Progress Reports from the Field

Hitch 8 brought about new adventures. Incipiently this was the first hitch with our newest addition to the crew; of course we did partake in All-Corp together, but this was different in that we went out as a crew, not as the whole DRC. Thus we really had the opportunity to come together as a crew. Queue sentimental awes. Coincidentally, this hitch was idealistic for good ole Sir Sterling Collins-Hill, our new Project leader, who recently hiked the entire lengthy Pacific Crest Trail. Please take note; this ominous foreshadowing. This hitch we worked arm-in-arm with the Palm Springs Bureau of Land Management. Our target goal was to GIS map 400 miles of trails focusing on social trails. For those readers less savvy on technical terms, social trails are none-designated routes created by overuse. They are often unmaintaned. Estimatedly it takes ten people to walk in the same direction to create one of these trails -and once it's started, as the phrase goes “build it and they will come”. We perambulated nearly all of the northeastern section of the San Rosa and San Jacinto national monument. With miles and miles to go before we slept, an early start was the only way to beat the clock, or so we thought. Having neared the end of the hitch, one lesson that other crews may find helpful is that if you are in the Desert District it does not matter what time you start work because the sun will find you, and it will beat down on you with furious rays of ultraviolet beams that with literally make your sunscreen wish it was wearing sunscreen. Oh, and it you are using a Juno tremble make note as to whether the screen is on or not; because if it is off those two miles you just walked? Never happened. One beautiful thing about Sterling Darling, (as Wildcorp affectionately calls him... and if you know this lucky fellow in real life, please refer to him as 'darling', he really likes it. Trust me), is his ability to strategize. While myself and other unamed members believe in the, “eh lets just walk around, its bound to be the right way”, Ole Sterling believes in looking at the maps. Crazy, right? In actuality we were able to utilize this trait and use our time quite efficiently. We did our best and between us walked roughly 400 miles. Wildcorps get yoked, Palm Springs edition. This hitch was not just work, work, work, and no fun. To stick our tradition of lavish accomodations, we camped at the glamourous Ribbonwood Equestrian Camp (horses not included). With delicious potable water, flushing toliets, and temperamental “hot” showers. but The lush plethora of trees, and grass added a level of surrealness not usually found in the desert. With the summery daily weather, and nightly assemblage encircling our campfire, one could say Palm Springs Field Office knows how to spoil its work crews. In fact, we were in such a hot commodity spot that Nissan shut down the road we used to get to work sites to film a commercial. If that doesn't seal the deal for you then Idyllwild will. Just minutes up highway 74 from Ribbonwood is an oasis like none-other. Located at 5,303 feet there are copious pine trees and profusely grassy flat lands, deer and rabbits, bars, gas stations and quiant mom and pop Inns as far as the eye can see. Due to recent rainfall and snowy winter mixes the higher elevation mountains were efforescenic. This is where the wild flowers are. The stunning sunset are unreal. One can stare at the offing of Hemet Lake, as light succumbs to dark. Everything about this fetching little town is glorious. Idyllwild was quite possibly the cynosure of the hitch. Oh, and we also had a table at this pretty hip festival in Palm Desert. No big deal, but we made some radical new friends, and made off with some swanky Smokey the Bear bandanas. Our BLM contact even got us Chipotle burritos for lunch. We appriciated having a nice day off from extreme hiking ventures, while we sat in the moderately cool shade under our EZ-UP tent. Casually sitting in folding plastic chairs sipping cool water, and talking up the SCA to anyone who would listen – So SCA CEOs, HR reps, members (special shout out to our homeboys Jamie Webler and Matt Duarte) and alum, just know if you suddenly get a rise in member applications, Wildcorps has your back.

