I can't compare the two different crews from session 1 to session 2. They were both great in their own way. This session we started off with 3 girls and 3 boys, but then by week 2 we had 2 girls and 2 boys. Perhaps this shows the character of the leaders? We lost 2 people each session... This time it was medical reasons, though. Phew! I don't like to think I'm that terrible! So, our first week was on the Whitefish Divide Trail and we had a really cool thing happen to us. One day we were coming off the trail at the trailhead and this big white van was slowly coming towards us and then stopped. This old man was slowly getting out of the vehicle, and in my head, I was like, "What in the world is going on here?" So, I step up towards him. (I guess I was hoping he didn't mean any harm, but I made sure to put myself between him and the kids...) Anyways, he seemed to have a difficult time speaking, but he wanted to thank us so much for the work that we do on the trails and that it really means so much to so many people. He is a helper for this 71 year old man who is walking through (a total of like 2000 miles), and that man was staying near the trailhead that night. His kind regards and story of this 71 year old man was such a motivator for the youth (and for me), it was amazing and felt so good to hear. Well, then we went to the lake and hung out there for a bit. On our way back, we stopped at the old man's campsite, and I got out to ask him if we could all meet him. I told them how much the kids were admiring him. He said sure. We all got out, made a semi-circle around him, and he got out his little digital camera and had us introduce ourselves on the camera for him. Then he went on talking. He was a talker, that's for sure. Anyways, he went on talking about books and hiking and such, and it made me question, "Who is this guy?" He never actually introduced himself to us. So, of course, I then ask him. His trail name is Nimblewill Nomad and his real name is MJ Eberhart. He is an author of several books about hiking through hikes and such. You could tell he had a true love for nature and wanted to share it with others. I wish I had the group photo of him. I meant to get it from Jack, who happened to be with us that day (a staffer), but I left Montana pretty quick after getting out of the woods. If you put MJ Eberhart into Google, you'll find his site and such. Pretty sweet. This crew had such a cool dynamic about it. In the picture above is Julian. Julian is a beaner (spelling?). Don't worry, this is what he calls himself ALL the time. He is one of the funniest kids I have ever met. He found a sports bra in the rig when we were hanging in there out of the million mosquitoes and rain. That smile with the thumbs up is his signature pose. As a joke, him and Quinn were 'married' or 'getting married'. Zach was the son, Michelle was Quinn's sister, and Nick was the annoying cousin. Ahmad was Julian's father because they both have darker skin. And I was Quinn's mother. Each one of the youth had a different personality and it all seemed to work real well with each other. The work this week included a lot of brushing and retreading the trail so that it could actually be used. There was one real big tree in the way, so we got the 2 handled crosscut and conquered that tree! In the picture is Nick and Zach. We three had stayed behind and tag-teamed/rotated through to get it done. Watch the sweet video of the two boys kicking it at the last bit. Their enthusiasm is so real in the beginning....haha

Here is Zach. He always had a smile it seemed. He was the 'son' of the 'family.' And ended up 'going to college' on the 3rd work of week out there. Quinn, the oldest youth of the crew. I felt like she was another leader with us. She knew when to be goofy and silly and when to be serious and do the work. She was awesome to have with us the whole time. She was also the 'mother and wife' of the 'family'. Nick, the 'annoying cousin' in the family. He knew his stuff outside. He started off as our Mountain Man, but we met a true Mountain Man during the 3rd week down in the Swans, so he became our Mountain Lad. Still pretty awesome! Julian, the crazy kid who could make anybody laugh. He was the 'husband' and 'father' in the family. He definitely brought something to our crew that was unforgettable.

WEEK 2: Swan Crest 100 We brushed part of the trail that was used for this 100 mile running race. People who can run 100 miles consecutively are crazy in my opinion... :) Perhaps I'll run one one day. :) Instead of being constantly surrounded by a million mosquitoes this week, we had flies. Oh, boy. Got to love the flies!!! :) It was a pretty good week this week. It had it's up and downs. One thing this crew is also great at, just like in the first crew also, we love playing Ninja! Quinn even added more to this Ninja...using our feet, so it's elimination by 4! That was crazy!

