Greetings

Welcome to my little corner of the inter-webs! I just wanted to take this space to warn you that my posts will rarely be up to date. Due to the spontaneity of natural disasters and the unpredictability of when AmeriCorps' services will be requested I will be digitizing my journal entries whenever we return to St. Louis. Oh, and most of the pictures you see here were taken by myself. If ever I do use someone else's material I make a point to give them due credit though! That said, come, leave comments and be merry! I hope you enjoy your stay!

Monday, August 4, 2014

Gilbert Trail - 7/28

Why are stringed instruments so awesome?  Clare was perched up on a rock yesterday fiddling away and it felt natural—a fitting soundtrack for Montana.  If I broke out a flute here it just wouldn’t have the same effect.  Maybe my instrument fits perfectly in another environment.

This week my team is being sent out to Vigilante to tune up some trails.  As nothing can be too easy round these here parts we had to hike 1 ½ to 2 miles just to get to our trail.  Upon finding the trail marker we discovered that the trail has not been maintained in years.  We needed to cut out a corridor 6ft wide and 10ft tall and Mother Nature was generous enough to provide us a 2ft by 4ft start.

Fortunately the trail held up a bit better under the shade of older trees as we progressed, but there were other obstacles.  Dathan was moving a log off of the path when he had a sudden piercing pain in his head.  Ants bite around here so that was the immediate suspect at our elevation, but then I heard the unmistakable sound of bees—lots of them.  I relayed my discovery to my team and Dathan backed away just in time before the slumbering hive roused the rest of its defenders.

Another tricky obstacle was the open plains.  There was no tread to follow so we needed to keep our eyes open for blazers and cairns.  The vegetation was so tall in the fields that it was difficult tracking down the piles of rocks—but with 3 of us spread out we were able to maximize our efficiency on getting through the trail.

The path was too vast for us to tackle in a single day due to around 30 trees having fallen and we had but a crosscut to combat them.  The important thing is we now have the whole trail mapped and will return with a chainsaw tomorrow to finish what we started.


Good night friends!



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