Hitch 8 brought about new adventures. Incipiently this was the first hitch with our newest addition to the crew; of course we did partake in All-Corp together, but this was different in that we went out as a crew, not as the whole DRC. Thus we really had the opportunity to come together as a crew. Queue sentimental awes. Coincidentally, this hitch was idealistic for good ole Sir Sterling Collins-Hill, our new Project leader, who recently hiked the entire lengthy Pacific Crest Trail. Please take note; this ominous foreshadowing. This hitch we worked arm-in-arm with the Palm Springs Bureau of Land Management. Our target goal was to GIS map 400 miles of trails focusing on social trails. For those readers less savvy on technical terms, social trails are none-designated routes created by overuse. They are often unmaintaned. Estimatedly it takes ten people to walk in the same direction to create one of these trails -and once it's started, as the phrase goes “build it and they will come”.
We perambulated nearly all of the northeastern section of the San Rosa and San Jacinto national monument. With miles and miles to go before we slept, an early start was the only way to beat the clock, or so we thought. Having neared the end of the hitch, one lesson that other crews may find helpful is that if you are in the Desert District it does not matter what time you start work because the sun will find you, and it will beat down on you with furious rays of ultraviolet beams that with literally make your sunscreen wish it was wearing sunscreen. Oh, and it you are using a Juno tremble make note as to whether the screen is on or not; because if it is off those two miles you just walked? Never happened. One beautiful thing about Sterling Darling, (as Wildcorp affectionately calls him... and if you know this lucky fellow in real life, please refer to him as 'darling', he really likes it. Trust me), is his ability to strategize. While myself and other unamed members believe in the, “eh lets just walk around, its bound to be the right way”, Ole Sterling believes in looking at the maps. Crazy, right? In actuality we were able to utilize this trait and use our time quite efficiently. We did our best and between us walked roughly 400 miles. Wildcorps get yoked, Palm Springs edition.
This hitch was not just work, work, work, and no fun. To stick our tradition of lavish accomodations, we camped at the glamourous Ribbonwood Equestrian Camp (horses not included). With delicious potable water, flushing toliets, and temperamental “hot” showers. but The lush plethora of trees, and grass added a level of surrealness not usually found in the desert. With the summery daily weather, and nightly assemblage encircling our campfire, one could say Palm Springs Field Office knows how to spoil its work crews. In fact, we were in such a hot commodity spot that Nissan shut down the road we used to get to work sites to film a commercial. If that doesn't seal the deal for you then Idyllwild will. Just minutes up highway 74 from Ribbonwood is an oasis like none-other. Located at 5,303 feet there are copious pine trees and profusely grassy flat lands, deer and rabbits, bars, gas stations and quiant mom and pop Inns as far as the eye can see. Due to recent rainfall and snowy winter mixes the higher elevation mountains were efforescenic. This is where the wild flowers are. The stunning sunset are unreal. One can stare at the offing of Hemet Lake, as light succumbs to dark. Everything about this fetching little town is glorious. Idyllwild was quite possibly the cynosure of the hitch.
Oh, and we also had a table at this pretty hip festival in Palm Desert. No big deal, but we made some radical new friends, and made off with some swanky Smokey the Bear bandanas. Our BLM contact even got us Chipotle burritos for lunch. We appriciated having a nice day off from extreme hiking ventures, while we sat in the moderately cool shade under our EZ-UP tent. Casually sitting in folding plastic chairs sipping cool water, and talking up the SCA to anyone who would listen – So SCA CEOs, HR reps, members (special shout out to our homeboys Jamie Webler and Matt Duarte) and alum, just know if you suddenly get a rise in member applications, Wildcorps has your back.

This started just like any other hitch; we were hard at work in the kitchen, packing the trucks and the trailers. Not long after we started, Cat had some awesome news to share with us about next hitch. That news was, drum roll please… That we will be hosting All-Corps. With being the hosts, that really changed our hitch schedule. The next couple of days were spent planning All-Corps, such as the type of work that we will have other crews do, how we will break up into groups, meal themes and of course we had to make an invite video. We worked long and hard on our invite video, so we encourage you to watch it via this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4FB4uhUIuc

This hitch was a lot of fun since we had a good variety of things to do once we were done with All-Corps prep. We got to spend a day at the China Lake Naval Base see the Coso Rock Art, which is the largest collection of Petroglyphs in the western hemisphere. Went out to Sand Canyon a couple of times, once for a dip in a watering hole, second time we were doing some trail clean up. Did some sightseeing at Fossil Falls and learned about the history of it. Cat coordinated with Leigh to have her helicopter fall over us and give our own personal air show in Grass Valley. The next day, Leigh came out with us to help us with fencing, which was nice to have someone new with us.

We had some inconveniences this hitch, we were ready to head on out into the field, we were heading to an auto shop to replace the headlight for one of our trailers. We had a little accident and ended up getting the tire for one of our trailers flat. Once we got that all fixed up, we decided it would be nice to reward ourselves with a Starbucks to give us that burst of energy we would need before going into the field. We got into the field, we set up camp with Kiavah and started cooking dinner. We were all fairly comfortable until we found out there was a wind advisory for our area, the gusts were predicted to be up to 75mph. So we packed up and went right back to town. At least it was nice to get another night in town.

We managed to do all this, plus we nearly finished lining up and sighting the rest of the fence in Grass Valley, built more H-Braces, rolled out more wire, and set more T-Posts. I can say with confidence that this was both a productive and fun hitch for all of us.

Our planned work has nearly run out for us, but luckily we had several other events to occupy us this hitch. The first was helping with the Sand Canyon Environmental Education Program (SEEP). Over several weeks, fourth grade students from area schools have a field to visit Sand Canyon to learn about the natural history of the area. Groups of students rotate through several stations set up in the canyon. In them, students learn about birds, plants, aquatics, and archaeology. Most students were especially thrilled to catch a glimpse of the Red-tailed Hawk that was nesting in the canyon.

Soon after SEEP, all of the DRC crews united to see the petroglyphs on the China Lake Naval Base. After undergoing a thorough search by military police, we were allowed onto the base. An hour long drive brought us to the canyon where all of the petroglyphs were located. Immediately upon entering the canyon, we were surrounded by petroglyphs. Every rock face seemed to have something chiseled into it. Our guides offered many explanations as to what the images were. These ranged from aliens to shamans to rams to medicine bags. Many were definitely aliens.

