Guadelupe Mountains National Park

After a 4 day road trip through Colorado and Utah I am finally in Arizona! My friend  Sam and I spent a night in the Rockies of Colorado, then drove to Arches National Park the next day. We hiked the trail leading to the Delicate Arch which is the most popular arch at the park and a highly photographed one as well. After Arches we went to Zion NP and hiked the Angels Landing trail. This is another popular trail, how it is difficult both physically and mentally. This trail takes about 4 hours to hike round trip and includes steep climbs with drop offs on both sides of you! Definitely a cool experience!

Finally we finished off with the Grand Canyon on Saturday after staying the night in Flagstaff. We spent some time just hanging out and looking at the canyon for a nice relaxing finish to our trip. On the way back to Flagstaff we stopped at the Lava River Caves which is a cave created by lava! Super cool place to explore a little bit.

Today was my first day of orientation for my 2nd term with ACE. It included lots of paper work which took up most of the day. I was a little surprised when I found out that I would be heading out to Guadelupe Mountains NP for a whole month tomorrow! I was not expecting to be thrown into a project the day after I got settled and on the second day of orientation technically. The good part is that I get to miss more of the boring stuff tomorrow! The bad part is I want quite prepared to leave for project tomorrow, especially for a whole month! I'm really excited to spend some time in Texas though since I've never been there, and I get to cross another National Park off my list! So I guess I'll see ya in a month!

I'm Baaaaack!

In two weeks I'll be heading back to Arizona to continue my adventure with ACE! This time around I will be working for 6 months!  Yikes! I'm so excited to start this journey for a second time around and I cannot wait to see the places I'll go and meet so many new people! My previous 3 months with ACE was incredible, and I know this 2nd time around will be even better!

I head down to Arizona on Tuesday night,  August 5th. I'm driving down this time with my friend Sam and we're making a road trip out of it! We're hoping to see some places in Colorado,  Utah,  and Arizona.  I'm prepared this time with a new camera so hopefully I can upload some great pictures of not only my road trip but also my entire 6 months in Arizona and beyond!  Stay tuned! 

My last project! Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest

The original plan for my last project was to go back to Dixie National Forest in Utah for a 4 day backcountry. However, in true ACE fashion they switched things around at the last minute (literally). On Monday night I found out I was leaving on Tuesday for Apache at 7:00 am the next day. The funny thing was that the crew going to Apache had already left that morning, so I had just missed them by a few hours. The next morning though, Adam, who I worked with in Sedona, picked me up along with Noah, who was also supposed to go to Dixie again, and drove us to Apache.


It was about a 3 hour drive and we arrived around 11:30. This particular project is very technical and apparently required a lot of training, which is what people were doing when we showed up. We went to the ranger station because the crew was in a conference room for the training. Both Noah and I already missed GPS training which was on Sunday (because we were not supposed to be on this project) and we missed the first few hours of training today. We walked into the conference room and were greet by the rest of our 20 person crew. Throughout the day we discussed how to use forest service radios, identify wolves and coyotes, Mexican Spotted owls, and of course we talked about our actual task. The next day of work was also a training day and we learned how to identify spruces, firs, and White Pines. This is because in some areas we need to individually treat trees and the tabs only protect spruces and firs. We needed to identify White Pines because later in the season the crews will have special tabs to put on just the White Pines to protect them, so we need to be able to tell the forest service what areas the pines are in.


This project is a 2 month project. The goal is to protect the forest trees from bark beetles which bore into the trees and kill them. This forest also had a bad fire a year or two ago, and fires usually mean an increase in beetle activity. Many trees are also home to the endangered Mexican Spotted owl. So there were many reasons why it was crucial to protect these trees and do our jobs well. The way we protect the trees is through stapling pheromone tabs onto the trees that send a signal to the beetles that the tree is "full" and they need to find a different tree. The hope is that the beetles will receive this signal from so many trees, become confused, and eventually be flying around long enough for birds and other insects to eat them.


