July 28, 2006

A month on Dancing Moon in Montana

List of recent accomplishments: install an AC install window shades much bridge jumping much scooter riding multiple 4 hour sessions of river floating sheep herding dirt road driving too much thistle cutting running pellet gun wars fort buliding Carhart wearing highway trash pick-up fencing music listening

June 21, 2006

I am on my fourth crew of the season and have been concentraiting on doing a variety of activities, such as sparpole climbing and rockclimbing. THe people out here have lived up to the standard of being a blast! Everyone out here is here for a different reason but we are all called out here by a smiliar passion.. One of them us here talking to me now, so I will finish this later.

June 8, 2006

Philmont Training 2006 Training this year was quite a trip. We were a big crew, 10 in total and our fearless Ranger Trainer, Reed, did a great job. Our first day we hiked to Old Abreu which was only a few miles but it felt really good to get out of base. The next morning we went to Fish Camp but stopped off at Crags to take a nap and eat and enjoy being by the river. Once we got to Fish Camp and set up we started out First Aid training. The next morning we finished up training by doing fun things like making splints out of bed rolls and taking a test. Then we hiked over to Bonita Canyon to be ready to build a radio receptor tower the next morning. Not going to lie, our crew was probably one of the hardest working crews out there that day. We carried the metal towers to the top of the mountain then stayed up there all day mixing the concrete which other crews were bringing up in back packs. We had to dig big holes for the guy-lines which pitted our muscle and ingenuity against some pretty significant rocks. We were the first crew up and the lst crew down that day. After we finished that we loaded our packs and hiked on to Beaubien for Ranger Rendezvous the next day. Ranger Rendezvous consists of a series of games which test our skills ina variety of areas ranging from water chugging skills to fauna and flora recognition. We pretty much rocked out all those games and then had a great dinner prepared for us by upper leadership. Then we once again loaded everything up and headed to Black Mountain Camp. We spent the night in a shanty which was much morefun than trying to set up tents. The next morning we got up at 3 am and hiked up one of the toughest climbs on the ranch to watch the sun rise. From there we hiked the rest of the way into base camp over the Tooth of Time. Lots of amazing vistas, wildlife, and some pretty serious laughs. All in all things are going well. I have picked up my first crew and am heading out on the trail tomorrow.

April 23, 2006

I have decided to keep this xanga as a log of my various adventures across the globe. My first entry pertains to a trip which my father, brother and I took down to Mark Twain National Forest. We started out hike on Friday at the Hercules Turnaround. There was a huge fire observation deck which Josh and I illegally climbed while dad scouted the trail-heads. We finally loaded on our packs and set off at about 4 in the afternoon and only went in about two miles before we found a great site with a fire ring and which was right next to a stream. We quickly set up camp and dad cooked us up some cheesy-noodle goodness. After dinner Josh and I took off walking down the stream for an hour or so and then headed back up to camp. That night we sat around a cedar fire and enjoyed its smell and bug repelling abilities. The next morning we woke to a slight rain but it was gone by the time we finished breakfast. (To all hikers- those chocolaty pop tarts are NO GOOD FOR ANYTHING!!) We took a day pack and wandered off in search of these water falls which we had heard would be neat. About a mile into our hike we found a really cool shelf which we explored a little before heading on. At one point we referred to our neat topo-maps (which were very impressive for being free trail head maps) and decided we had missed the falls and might find them if we just walked down stream. About an 1/8 of a mile on down there they were. Unfortunately they were all dried up but that did give Josh and I the opportunity to take off our shoes and jump into the pool and by jump in I mean, me jump in then Josh try to follow and slip and pull us both down under the water. After a while we geared back up and moseyed on down the trail. A few miles later we wandered across a small river which was overhung by a several hundred-foot-high cliff. We waded out to a rock in the middle of the stream and set up our lunch and basked in the glory of summer sausages and power bars. After that the map told us to go straight up the cliffs we had eaten under and while dad and I discussed what exactly that meant Josh had the idea to go back to the other side of the stream and sure enough there was a trail (albeit it looked more like a potty trail to me). We tramped up to the top where we encountered our first fellow back packer who said the bald nobs (for which we were looking) were only about 2 miles away. The trail through the area was so covered with leaves that it was hard to even really see. There were also lots of small sprouts still coming up right in the middle of the trail, congratulating us on being some of the first people through that area for the summer. Finally we found ourselves at the bottom of a field on a hill side. We schwacked up to the top and sat there and enjoyed the amazing landscape. Unfortunately, dad had begun feeling sick and so we decided to head on back and load up camp and head out that night instead of the next morning (as we had planned before). We broke camp down in about 20 minutes and Josh and I took off ahead of dad who said he rather to go slow. Once we were all loaded back up in the van I drove us home through a beautiful afternoon landscape which was complemented by a wonderful bluegrass program I found on NPR. All in all, it was a beautiful trip across some very old, very powerful lands with some pretty neat fellows.