To get to our site, we got to drive over the Hungry Horse Dam, so "I'll be damned" if we wouldn't stop and get some awesome photos. Last time I was here, it was all damn snow and ice. (which actually was pretty also) :) So, this was our crew for most of the time. From left to right, Zach, Quinn, Ahmad, Julian, Michelle, Nick.

So, one of the reasons I love working with youth is their imagination. Well, also their energy and enthusiasm. As we grow old, sometimes we lose this. I try to fight it every day, but I don't know how well I'm doing when I see youth at work. :) Anyways, there was this pipe that went under the road to allow the creek to continue at our campsite. So, on our day of not working, Julian and Nick decide they want to crawl through it. Fine by me. Here is Julian going through. My favorite part though is the exit. And this was all Quinn's idea. She sat on the other side on top of the pipe. She sat and pretended she was giving birth... But the best picture is when she couldn't control her laughter. Quinn's laugh was totally contagious!

As you can tell, I was much better about taking pictures during the second session. I should have taken more during the first, but I'm not good at remembering that stuff. Along our path that we brushed, we had to cross a creek 3 times, which was actually great because the water helped cool us down. The logistics of crossing the creeks with our tools and without getting our feet wet was sometimes a bit difficult though. The trail started off real wide and it definitely did not seem like we were going to have much work for the week. Low and behold, about a mile into the trail, it thinned out and needed a lot of brushing. The race started on Friday morning at 7. Our campsite was mile marker/rest stop mile 52.

We got to work the spot...which means we worked from 6 pm to 3 am serving ramen and mashed potatoes, grilled cheese, Dr. Pepper and Coke, coffee, etc. I think mile 52 was everybody's favorite spot. Apparently, we were some good entertainment. :) Staying up to 3 in the morning proved to be rather difficult. Our youth obviously didn't drink, but Quinn sure was acting slap happy by that time in the morning!

I'll just post the rest of the pics from that week. Pictures will be my words here.

Our jumping fest of pics. Pretty sweet off the rock. We stopped here during work because we needed to pump some more water into our bottles.

I guess this is what happens when you don't have toilets in the woods...you just go in your pants!

Running part of the race to see what it was like...And yes, Nick is running with no pants on and his jacket tied around his waist... They went about a mile or so.

The boys brought a whole new meaning to Naked Thursdays... It was meant you were naked in your tent in your sleeping bag when we all went to bed...not really where they get naked as soon as we get back from the worksite and hop around in their sleeping bags...No big deal.. :)

WEEK 3: Swan Range/Oxbow Trail (with Dale, the Mountain Man)

Work this week consisted mostly of building boardwalks which was pretty cool. We were working in a wetlands type spot so the ground would normally be pretty muddy during the wet season. Dale was the contractor we actually got to work with and he was great. Pretty quiet, but overall, pretty fun to work with him. Supposedly we needed waders. The only time we used them was during recreation hours, when Nick and Julian decided they could cross the creek and fish in this fishing hole they saw. After 2 attempts in the waders, they gave up on it. Instead, everyday after work, we got in our swimsuits and sat in the water and floated down to our site. The water was a bit cold, but it felt so good and relaxing!

Julian was most definitely the clown of our group. This stuff is called Old Man's Beard...and justly so, just look at Julian...:)

We had to build boardwalks in different spots along this 3 mile trail, which meant we had to lug the material to every spot we needed a boardwalk built. This was not an easy task, but we did it. We carried something like 92 planks and 10 4 by 4's (8 ft long) a half mile to a mile up the trail. And we did it again for another boardwalk in another location. It really felt like an accomplishment when we got them done, though. Oh, and Dale loved to make cookies. No, we didn't have an oven, but he had a chainsaw! He would chainsaw a chunk of the tree and we would use them like stepping stones in muddy areas. It almost made me hungry every time he mentioned cookies, though... :)















































I was really proud of myself in getting this root all by myself. It was a deep and big root. I had to ax and ax and ax at it for a while, but I finally got it up and out of the way so the boardwalk could be built there. It was a stump anyways, so don't worry, I didn't kill a tree!