To accomplish this task we worked in sub-crews of 5 (that's why there are 20 people on the crew). Each person in the crew has a different task as well, and each crew has a specific plot of forest to cover (many many acres). For most of the forest we are able to cover our plots in a grid like pattern (which means it doesn't matter what trees we staple tabs too, however, when we can't use grids and need to individually treat trees, we have to identify them specifically). The 5 people in the crew are lined up at the start of the plot, 40 feet apart. The sub-crew leader has the topographic maps and the GPS and they begin at the edge of the plot. It is their job to make sure we stay in our plot. We move as a unit, with the leader beginning each movement. They begin by walking out 40 ft, the next person walks and lines up with them, and so on. Every 40 ft we stop, make sure we are in a line 40 ft from the next person, and staple a tab, then we walk 40 ft with the leader, staple a tab, and so on. It's important that we stay 40 ft apart because any more and the pheromones would not be as potent to the beetles, and the trees would be in danger (the idea of the grid is that a larger area is being covered by the pheromone scent). The second person has the forest service radio and is in charge of communications, the third person has a compass and assists the crew with figuring out our bearings. The fourth person is responsible for the medical kit, and the fifth person (which was me) is responsible for flagging the line they are walking. This is because the plots are larger that the 5 person line we are in. At the end of that one section, we basically pivot around, with the crew leader beginning at the flagging, which signifies the end of our last section, and we begin from that point so we know exactly what we covered. The plots are never a perfect rectangle shape. They are more organic looking shapes with weird angles, however, we can work in a rectangle, and the go back to areas that were not in the rectangle we worked, and hit those trees individually.


Because we are working in an area with an endangered species and it is also their mating season, we are not allowed to talk while we work. We used a series of hand signals to communicate certain group needs. We were also off trail and far away from the other crews (which is why we had the radios) and we needed to be very cautious with snags and widow makers in the area. A snag is a standing, dead tree, and a widow maker is a dead branch that's hanging from a tree. Both can fall at any time, especially in winds, which we had during our project, and it is so important to always be looking up. We also need to be very careful walking because we aren't on a trail. There were many times when we were forced to walk through or around piles of fallen trees, up boulders, down cliffs, and things like that (which is actually pretty fun). We also had to wash our hands each break before we ate because, you know, its probably not a good idea to ingest beetles pheromones, but we did wear gloves to help that. It would have been really cool to be able to finish this project with everyone and learn a lot more about GPS's and topographic maps. Because of the immense amounts of training and the technicality of the project, they are going to keep many of the same people on this project because they are familiar with it.


This particular project was very laid back and chill, mostly because all of the training we had to do. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were full of tree identifications and practice with moving as a group. Friday we did the actual work, and Saturday it SNOWED!! WHAT??? Yes! It snowed in Alpine, Arizona (we were about 8,000 ft)! It was pretty cold the whole week actually. Saturday we spent the day driving around and "scouting" the plots that need to be worked on in the next few weeks. It was a pretty boring being in a car all day. Sunday we did actual work, and Monday we left!


This whole week we were on a rather large campground at a lake, Lake Hulsey. It wasn't too comfortable actually, very bumpy. We also weren't allowed to have fires because it's getting to that point in the season when everything is pretty dry. The first night I was there, Tuesday, everyone went to bed around 8 or so, which is normal. I felt like I was having trouble falling asleep, and at one point in the night I started hearing voices. I woke up, and it turns out it was about 10:15 pm. I heard several boys who were on the crew and saw their head lamps. My first thought was that they were doing something they weren't supposed to be doing (boys, you know?) Then I heard them walking around and going to tents by me, asking the people if they knew who's tents were where. That's when I started getting really curious, and a little scared. I put my head lamp and shoes on and went out. The boys had already walked down a bit, but were turning around so I stayed by my tent. They saw me standing there and approached me, about 5 of them. They asked me if I had heard anything that night and I said no. They told me that 3 people had a heard what sounded like a woman's scream (the campgrounds weren't open yet, so no one else should have been near us, but we were far away from the next campground anyway). A few of the people that heard were close to my tent as well. The boys were walking around to everyone's tent (remember, their was 20 of us) making sure everyone was ok. I was surprised I didn't hear anything because I didn't think I was sleeping deeply. They really spooked me though, and I definitely had trouble sleeping the rest of the night.


The next morning with each person that woke up for breakfast there was a small cheer of "So and so's alive!". No one had any idea what the sound was the night before, and not everyone heard so it was really difficult to tell, but one thing was for sure and that was that no one wanted to hear it! Most of us slept with ear plugs in the rest of the week. Some of the theories going around, with help from the forest service, were foxes, mountain lions, and coyotes. Several people heard more noises by their tent the rest of the week (hooves, breathing, things like that). One of the less popular, and much less likely theory (but much scarier) was that we heard the work of a skin-walker, being in the APACHE forest and all (you know, spirits). Here's what Wikipedia says about skin-walkers, if you're curious (and I know you are):
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin-walker


Like I said, most likely wasn't a skin-walker, but "most likely" doesn't exactly help you sleep any more soundly in the middle of the wilderness, in a tent, by yourself.