Our final foray was to the Maturango Museum for the annual wildflower festival. Docents of the museum had travelled all over nearby canyons to gather specimens of everything in bloom. We had seen many of them during work, but now we could put a name and family to the flowers; definitely the most helpful way to learn plants. We were also told by the docents that flowers this year are even worse than last year. The desert seems to be getting drier and drier.

The rest of our days on hitch were spent attending to the usual tasks of restoration and effectiveness monitoring. However, after closing an incursion that was already half finished, we reached our goal outlined in the grant. One of the trucks also had an exhilarating ride while monitoring. While marveling at the rampant destruction caused by OHV use in the Dove Springs Area, Andy began to tell us a tale of his 4x4 training. Pointing out the steep hill climbs, he told us of his instructor who tried to drive up a similarly steep hill and failed. Not even halfway up, his jeep began to slide down. Later on, Matt was descending a hill that at first seemed very manageable and nothing to worry about. Luckily, Andy suggested putting the truck in 4 low. A very wise call since the road seemed to drop off the side of cliff. As the wheels dropped, everything in the truck slid down with gravity. It felt as though the truck would flip over if the road became any steeper. This did not happen though and we survived only losing control of the truck and sliding off the road for a moment. Turns out, this was same hill that the 4x4 instructor failed to climb. Earlier in the hitch, we had another terrifying and exciting encounter with a Mojave Green Rattlesnake. Matt nearly ran it over, but Corinne spotted it basking in the road just in time.

Hitch was a success; we all survived and are ready for the final All-Corps that is on the way.

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and Mike, Sophie and I are in the eye of the storm. We started the month of April by getting down to business. The surveys for the Army Corps of Engineers have been going swimmingly as the weather perked up and the people peeped out of their rainy-weather holes. We have all been working, planning out the rest of the spring program as we’ve all realized we have a little over a month before it’s over. With that, we three put our heads together and locked in our conservation projects, our volunteer opportunities, as well as solidifying the mundane, but necessary, tasks of everyday life.
Mike and I met up with Denise Weyer from Shelby Bottoms Park, who has been an incredible asset in getting our Conservation Project up and running. Then Mike met with an avid birder- Ed Schneider, a bird photographer who has traveled the world and is probably the only one more gung-ho about our workshop besides us. Since we both have an interest in birds and wanted to partner up with Shelby Park to facilitate a workshop focused on the impact of humans to birds and vice versa; as well as understanding that birds are integral to developing the richness and diversity of this earth. We have a workshop scheduled at the end of May where we will both be leading a group of homeschool students! I continued to meet with Denise, as Mike met with a man about “Saving the Cumberland”- an initiative to raise awareness surrounding the rising pollution in the Cumberland River through education and research. Mike also had his own volunteer adventure food sorting 7,000 lbs of food for family in needs for the Second Harvest Non-Profit in Nashville.
The other Conservation Project that I, Sophie and Mike all have been making moves on is our vermicomposting, or as it’s commonly known: “worm bins.” Worm bins are a self-sustaining composting system that we will be experimenting with as none of us have done it before. Although we have all had experiences in composting, we are interested to see how worm bins would work as it would be self-sustaining, more efficient for a shorter time period given to us, and we get to play with worms! As we are trying to do all of our projects on as little of a budget as possible, kind people, donations, gifts, and friends come in amazingly handy. I was able to scrounge up some a truck, shovel, buckets, a drill, and soil from my boyfriend, who is as manly as he gets. We all have been saving up our compost and once we get the worms, we’ll be all ready to go!
In preparation for getting up close and personal with worms, Mike, Sophie and I had the rewarding experience of volunteering with The Nashville Food Project (http://www.thenashvillefoodproject.org/)-. A very inspiring organization, this small group of people plant, harvest, cultivate, prepare and cook meals, then deliver them to various locations throughout Nashville to those in need. It was fun getting dirty in the ground: we helped gardening and stirring the compost. It was even more enjoyable knowing that the people who run The Nashville Food Project clearly care about the love that goes into growing and making healthy, fresh food for the people in need.
This gave us some ideas for our little house Garden. Our Garden came into fruition starting with me and Sophie trekking over to haul 50 cinderblocks into a truck and then from the truck to our back lawn. Needless to say we got a work out that day. After that, our kindly neighbor lent us his rotor-tiller, and I, having no prior experience of this strange contraption, researched and learned the ins and outs of the Mantis. I then started it, tilling the ground, at first having a momentary sense of panic rise in me when I realized I had a death machine in my hands. That quickly subsided as I tilled the earth, gaining control and creating a little plot where we will plant our food.
The two week whirlwind ended with a visit from our supervisor, Alex, where he was able to observe us in our survey skills and sit down with us to play a solid game of “Munchkin”- probably one of the most addicting, complex, and bizarre games out there (and for full disclosure: I won!). Mike and Sophie got to see Shawn Camp, a country artist who has captivated their hearts, and I got to dance to Elton John singing Tiny Dancer. All in all, the month of April is shaping up to be a promising one. Spring has officially arrived: and with that a fresh new excitement in rounding out our Conservation Projects and visitation surveys!

Written by Eva.