The end of the work week. We had a scare with Julian and had to run him to the emergency room that Thursday night and he stayed the night there. For his sake, we all did his signature smile with the thumbs up. Of course, Dale didn't do it...We did tell Dale that Julian loved him (cause Julian told all our sponsors that), and Dale just laughed and said he hoped he would start feeling better. Then he said "That little turd, he worked real hard." Julian is now known as the little turd.

Julian and Quinn's 'wedding' was suppose to be that Thursday evening, but because of his stomach getting cramped up so much (perhaps it really just was the wedding jitters), they did not have the wedding yet. We had to drive to where we could get cell phone reception to find out if he was coming back. It happened to be a real pretty lookout area where we thought we would have the wedding anyways. So what do we do? We have a wedding between Quinn and Julian...just Julian wasn't there. These are all the wedding photos!

Quinn and Julian's first dance! Amazing. It was such a touching moment!

Quinn's throwing her bouquet! Who is going to catch it??

And it's up in the air!
MICHELLE!! She'll be the next one married!! :)
So we still weren't sure if Julian was going to be able to come back with us for the last week or not. We all wanted him back, but it was all up to the doctors. When we left the hospital the night before, the doctors still weren't sure what was wrong with him. But, when we found out that we were going to pick him up on Saturday, we were ecstatic! As you can tell by the joyous jump of Michelle and Quinn!

WEEK 4: Native Plant Society in Glacier National Park, Seed Collection

We stayed in West Glacier, but saw all of Glacier this week. Our first day we went to Polebridge. The next 3 days after that we went to East Glacier (St. Mary's, Many Glacier, Two Medicine). They would show us what we needed to collect and we would wonder through the prairies and collect the seed. (I hope I didn't get any of them mixed up!) It was a very relaxing last week, but a good one. We got to even drive through Logan's Pass which is an amazing drive!

Some days can be hard to work, but when you look up and see your office that looks like this, you can't help but love it! I'm sure I have said it before, but Many Glacier is my favorite part of Glacier National Park and East Glacier (where Many Glacier lies) is my favorite area. The beauty of it is much like the south island of New Zealand.

The job this week did require a lot of driving, so I can't blame the 'couple' at sleeping in the car. But don't they look so cute resting on each other? :)










It's really hard to capture the actual look of Logan's Pass. If you make it to Glacier, drive this, but ALSO hike some trails. The majority of people who go into glacier don't hardly get out of the car. They just drive this pass. Which I guess is good at the same time. Less tramping on the ground, so less of a trace left behind...



There are many lights for one way streets on the pass because it's on a mountain side and the snow is still even present. Logan's Pass doesn't have a long open season. So, I took advantage of the standstills. And, yes, those are dreads on my head.


Glacier National Park runs into Canada also and is known as a Peace Park. This table at the visitor's center was wanting people to sign this petition to add this corner that's in Canada to the Peace park. It made complete sense to us. So, we signed and then got our pictures with their motto. Complete it. Connect It. Protect It.


Our hip bags, orange vests, and scissors in our pockets. These were our tools all week. We were going to pick seeds in this spot up the hill a bit, but apparently, there was a bear siting and we had to change our plans for the time being... Those bears!


























Pictures always get better when there is a person in them. ESPECIALLY when it's me in them!

This is in Many Glacier. There was a grizzly siting here on this day, so I finally got to see a grizzly bear! (from a distance)

The other youth crew happened to be working in Many Glacier that week and we ran into them. So, we had lunch together. That was pretty neat to run into them again. Our crews really got along with each other. One weekend we all hung out and played rugby tag and Ninja. Good times.

On our way to the 'surprise' (buying them ice cream) we say a black bear in the woods. It didn't really care that we were there. There were a lot of people watching it. I think it was a local bear to the camp area in Agpar (West Glacier campground).

Skipping rocks on Lake McDonald, synchronized style. (Julian and Nick)

Overall, this was a great summer and I'm going to miss being out in Glacier and all the gorgeous places in Montana, but now it's on to my next adventure, MOZAMBIQUE!!!!

