Field Program

This past hitch was my crew's third time being back at the Switchback Ridge Trail in the Helena National Forest, just about 20 minutes out of Helena. While being front-country is quite nice, having a rig close by and bringing a plethora of extra gear such as hammocks and 5 books to read; it's also interesting to be so close to town yet unable to go visit friends or fun places during hitch. Despite this, the crew had a great time making the best of it, having fires nightly with smores and discovering roasted summer sausage and cheddar cheese is quite the delicacy.

This hitch was marked by the discovery of another way to hike the trail we were working on, as the initial ascent was a 2000 ft elevation gain over 4 miles of rocky terrain carrying dolmars of gas and chainsaws- aka not quite ideal. However, our project partner (shout out Emmett from PPLT!) found a 3-mile hike utilizing the CDT with only a 300 ft elevation gain and astounding views.

This became my favorite part of the day quickly. I had a tootsie roll sucker and my airpods loaded with my favorite Big Bootie Remix and I was excited to wake up every day to begin work.

The actual work we were doing was clearing a 10-foot wide corridor on either side of the trail, and above, using chainsaws and axes. This, in theory, would not be that hard, if it didn't look like Lincoln logs had come to life! Trees upon trees stacked on each other, blown over by powerful windstorms and accumulating in the past 10 years. On top of this, our saws decided to break almost every day; allowing us to become saw maintenance experts quickly and learn to deal with frustration towards them.

By about mid-hitch, we had finally obtained 4 well working saws and we were on our way to finally clear the last 2 miles. Around this time was also when the heat wave hit, with temperatures reaching 90 degrees by mid-workday. During one such work day, immediately after I had put a freshly new chain on my saw Needles, I 'dirted' the saw within the first 5 minutes of use, and did so again 2 more times in the next 30 minutes. Needless to say (pun intended) I was pretty upset. But being with my crew, where we like to make jokes about everything, I choose to use this time to calm down, sit, and compose a poem to make light of the annoying situation:

"There once was a saw
its name was Needles,
It liked to cut all logs,
All big small and little,
It had a little secret though,
A guilty pleasure one might say,
Needles liked to eat dirt,
Every night and day,
It had a sawyer named Lauren,
Who tried with all her might,
but yet against Needles,
She'd never win this fight,
Till one day they were told,
If you work as a team,
Then we might go
and get ice cream!
Needles quickly got better
and cut so much more
Lauren was happier,
and proud to tell the lore."

After writing this, the day definitely got better and we did indeed end up being able to get ice cream that day. I'm so thankful I have a crew that supports me and helps get me through annoying times! Go Central Divide Crew 4 :)