Safe Drive Smart. We went through the SCA handbook and learned the Emergency Response Plan and where it is kept around our camp. The two members of our crew old enough to drive learned how to drive reverse and park the truck with a trailer attached. Because of the nature of our project we spent a day becoming Certified Renovators and learned how to safely work with lead paint.
We started work on the cabin on the fence, repairing or replacing 120 feet. This included digging new post holes, sawing and chiseling notches to create rests for cross pieces, cutting posts to be the correct height and assembling the final product. With the help of a work crew from the National Forest we emptied the cabin of all the old furniture and junk, removed barbed wire from around the perimeter, and cleared pathways. We removed old scrap wood and fallen trees from around the property. We repainted the Plummer Ridge sign. We removed an old stump and took out a deck that was falling apart. We also removed an old antenna that was attached to the back of the cabin. We took measurements and inventory of all the repairs that needed to be done on the outside of the cabin.
Within the cabin there was a lot to do! We began by spraying down the cabin with bleach and water to prevent anyone from getting hanta. Then we wiped down all the walls, ceilings, doors and cabinets, taped of areas not to be painted, then painted them with primer. After the primer dried we came back through and painted with a lovely eggshell color. We also painted the trim of the windows in olive green, classic!
Our next step was the flooring. We tore up the old linoleum flooring and painstakingly scraped off all the glue and paper residue that was stuck to the original flooring. We patched up holes in the floor and put down a moisture barrier. Our next step is to install the wood flooring.