All that spooky stuff aside, this was a pretty fun last project. The technicality of it was interesting, and very different from everything else I've done. Working with such a large crew is also always cool because you get to know so many people. I also got to work with some people I've grown close to, so that was nice to spend more time with them before I left. This whole experience has been life changing. I have loved everything I've done these past few months. It's kind of crazy I'm already done, but I am so thankful for the experience I have gotten. The southwest has treated me well these past few months, and I greatly look forward to being back.

Dixie National Forest- Utah!

I'm finally all caught up! My most recent project was in Dixie National Forest, the Pine Valley ranger district. I was super excited to get put on this project because I have never been to Utah! I was on a crew with Nora, Dale, Jamie, Noah, who were in Prescott with me, and Neil who was in Sedona with me. We also had a guy named Cal as our crew leader, and another guy Wyatt. Wyatt and Cal were already in Utah, so those of us that were not were driven up on Tuesday. ACE has a house in Utah that's actually really cute looking and it's in a town called Hurricane (pronounced Hurri-kin lol). I was told we might be staying in Utah for our off days, but still forgot things like soap lol. The other people I was with were not told anything and were not prepared at all to stay longer than our project time. I was also told that this project was going to be up to 10 miles of hiking a day! Which was making me kind of nervous, but it turned out to not be that much at all!


We left for Pine Valley on Wednesday morning with Jason, a Utah ACE manager. He helped us take some cubies of water and personal gear up because we did not have a trailer. Dixie wasn't that far from Hurricane so we arrived around 10:00 and were able to work most of the day. We were working on 2 trails that met in the middle, basically forming a big loop. We started right at the trail head of the first trail and began working our way up. The objective was to open the corridor, which meant we were cutting bushes and trees that were in the trail, or a few feet off the trail. Both trails we were on were definitely a little old and had not been maintained in a while because the brush was thick! We had 2 chainsaws (Wyatt and Cal were the sawyers) and 1 brush cutter, which was a lot like a weed wacker lol. There were some straps that you wore with the brush cutter so you could clip it to your waist as opposed to totally carrying it while you hiked which was nice. I used it the first day, and it was pretty fun! The rest of the days I was lopping (cutting the bushes and things with loppers) and swamping (following behind a sawyer and throwing what they cut off the trail).


The hike to the work site every day was probably the hardest hike I've done so far. We work through close to a mile everyday, so each day the hike got longer. It was literally uphill both ways because we would hike up this mountain sides, then hike back down, and have to hike back up at the end of the day. A few days we got one mile of work done, and were hiking up and down several times! The hike during the day while we were working wasn't hard though because you move so slowly when you're swamping or lopping. No matter where you were on the trail though you had an amazing view! It was either the mountain behind you or canyons and mesas in front of you in the distance!  


While we were working we ran into a few creeks which was an awesome break for our day! It would get pretty toasty during the day, so when we saw a creek we would dip our bandanas and heads in it! There were a few that had some little waterfalls you could bend down and get to. At one creek Dale walked up it a little bit and found 2 waterfalls that flowed into each other! One was about 4 feet off the ground and we just stood and dipped our heads in it. The other was up and you had to climb a little bit to see it. The rocks were pretty slick though otherwise we would have tried to hop on up and into the little pool that fed into the lower waterfall. The water so cold too and would actually take my breath away!






The unfortunate thing about the area we were working in though was that we had to watch out for ticks! No one got bit though, which is good! There were also a lot of bees where we were camped, and there was a literally a Bee Tree that was thing huge, old ponderosa that was hollow on the inside and home to a bunch of honey bees. There was a little trail leading to it right from our campsite. It had also survived a few fires and lightning strikes! The highest points on the tree were its branches because the very top was burnt off by lightning. There were also a lot of turkeys around and we were always hearing them! A few birds were pretty annoying at night too and would start chirping at 8:30 every night, almost non stop lol. There were a few nights we had fires, but because Utah is an hour ahead it didn't start getting dark until around 8:30, so some of us would stay up until it was dark because it was weird to go to bed when it was so light out!


