The Nevada Conservation Corps goes to...Arizona?

As I mentioned in my last post, this past week my crew went to Arizona for our project. I'm not sure if other crews have gone there in the past, but it seemed quite unusual to me because I didn't think we would ever leave the state for any of our projects. The reason we did was because we were working with Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which is located in both states, and it just so happened that the work they needed us for was over the border. I wasn't complaining though because it meant that we got to see another amazing place that I never expected to see. The scenery where we were working was breathtaking because we were right where Lake Mead NRA meets Grand Canyon National Park. The work we were doing was road decommissioning and installing barriers to keep people from off-roading in the areas we were closing off, and for the entire week anytime we were working we could just glance up and see the mouth of the Grand Canyon where the river flows out of the Canyon and meets up with Lake Mead. You can't ask for a better view than that while you're at work. It's things like that that are constantly reminding me how lucky I am to have a job that allows me to be outside so much seeing new places and having new experiences.

One part of the experience recently that has not made me feel quite as lucky is the cold weather. It did get colder much more gradually in Vegas than I am used to from New England but usually it is slightly colder than Vegas in the areas where we work, and this week was no exception. I don't know exactly how cold it got during the nights but it was definitely below freezing (which was quite apparent when the milk in my cereal began freezing to the side of the bowl while I was eating breakfast). Sleeping in weather that cold can be quite uncomfortable, so I've taken to sleeping with all of my layers on, including hat and scarf, and using my sleeping bag liner inside my sleeping bag to add more warmth (this past week Corey lent me his liner also so I had 2 liners in addition to my sleeping bag), then pulling my sleeping bag over my face to keep it warm. My feet also get very cold during the night so my strategy for that is to put hot water in my metal water bottles before bed and stick them in the bottom of my sleeping bag to warm up my feet. Unfortunately the heat usually dissipates completely by around 3:00 am, but for those first few hours my feet stay wonderfully warm. The morning also presents several challenges of it's own, other than frozen milk. Since we have to wake up before dawn it hasn't started to get warm yet so getting out of the sleeping bag can be a challenge, although sleeping in our Carhartt work pants instead of changing into more comfortable pajamas makes it slightly easier because you don't have to undress or put on freezing cold pants in the morning. The boots are a different story though. There is no good way to keep boots warm during the night, even if they are inside the tent, so putting my boots on in the morning can feel like putting my already-cold feet into ice boxes. Then breakfast involves trying to eat as quickly as possible so I don't have to expose my hands to the cold for too long, and then on the last morning of the week when we have to pack up our tents it can be a difficult choice between trying to finish taking the tent down without gloves on before your hands are completely frozen or fumbling with the buckles and clasps wearing gloves and possibly taking twice as long. On these cold mornings it can be a blessing when the worksite is far enough away to require driving because then we can put the heat on in the truck to warm up. As much as this might sound like a terrible situation to deal with, and sometimes it feels pretty terrible, it's worth it because it's all part of the experience. If there were no challenges the job would not be as rewarding, and by the end of this year of service I will feel very accomplished being able to say that I lived in a tent most of the year in all types of weather.

I realized that I haven't written many posts specifically about what our experience is like at camp when the work day is over, so hopefully this post gives you a little bit of an idea of what camp life has been like recently at least. I'll try to remember to add some more about camp life in future posts. This week we have a 6-day project (my crew will be working with 3 other crews at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area doing trail maintenance), and then we get 2 weeks off for Christmas! I'm really excited for the break because I've been missing the east coast a lot recently so I'm looking forward to going back.

Pictures and update from the past few weeks

As promised, here are some pictures from the Ash Meadows project and my Grand Canyon trip. It took me a little longer than I thought, but better late than never, right? Here they are.

Ash Meadows:

This is a really bad picture of Devil's Hole, where those endangered fish live that I mentioned in my last post. We could only see if from a fenced in walkway above the hole so that we weren't disturbing the fish. 

This is inside the facility we toured where they are doing research related to the Pupfish. That's me in the picture to the right. 

This is one of the amazingly beautiful springs that are all over the place at Ash Meadows. They are breath-taking!

Big Horn Sheep!

Grand Canyon (these are a little out of order, sorry):

It was snowing where we camped for the night. This is what it looked like in the morning when we woke up. 

The place we camped, on Forest Service land outside the park. 

The edge of the Grand Canyon. We couldn't see down into it because of the snow. 

During our hike. 

At the bottom. I was so excited!

Another shot from the beginning of the hike when it was snowing. 

Lunch break

Yay Grand Canyon! 

Another snowy shot

This is when we just got to the river. I really like this picture. 

Our campsite at the bottom of the canyon.

