Update: Today we completed the first week of trail work! Monday we hiked the tools in and cached them. Man, what a hike! Anyway you go, there is forty minutes of serious hilly hiking. Tuesday was our first day of trail work and we got started on clearing tread while Alice and I, my co-crew leader, planned out the rest of the new switchbacks. The youth made some awesome tread. Wednesday we actually started the switchbacks and it proved to be a challenge. The area is steep and very rocky, but at least there is nice fill underneath the rocks! Unfortunately, one of our crew members had to leave the program on Wednesday so we are down to five members and two crew leaders. Thursday was more work on the lower section of the switchback. We are doing mostly rock work and tread work on this section and the rock work is a tedious job, but it's best to go slow and do a quality job so that the work will last decades. Today we nearly finished the bottom of the switchback and hopefully we will work on the upper portion starting Monday. As for camping, which is a large part of this experience for the crew, we are not camping in the park like originally planned. The only flat portions of the park, which is a mountainside, are three small charcoal landings that would not fit five tents, a cooking area, a campfire, and any room to have fun, and it would be an AWFUL hike with water, food, and supplies. Instead, we are camping on my father's property two miles away on the Musconetcong River. We are snuggled between a cornfield and the river in a grass pasture. Some areas have wood chips laid down to eliminate soggy areas. My father has been a great help for our camping experience. Thanks Daddy! As for the crew, we are made up of 7 people. Alice is the other crew leader and she is 23. We have 4 college students on the roster: Arielle, Mike, Sue, and Colin, and Zach is going to be a senior in high school this year. Everyone but Sue and Alice are alumni of the New Jersey GreenTeam commuting crews, including myself. Fortunately this makes us a tight knit group, not to mention most of us have multiple summers of trail work experience under our belts. Well that's it for this week! I'll update again next week after WEEK TWO!

Update: The end of week three! Wow, this crew is awesome! This week we officially finished the main switchback which takes the trail away from the super steep, dangerous Boy Scout steps. It includes about 11 steps, approx 100 feet of new tread (I'm bad at estimating so pardon me if it's too much!), and lots of memories. Some of the rocks have certainly influenced this trail. There was Virginia rock, Cantankerous, and Tranny. Cantankerous was basically a boulder that was moved and placed in a shallow grave sized hole, with only 4 rock bars, and 6 people. Talk about moving mountains by hand. After we finished the main switchback, we moved down the trail towards another switchback, which is nearly done (should be finished by Monday). This second switchback is smaller in size and somewhat less rocky, which is a sigh of relief. There have been four rock steps installed so far and more to come tomorrow. Fortunately/unfortunately, we got rained out twice this week. On Tuesday, it was pouring so hard so our tread work was just three inches deep of mud, which made walking up and down the mountainside tricky and dangerous. Because of these conditions, we left early at noon, and went back to camp to put dry clothes on. Then we went to the library to research our rec trip and write thank you letters. After that we stopped at a grocery store to get ingredients for dirt (hell yeah! chocolate pudding, crushed flavor-Os, and gummy bears cause we didn't want sour gummy worms). We were in for a nice surprise when we got back to my house where we were going to hole up while it rained: My dad made us BBQ chicken and ribs! So delicious! We hung out watching Wall-e, Robin Hood Men in Tights, played video games, and ate! Now, some might say this little excursion isn't camping, but I say there are exceptions to everything so whatever, haha. We also got rained out on Thursday but we left at 2, so we nearly did a full day of work. We went back up to my basement again so we could dry out of gloves, boots, day packs, and med kits like we did on Tuesday too. This time we made chicken, pepper, and onion kabobs, cous cous, mac and cheese with sundaes for dessert, and watched Wayne's World. We were lucky to have two visitors this week! Bill from the Park system came out on Thursday before the rain and Doug Klein, NJ Greenteam alum who went on a national crew this summer but would have been on the hybrid crew if he was around, came out and worked with us for an hour or so until we left because of the rain. All in all, it was a good week and now we have ONE WEEK LEFT! This Monday and maybe Tuesday, one of the NJ Green Team commuting crews will be coming out to work with us which will be super awesome! Their thirteen people plus our six is going to allow us to get so much more work down. Thanks Jon and Terri! Until next week!

Additional hours volunteered: 406

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