This project my tent zipper broke so I couldn't close my tent all the way, which wasn't as much of an issue as I thought it would be. Surprisingly, little critters did not find their way into my tent! One of my water bottles also started leaking which stunk! Remember how I said we also didn't have a trailer for stuff? No one came to help us pack up and leave on Wednesday when we were done so we had to find a way to get all our food boxes, tools, and personal gear into the van, otherwise Cal would have to make 2 trips. We managed though and were able to consolidate a lot of stuff, but it was still a tight squeeze!


When we got back to Hurricane my crew hung out for awhile before attempting to shower because there is only one shower in the house and there was another crew of 10 people. We hung out across the street in the grass. It feels like the perfect summer weather in Utah, it's absolutely beautiful! We ended up deciding to do what Nora likes to call "stink and drink" where we go out to our crew dinner without showering or changing, so we did that! Well tried to, its hard to find a drink in Utah! And you have to order food with your beer, its weird lol. After we ate we went back to the house and later that night we were hanging out in a small barn corral of a tractor museum that was next door. We aren't allowed to drink on ACE property, but the museum allows us to use the barn. It was nice to have a place to just hang out and chill outside of the house since there aren't any bars around lol.


I'm heading back to Dixie on the same trails next week for 4 days. It's going to be a back country project which will be my first! I'll also be with Cal, Wyatt, and Noah, along with a new guy named Kyle who I haven't met yet. The 2 trails are about 10 miles long total, and we went in about 3 miles on each trail, so there are a few miles left to do in the middle where the trails meet, so I will be doing the same work. Because it's back country we have to hike in all our food, tools, and gear, as opposed to just driving up to a campsite. This will be another one with no bathrooms! For those of you wondering, when there aren't bathrooms the proper way to do your business is to dig a hole (cat hole) about 8 inches deep. It's all apart of Leave No Trace. And for those of you REALLY curious, sometimes when there's no toilet paper people use rocks. Yeah, that's a real thing haha. Anyways, I don't know where I'll be for the last 4 days of this project. It's my LAST PROJECT! I can't believe it's already here! Here's hoping it's a great one (and I know it will be :) ).

Prescott National Forest

Pronounced "Pres-kit". This was my first time in Prescott, but there have been a lot of crews on this trail this year, so for some people it was already their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time, which kind of stinks, even though it is a really pretty place! All week we were unable to have fires at night though because it was very windy! We had a few people's tents blow away during the day lol.


This particular project had 2 crews with 8 people each. I was on a crew with this girl Alex, and a few guys named Dale, Johnny, Noah, Jacob (an American citizen from Denmark), and Lionel who I have worked with before. Our crew leader was a guy named John as well, and on the other crew there was another Jon and Noah, and a Nora and an Ally (a crew leader I had in Sedona). Lots of similar sounds going on this week! The other crew also had a few guys I had worked with before, but there were a lot of new people I was looking forward to getting to know. Because we couldn't have fires at night, we actually backed up our trailers to one another and basically made one big kitchen and put a huge tarp over it to block some wind. It was a tight squeeze when everyone was under there, but still a great bonding experience! This was also another project with no toilets, but lots of great bushes and rocks!


The work we were doing in Prescott this week was just building a lot of check steps. Check steps and water bars prevent water from carrying sediment further down the trail, and the sediment will be deposited before the check step and help build up the tread on the trail. The first 2 days I was working with a girl named Nora on a particularly large check step that was incredibly frustrating. It was a lot of chiseling and adjusting with rock bars to make sure the rocks had good points of contact.


The hike out to the work site was a couple miles and took about an hour, and after Nora and I finished I was moved further down the trail, basically to the ending point which was 3 miles out. Myself and a few others worked for a couple days doing a couple more check steps. This location was sweet though because we were right by the little stream. If you walked down the hill and up the steam (which was just damp sand) you reached an area that actually had some nice little pools, so I would spend my lunch breaks with my feet in the water! Finding a place to pee in Prescott was also pretty cool because you would go on an adventure climbing up this boulders and then have a view of Granite Mountain, which was very cool looking! Going to the bathroom is definitely a great excuse for going on mini adventures during the work day!


