Crew Leader Training...Sort of.

We spent the first part of our training hitch near a town called Hot Sulphur Springs. The Hot Sulphur Springs were covered by about four feet of Cold River Water, so we didn't have a chance to partake. It was real pretty there--a little arid, but nice. Ifound some cacti that were ready to pop. Also saw my first Indian Paintbrush and Lupine of the year. I love these two little plants and have seen them in the Mojave as well as up in Rainier.

The first work project was to build raised boradwalk/bridges over sections of the trail that had been flooded by the Colorado River, which was super high from all of the snowmelt. We used generators, power tools, and milled lumber--which we will most likely never get to use again--but it was fun work. We also humped about 10-12 cubic yards (equivilant to the bed of a a pickup) of gravel and sand. Doug was our project sponsor and was the nicest most accommodating guy ever--which is also probably setting our expectations too high, but oh well, take what we can get. Here is the crew with one of the finished projects:

Some of Doug's mottos are: 1. Safety first, fun is a close second; 2. Your mom is not here to tell you no. This led to his teaching us to fire his .308 rifle and .9mm Glock. Here's Doug going over some important gun tips, including how to look stylish while firing a weapon. Of course, I hit the target every time.

Later on in the week, we got to work in Blacktail Canyon, replacing rotten catwalk planking with slightly less-rotten planking. The catwalks were above culverts that were part of an irrigation system that was dug in the late 1800's by a homesteader. If we could get the water from the creek to the land that he wanted, then it bacame his. He hand dug and blasted his way through 1.5 miles of granite and cliff side to get to it. Here's Zander hard at work: