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!
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