It seems so long ago...oh wait, it was...

Session 1 of my MCC summer went great. It went from June 13-July 10, 2010. I had a crew of all high school age boys. When you are the only girl...you get picked on...but I guess I am used to that from guys. Go figure. It was good picked on though. The fun, sarcastic stuff, so no worries.

WEEK 1: Whitefish Recreation Trail
Our first week we worked on the Whitefish Recreation Trail. It is a trail that goes around Whitefish lake. We helped build drainage systems on the trail, brushed off limbs that would hit faces of horses and people, built rock benches on a bump out, and pulled dirt down the downslope side of the trail. It was nice to see people already using the trail and thanking us as we did our work. (always motivating) It was our first week of work, so it was a bit of work hardening...getting the boys to wake up, get breakfast, make their lunches, get to work, work the whole time (and in the rain), and get back and make dinner, etc. It was something new for all of us.

We camped at some open valley that we at first weren't sure it was the right spot...but it was. As the only girl, I would have to go off a bit away and find a hiding place to pee at. On my way to a random pee spot, I found fur scattered all around this one area...yes, an open kill by a carnivore. We had already found random bones scattered around the area we were camping, so obviously there was something out there and with the way that fur was, probably a mountain lion! :)

The week went pretty good for the most part. We had one kid with the wrong attitude to be out in the woods doing this kind of work, so he ended up going home anyways. They loved making the fires at night, and it was teamwork to figure out the how to get dry situation when it rained the whole time.

I should probably explain this car wreck...So, we drive these big ol' rigs. Ours was a GMC Yukon named Zeus. We drive on a lot of mountain sides and such. And if you know me, I may drive a bit fast sometimes...still safe, but a bit fast. Anyways, we were going around a corner and all of a sudden there was a big rock in the middle of the road. So, I tried braking, but it wasn't going to stop us in time, so I turned the wheel real sharp...and this is what happened. Our rig turned over on itself several times, but before the ambulance came, I was able to hand over my camera in order to get a picture of it. Noone was hurt!

This is the story we told one of the adult crews we worked with on the last week. AND THEY BELIEVED US! The real story is that on the trailhead where we were working there was a totaled car just sitting there. Somehow I was able to convince a crew of boys to take a funny picture... They didn't do many more random funny pictures, but I got at least one!

WEEK 2: East Glacier - Fencing and Weeding

I am so glad we had the opportunity to work in East Glacier because that is now my favorite area of Montana, of the Northern Rockies. Our work here included fixing barbwire fencing on the borders of the park. Glacier National Park borders the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. There is still a dispute on where the boundaries really are. The Blackfeet think their land goes in further, while GNP has it down as another boundary. We were hired by GNP to fix the fences that have either been broken by fallen down trees or cut by the Indians to allow their free range cattle and horses to graze on the grass. GNP wants to stop this to stop the infestation of noxious weeds in the park. It's been an ongoing battle apparently. I'm not sure where I stand with it, but we were hired for a job and we did it. Most of the fencing was done before we got there, but we still got at least 2 days of fencing. Then we had to try to decide what was weeds and what was not...I still probably couldn't tell you.

We stayed at Cut Bank campground which was right be a creek/river. Unfortunately, the water is freezing! I guess when they are fed by glaciers, they tend to be a bit cold. There weren't many girls for the boys to stare at, but they still seemed to have a pretty good time. We played some rugby tag, they did some wrestling, we went bushwacking down by the river, they widdled some wood, etc. I even had them do the popsicle pushup thing where they made a square with their bodies and only hands on the ground to do the pushup (look at the picture).

Cameras don't really capture all that I saw in East Glacier. Most of my pictures here are in Many Glacier, a must visit. We hung out at this lake one day after doing some weeding. When we were done with the fencing, we went on to weeding. Weeding included going on hikes in East Glacier where our sponsor told us weeds were becoming a problem.



We took an hour lunch at this gorgeous spot in St. Mary's.

