Circle Time

That's right, during our 17 day training, we spent a lot of time in circles. We talked about PPE and LNT; we talked about swinging tools and sharpening tools and not hurting ourselves with tools and what to do when we hurt ourselves with tools; we talked about talking to people and feeding ourselves and cleaning up after feeding ourselves; and then we talked about restoring illegal trails and about driving on legal ones. It was a busy training.

We wore closed toe shoes in the kitchen, long pants when washing dishes or making tea, boots when working, gloves when handling tools, hardhats when swinging tools, and full riot gear when working outreach. Ok, not quite, but there were a lot of rules.


It is difficult to live in such a structured environment and with so many people after growing used to living alone.

And actually training was kinda fun. It was nice getting to meet people from all of the crews (there are 6). We played a lot of games and made a lot of music. The stars were awesome and we slept out under them every night.

Camp

On one off day a group of us went on a hike in Surprise Canyon and that was awesome. It was about 45 minutes away but the ecology of the area was starkly different. We hiked up a stream bed which was flowing with water, and there were many green plants in the area. The canyon walls rose steeply on each side, in short it was awesome.

Surprise Canyon

On another off day we went for a hike up above the canyon where we were camping, and that was pretty cool too.

And now we have 6 days off so I am headed up to Yosemite tomorrow morning to do some hiking.