Although the work we were doing was the same (check steps) Prescott looked super cool with all the boulders balancing on each other like someone just dumped them out of a bag. Some big boulders looked like you could just tap them and they'd tip! We were also in an area that had burned and it reminded me of the Lion King lol. It was a pretty open looking area with lots of creepy dead trees, but really pretty, purple flowers, and awesome rocks! The hike was difficult in a couple areas, but probably the prettiest hike I have done so far. You could also see Humphrey's Peak (Flagstaff) from our trail!

Tonto #3- Pleasant Valley

This was my 3rd project in Tonto National Forest, and it was another 5 day fencing project. The area looked a lot like the Tonto Payson area I was in 2 weeks before. There are a lot of Ponderosa pines (which smell like vanilla!) and it was a little chilly at night. My crew leader was a guy named Matt who greeted us with donuts when he picked us up! I was also working with Lissy, Mike, and Ryan who I had previously worked with. Our campsite was actually very close to our work site again (you could see our tents and it was actually faster to walk lol). We would drive to work everyday because a few people used the van to transport logs to the worksite (to be used as a brace). This was also my first project that did not have any facilities at all (meaning no toilets). You get used to peeing outside real quick though, and eventually it just becomes preferable to a toilet anyways haha!


The purpose of our project this week was to construct and repair a fence around a plot of land being used to study cattle grazing. This plot had been set aside since the 30's, but when we arrived the fence was down, and the land looked a lot like the land that had not been fenced in at all. It was just a square plot about a 1/4 mile long and it was all basically flat.


The first day of work we just started to take down the old fence and any posts that were bent. Because we were only working for 5 days, the days were hours long. We would get up at 7:00 (instead of 6:00) and work until 4:30 (instead of 3:30). So each afternoon we had some time to just chill and hang out and there was no rush to get dinner started. Ryan actually brought a chess set and baseball gloves that we used a couple times.


Each day at work we would basically wrap up the old wire, lay out new wire, and stretch the wire tight. Before we could actually start rolling out wires we needed to get a couple braces in. We used juniper logs that some people cut down to create an "H" brace. The posts were dug deep into the ground, and then a post was placed between 2 others (making the "H" shape) and we then took wire and wrapped it in an "X" fashion around the posts. When that is finished you have to take fencing pliers and twist the wires in the middle to make sure there is a lot of tension and they stay tight. That process can get difficult because it was start getting tough to twist the wires! We made 3 "H" braces total and used a large ponderosa as another brace at the corner of the fence. After the wire is stretched and clipped in, we put in stays, which are like long, twisted bobby pins that make sure the fence moves as one unit, and not 4 separate wires. There were also a few points a long the fence that were not on flat ground, so to ensure that the posts didn't pop out of the ground when the wires were stretched, we placed "dead men" at the low points. A dead man is a rock or log that is tied with wire to the fence and hangs just off the ground. This is so some of the tension is placed downward as opposed to pulling up on the fence (and pulling the posts out of the ground).


We were actually able to finish our work by Wednesday (we got there Monday). So our project manager had us make a couple more "H" braces at another location to prepare for a fence to be put up. Our project manager was named Gary and came to visit us a couple time with eggs from his own chickens! It was pretty convenient actually because one of our meals for the week didn't get packed, so we were able find some random food to cook with the eggs Gary gave us!


When we finished our work on Thursday doing the extra braces for Gary, we tried to drive to Valentine canyon just to see it. We hit a road block though in the form of a large ponderosa blocking the road. This of course was no problem for a crew that had chainsaws already, so one of the girls, Rachel, got all her gear on and chopped up the tree. Once we cleared the road of the stumps we kept driving. However, we reached a gate a little ways down that was locked and decided to cut our losses and go back to camp.


Around the fire at night we would play 20 questions, even though it always ended up being a lot more than 20 questions lol. Matt also brought a speaker and it was really nice having music to listen to during dinner and dishes and hanging around the fire.

Tonto #2: Cave Creek Ranger District

For my next project I was in Tonto again, but in the Cave Creek Ranger District which is in the Sonoran Desert. Instead of pines and forest we had prickly pears and sand. The work we were doing this week was actually fencing, which I was really excited to learn about. My crew leader was an older gentleman named John Donovan (or just John Don). He's been a back country ranger and other things of the like in Arizona for quite some time, so he was super knowledgeable! It was fun working with him because he was very much a teacher and liked to explain the tasks or talk about the wildlife around us (which we saw a lot of!) I also worked with Lissy and Kerri, who were on my crew the week before, and a few new people named Cassey, Ryan, Roland, and Jirius.