One day we were picking weeds up in Chief Mountain at a trailhead directly by the US/Canada border patrol. The boys stated they would really love to go to Canada, even to just step a foot in Canada. Why not? We could just run over there, step a foot in, and run away. They wouldn't catch us, right? As long as we were fast enough! JK Don't worry, we didn't try this approach. Instead, I went into the US border patrol office and asked them if 8 of us from Montana Conservation Corps could go into Canada and get back and without documentation. The US side had no problem, so they called the Canada border that was about 50 feet away. They had no problem, so I walked back to the rig and told the boys to come to Canada with me. We brought our helmets as our "documentation." They let us walk in a good 200 feet to get pictures by this sign. You could totally tell a difference in the people on the 2 sides. On the US side, nobody even tried to talk to us. They didn't seem to care. We got to the Canada side and one of the guy's was already joking with us that he didn't want to see us run off in different directions. Then on our way back to the states, we stopped and talked to the Canadian border patrol for a good 10 minutes. Just a difference in hospitality...

This is Chief Mountain itself. I could see a chief being up there...

This is just one of the greatest views while driving to and from work everyday.

WEEK 3: Hungry Horse National Recreation Trail
You know how our grandparents talked about having to walk to school in 10 feet of snow, uphill both ways? Well, I'm not going to exagerate quite that much. We had to hike 5 miles up the mountain side just to get to the start of our worksite. It took us about 4 hours to hike up the worksite, giving us about 1 1/2 hours (maybe 2) to work, and then head back down to camp. In other words, we didn't actually get that much work done. And on top of all that, the mosquitoes and the flies were really beginning to come out for the summer. We got to use a single handle crosscut to saw trees out of the path (probably a good 10 trees were down and in the way). We used pulaskis and pick-matticks to retread the path in different spots where the path was not quite as visible. We even got to hike through some snow during this work week. The hike was hard, but our boys did a good job...just took a little bit of motivation to hike it everyday.

On Thursday, we got stuck in a horrible windstorm on a ridge. We saw it coming, but it was hard to tell how bad it would be. But, then again, the weather changes every 5 minutes in Montana, so we should have known... Anyways, we decided to head back due to what the weather was doing, and on our way back down, the wind really picked up. Just our luck, it picked up right when we were crossing a ridge. I almost thought our smallest guy was going to blow away! "Hold on to Stan!" We all had to hold on to our helmets so they wouldn't all blow away.

Camp was nice because it was less than a half mile to walk to the trailhead to begin work. We had our pet deer, Sumpy and Sumpster, who always drank from our kitchen sump. We did Monster Races where they had to cross from line to line following certain rules. We conquered K2 and Everest at this site and found a caveman who was in hiding. Yes, that is right, a caveman. One of the boys would have marshmallows, providing him this sugar high and he would walk around camp, dragging a 'club' behind him and make caveman noises. He was good at not breaking character. Question is, did he practice at home before coming out to work with us? No one will ever know...

The fun thing about being at a camp place that is not public is that everybody seems to be more comfortable. For instance, our caveman only became a caveman in camp spots where nobody but else was around. In a picture above, one of the boys is just in his long underwear.


WEEK 4: Swan Mountain Range - Cold Lakes Trail

It was hard to believe that this was our last week of work. It was a great last week for us also. Apparently the Cold Lakes trail they had was very wet and crossed a creek several times. The Forest Service decided it would be worth it to reroute the trail up the hill more and then prevent the creek crossings and wet ground. An adult crew was already working on this trail, so they were able to show us what we needed to do. Paul trained us in using a two handled crosscut...you know, like the saw they would use in cartoons. So, we had to cut down a lot of trees and do a lot of brushing. Lots of work, but we felt productive.

On the last day, Friday, we only had a half day, so we decided to work the morning on chopping this huge root out of the path. The root was at least 6 feet wide and 5 feet high off the ground. There was no way it was going to moved by hand only. We needed our pulaskis and pick-matticks. We all took a spot around the root and began swinging our tools. Then we also began singing. We belted it out in our own random songs that came to our heads. Eventually, we all began singing together as loud as we could as we swang away. It was the best day of work in my mind, and it happened to be our last.