Now for an update of things since the last time I wrote. The project after our Grand Canyon trip was at Desert National Wildlife Refuge, which is only about an hour from Vegas. We were there for 4 days, which has started to feel really short compared to working for 8 days, and we worked on putting down concrete on a wheelchair accessible trail and removing Russian Olive, an invasive tree. We got to use chainsaws for the tree removal, and it was really cool because I felt like I had a breakthrough in my comfort with using a chainsaw, and I got to the point where I didn't feel the need to ask my supervisor, Corey, what I should do before making each cut, and he felt comfortable letting me work without watching me the whole time. 

That weekend my roommates and I went to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. We camped there one night and spent the next day doing some hiking, and even though it was a short trip we got a good taste of the beauty of the area and how cool the rock formations are there. Here are some pictures from that, although they are from Facebook so the quality isn't great, and as always pictures never quite do the place justice. 

The week after that we got even more chainsaw experience because we spent most of an 8-day project using them. We started out the week in Alamo, NV, using chainsaws to remove invasive tamarisk, or salt cedar, and then spraying the stumps with Garlan, a pesticide designed to kill the roots when it gets soaked in so the tree can't re-sprout. We did that for 4 days, but then on day 5 it started to rain and get too windy to safely use the chainsaws and chemicals, so we moved to the next project site in Carp, NV, where we spent 2 1/2 days building a barbed wire fence to prepare an area for invasive removal and native plantings. Then we went back to the first site for the last day and a half to finish that project when the weather improved. That week was usual for several reasons, first of all having to move our campsite twice because of the weather changing our plans, and we were also working on private land. Usually we work on public land but this time we were working with a woman from the Fish and Wildlife service who works with private land owners to do conservation projects on their land. So it was a different experience because we got to meet the landowners, one of which was quite a character. It was also the most difficult project we have had so far for many reason. It was the first time we had spent multiple days in a row using chainsaws for the entire day, and by the end of the week my entire arms were in pain and my hands kept cramping up, especially while I was sleeping. Then even when we weren't chainsawing for those few days, I thought my arms and hands would get a break, but having to hold onto the barbed wire to twist it around posts and things like that made my hands cramp up even more, so by the end of the week I could barely do anything and had to stop using the chainsaw for the last few hours because I couldn't even grip it without being in pain. It was also some of the worst weather we've had on any project. It rained for about 3 days, and the first day it rained it was really windy too and when we got back to our campsite my tent had blown about 10 feet from where I had set it up and the wind had driven rain into one side of it under the rain fly and the bottom half of my sleeping bag was wet. So that night I had to sleep curled up in a tiny ball in the top half of my sleeping bag to avoid getting my feet wet. Even though the conditions were not great, my crew did a great job of staying positive and keeping each other motivated. We had several nights where we ate dinner in the truck and just sat there for a while being completely ridiculous and silly, and I think that is what saved us from letting the bad weather and hard work get to us. By the end of the week though I was ready for those 6 days off!

For the 6 days off I went to the San Francisco area to visit the Hanley cousins for Thanksgiving! It was great to see all of them, and I was glad I was able to spend the holiday with family even though I'm so far away from home. On Thanksgiving morning I ran the Turkey Trot 5K with Terry and Will, which was really fun, and it was the first race I've run in so it was a great new experience! Over the weekend I also got to see a friend from college, Julia, who I hadn't seen since graduation, and it was great to catch up with her, even only for a few hours. It was a great trip, but then on Sunday I had to take a 13-hour bus ride to get back to Las Vegas, so I didn't feel very rested when I had to go back to work the next day. Luckily the work this past week wasn't hard, so it was a good recovery week after 2 weeks of not much downtime, but I wasn't as into it as usual because I was looking forward to being back in Vegas and just getting to relax and catch up on everything I hadn't gotten to do in the 2 weeks before. The project was at Ash Meadows again though, which is one of my favorite places we've worked, so it was still a fun week. We were removing Coyote Willow, which normally isn't something we'd remove because it's native, but Ash Meadows is removing it because it's been growing near water in several places and shading out important fish habitat. It's an interesting situation because they basically had to choose between two species that they normally would want to keep, but in this case the fish won because they're threatened or endangered, I can't remember which. We were using loppers and handsaws this time because we were mostly just taking out small sprouts that had come up since the previous treatment, so it wasn't physically hard, which was good because my arms were still recovering from the chainsawing we did, and we got to hang out with Abram and Will, two guys who work at the refuge who are really fun to work with, so over all it was  fun week but I was really happy to get back to Vegas and relax this weekend. I haven't done anything exciting this weekend but that's fine with me, I've just relaxed and gotten errands and things around the apartment done that I've been putting off. 

Then next week is another unusual one because we're going to Arizona. Interesting since we're the Nevada Conservation Corps, but we're working with the BLM on Lake Mead land so it's an area that crews have worked on before, it just happens to cross the state line. Then after that we have one more project where we're working at Red Rock Canyon, and then we have Christmas break. I'm really excited for that because I've been getting homesick recently and I can't wait to go home and see family for Christmas. I will try to write again at least once before Christmas, but I can't guarantee anything based on how infrequently I've been finding time to write. If I don't write before then, Happy Holidays everyone!