Traveling to our project location was also kind of interesting because it turns out that the town of Cave Creek is basically a rich retirement community. We were seeing Porsches and Mercedes and Maseratis all over the place (and we were in out 1990's suburban lol). The drive from Cave Creek to our campsite ended up being about an hour of driving on a dirt road though the mountains. At one point we started to hear some funky noises, which was making us nervous, but it ended up being nothing!


When we reached our campsite we found that it was actually an old ranger station that was no longer in use. There were 2 buildings, one being a house and the other was more like a large shed. The house was locked so we couldn't sleep in it. There was a bit of a yard that was over grown and had a fire pit and a picnic table, where we put our kitchen. Some of us put our tents near the "driveway" of the house, while a few of the boys that were with us camped in the wash which was right next to the house. The wash was mostly dry, but there was some water that was flowing close to camp and we used it to put our fires out at night.


The first day of actual work we woke up and could hear cattle and yelling in the distance. John Don suggested that we run up the road to watch the cowboys and cattle, so we did! It was probably about a quarter mile up the road that we ran into the cowboys and watched them gather up their cattle. I think that the ranch nearby had a broken fence so the cattle often got away. After watching the little show we did out safety circle and stretching, then headed back to camp to start our day.


Our work site was actually really close to our campsite- just up a short but steep hill. The fence we were working on was going to be a quarter mile long total. We had to take out the fence that was there which was burned because the posts were logs. We were using all new barbed and smooth wire, so that meant that we had to roll up the old barbed wire into circles so we could transport it back down the hill (4 lines of barbed wire, each a 1/4 mile long, meant A LOT of spools of rusty barbed wire to move). Carrying the spools of barbed wire down the hill was a lot more tricky than it sounds. Some of the wire would come loose and attach itself to your pant legs- which happened to me a couple time and it wasn't fun. 


When we began to put up the new fence we had to carry all our supplies to the work site. There were several roles of barbed and smooth wire that one guy carried up with a cache hauler (each spool weighs about 80 lbs I think). We also had to bring up 3 large metal posts (to create a brace so we can stretch wire), and 30 bundles of metal T-posts (5 posts in a bundle, not sure how much they weighed, but they were uncomfortable to carry and a tad heavy). Bringing the T-posts to the work site was definitely the biggest challenge of the hitch. The hill we had to walk up wasn't long, but it was steep and a bit slippery with all the dirt. Once we got up the hill though we had to start placing the bundles near the fence line. We would put our bundle about 50 feet ahead of the previous bundle, which meant each trip we made we had farther and farther to walk with these posts. We had to do it this way as well because of the way we needed to lay out the posts (in accordance with the brace which was at the beginning of the fence line). It wasn't exactly motivating to know that the job was getting longer each time, but it was only a quarter mile, and although it was hilly, it could have been a lot worse!


Putting up a fence itself is actually pretty simple. It basically involves lining up T-posts (metal posts with notches), pounding them into the ground, then stretching the wire across the posts and clipping it in, then putting in metal stays. Before any of the posts can go in though we had to create an "A" brace with the larger posts we brought up the hill. These were placed into hold about 3 feet deep and 3 feet wide. We began to dig with a pick and shovel but very quickly hit bedrock. In order to speed up the process we brought a pionjar up the hill to get through the rock. A pionjar is a lot like a jack hammer. It was cool to use, but was also like 80 lbs so it took a lot out of you when you used it! When the holes were dug though we were able to put the posts in and fill them with concrete so we could start attaching wire to the posts.The tricky part of this project that was that we were in a hilly spot, which meant when you stretched the wire it would be on the ground at the tops of the hills, and way over our heads at the bottom of the hills. It just took a little maneuvering and we were able to figure it out.


Some other stuff we did during this project was brushing the fence line, which meant that we were getting rid of bushes or cacti that were near the fence. Kerri and I took turns destroying this huge prickly pear cactus with a pick. It's always fun taking some aggression out, but this time it kind of stunk because little needles would fly everywhere and get stuck in our gloves. We did find a ton of lizards as we were doing this, and a few horny toads. I also ran into a fat, black widow, and Lissy saw a diamond back as well!


This project was pretty cool and fun, and it was nice to do something other than trail work, which was all I had done so far. So if anyone needs a barbed wire fence put up, just give me a call!