To start off the week was the 4th of July, so I made everybody red, white, and blue pancakes (blueberry pancakes with strawberries and whip cream on top). Then we went to the big 4th of July parade in Bigfork, the closest city to us. The parade even provided a free BBQ (hot dog and chips). They had a Santa driving a corvette. They had some small kids dressed as Superman, Spiderman, or Wonderwoman and tied them to the top of a golf cart, and so on.

We also played a game of Kick the Can at camp which was really fun. The game involves a can in the middle of the place and one person who is "it". Everybody else goes to hide in the woods around. The "it" comes around and tries to find you. If they find you, they say "Over the can on ____" and has to jump over the can before that person can kick the can. If they go over before it's kicked, the person found is in prison. They are freed from prison if somebody else is able to kick the can at any time if they are not in prison. It was pretty fun to hide in the woods, but we never got to play when it was dark because it didn't ever get dark until 11, and we needed to be in bed by then in order to wake up and work the next day.

Where Do I Begin?

Just in case anybody remembers that I have a blog... or that I still exist... I'll write one... finally...

Where do I begin?

I started the blog of my adventures in February. I was just scrolling through my previous entries and its wierd to believe how long ago that was. All the way back about my train ride to Montana, my impressions of Whitefish, work, where I lived, and so on. It's like a life away, but yet it was like yesterday when I met all my new friends having a beer at our favorite local bar, Moose's Saloon, in Kalispell. It doesn't even feel real that I'm not in Montana, that my new adventure is ready to begin. The big question here, am I ready? Yes, but I do miss Montana, all those friends, and all the youth I worked with.

Okay, so what have I done since my last entry? Well, the part of Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) that I signed on for and spent 4 months training for finally came (and went). That is, the past two months I have spend in the woods in Northwest Montana with two different sets of youth working trails and such. This all reconfirmed again my desire to always work with youth. Who couldn't love all that energy, enthusiasm, and imagination?

The way the youth crew works for MCC is that we have two four week sessions during the summer where each set of leaders takes out 6 youth. It's four weeks straight for them, no going home, etc. First session was June 18 to July 10. Second session was July 18 to August 14. The Youth Crew Leaders (YCL) (me included) did all the recruiting, interviewing, and selecting of the youth members. How the four weeks works is like this:
We work 8 hours a day Monday to Friday on the trail. Saturday morning we pack up camp, go into town to exchange any tools needed, go food shopping, and set up camp at our new worksite. Sometimes on Saturdays we went swimming or bowling. On Sundays, we mostly chilled at our new camp, sometimes exploring a bit. Then we work at our new site Monday to Friday, and the month goes on as so.

Setting up camp means setting up a tarp to have our kitchen, digging a sump hole for the kitchen water, digging a latrine for our bathroom away from where sleeping and cooking, and setting up our personal tents. Tents shouldn't be near the car or kitchen area to avoid bears near us at night. The latrine was one big hole, either deep or about 3 feet in length that we would all poop in.

Each session definitely had different dynamics and personalities. Of course, I'm going to say that the 2 crews I had over the whole summer were the best 2 crews, far better than the other 2 sets of youth crews. (I'm definitely not showing any kind of bias with that statement...:)) First session, my crew was only boys. Just imagine being the only female in a crew... Yep, picked on! :) Second session started off with 3 girls and 3 guys and ended with 2 girls and 2 guys...explanation later...:)

Besides working with youth as a plus to this job, this job also moved us all around northwest Montana. We worked in East and West Glacier (Glacier National Park), we worked down in the Swan Mountain Ranges, we worked in wilderness areas (pretty close to the Bob Marshall Wilderness), and we worked on recreational trails in Hungry Horse and Whitefish. I got to see so many different parts throughout northwest Montana. What other kind of job could provide such an amazing office? With fantastic lunch spots?

So, I think how I'll go about talking about each session is write 2 seperate entries and having pics with them. Meaning, this is all ya' get right now... just a tease... no big deal. :)