We once again woke up in the frigid cold, but this night was
different. Instead of sleeping in my too-small sleeping bag, I used one of our
newly acquired (from the Germans on Sunday) mummy sleeping bags. And what a
difference that made; it surely helped that I slept in my heavy winter jacket,
my scarf, my gloves, and my winter hat too. Granola bars and Pop Tarts greeted
us for breakfast before we trekked up to the Nursery to get to work with Ranger
Carrie at 9:00am. She brought us over to the Visitor’s Center, where a large
pile of mulch needed to be moved from the parking lot to the plant beds around
the area. The group spent the morning with that task, while Sam C. and I were
put to work fixing new tree posts. We hammered in new posts and replaced old,
broken posts to help newly-planted trees in the area to grow straight from the
ground. We took a snack break with Carrie when we all finished around 11:00am,
which was very fun. She talked to us all about her experiences as a Zion Park
Ranger, and had some interesting insights to give about the surrounding
communities. After that short break, she put us to work in the campground,
where we hammered stakes into the ground to rope off areas of newly-planted
seedlings. After our PB&J lunch break, the day had warmed up sufficiently
for me to work in a t-shirt, which was very liberating after our bitter cold
morning. Megan, Emily, and I were making fast progress through the campground,
working right up until 3:00pm again.
After the day’s work was complete, we headed back to camp,
where we passed a volleyball around as a group, then rolled out for a hike. Our
two-mile hike took us through the Upper and Lower Emerald Pools, which were
absolutely spectacular. We once again took several great photos, and I had a
lot of fun walking up through the rugged, unpaved trails. Our dinner that night
consisted of very satisfying Pasta Roni with mixed vegetables, and we sat
around the campfire for some S’mores after it got dark. There was another group
of volunteers sharing our large campsite with us, and we spent the evening
getting to know several of their members, many of whom were from foreign
countries. We called it an early night that evening, getting to bed around
9:00.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
ReplyDeleteDay 2
The second day began with no snow!!! Sorry, I forgot to mention that the first day we were there; we were greeted by mini Hershey-kiss looking snowflakes. They were cool, I guess and the canyons looked amazing covered in a dusting of snow, but the cold weather that came with the beauty was so damn killer that it almost wasn’t worth it at the time. Almost. Anyways, the second day, our work was helping out with the nursery work. We took a huge pile of mulch, moved it around and spread it over some areas around the visitor center, mindless work that was pretty soothing and would take the small staff forever. We knocked it out in like 3 hours. Also during that time, RJ and I re-evaluated some stakes holding up trees around the nature center. We would either take the stakes out if the tree didn’t need it anymore, reposition the stakes if they weren’t helping the tree that needed help, or just leave a perfect situation like it was. The tools we had to do this were lots of fun to use. To pound stakes into the ground, we used a hammer-like metal cylinder with handles on both sides and a hard metal top. Its hard for me to describe this contraption, but it was the most satisfying thing to just pound these ten foot wooden stakes into the ground with a few rancorous hits with this tool. After lunch, we were assigned a new task, to rope off some areas in the campground where there are new and growing plants. This was another task that our groups sheer numbers helped reduce the time it took to be accomplished.
After the workday was done we got to the most fun part of the whole trip→ the hiking. Our first hike of the week was a gorgeous trek to the Emerald Pools. While on the rugged trail, we were constantly surrounded by beautiful rock faces and immense cliffs. The first notable place was a small falls that sprayed us as we walked by on the path. As we continued our ascent, the trail became more difficult (a.k.a. fun) and I felt more in the wilderness than I had in a long time. The final destination was a magical place… there were aspects of all sorts of spring break destinations all at this one location! We were standing on a sandy beach looking at a beautiful falls and a frozen lake. All the while we were surrounded by snow. Let’s just say it was quite a feeling to be surrounded by that mixture of elements. As usual, we ended the night with a ggggreat campfire and early bedtime.