Mt. Massive 2009: Rocky Mountain Youth Corps
Mt. Massive 2009: Rocky Mountain Youth Corps
Jessie, Nigel, Meredith, Hannah, Sarah, Jennie and Hannan
August 2nd found me at the Mt. Massive Overflow trailhead meeting up with a crew from Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (RMYC) and Joe. This crew was comprised of 6 women, Sarah, Jennie, Hannah, Meredith, Jessie and Lauren, and 3 guys, Hannan, Nigel and Pete. 10 of us began hiking in (Nigel didn’t join us for a few days as he was at a family reunion). It took us about 2.5 hours to hike into base camp.
We set up, ate and then headed back down to the trailhead. We had to make a second trip because we had a lot of food (we were packing in for 10 days). On the way down, Joe ran into a man who seemed to need help getting down the trail. I caught up with them and walked with them as well. The man seemed tired and wobbly on his feet. We stayed with him and made sure he got to his truck and he was fine (I later saw him in Leadville at a restaurant).
After getting to our truck, Joe and I went to town, ran some errands, I got a calzone from High Mountain Pies and we hiked back in.
August 3rd found us quarrying rock, lots and lots of rock. We also got stormed off the mountain. We managed to get about 8 hours of work in so it was a good day but we like to get a bit more done if possible. This day also found one of our teammates discovering that this job wasn’t for her. It’s a tough situation but we want our crew to have a good experience and this was just a bit much (2.5 mile hike to the worksite each day at 13,500 feet in elevation) for someone right out the gate.
August 4th found us saying goodbye to Lauren and Pete (who hiked her out). We continued to quarry rock at the work site and looked forward to the next day so we could begin building structures. Quarrying rock happens to be one of my least favorite jobs so I was excited to build.
From August 5th through the end of the hitch on the 11th we mostly built structures, we build 3 tier walls, a mono wall, a section of crush fill retained by rock, a 5 step stone staircase and started (and half completed) an 8 step stone staircase. There was also a bit of tread scratched and we started to re-contour the current trail (since we’ll have to restore it in a few weeks).
Over all, we had a good hitch. We met some really nice, fun people, I got to hang out with a bunch of BMW’s (burly mountain women) which is always refreshing and we had some fun at camp playing games, listening to music, playing guitars. We didn’t quite get as much done on the trail as I was hoping but that’s usually the case as I have high aspirations for each group.
The next hitch we’ll get a new group from RMYC (Pete will be their leader) and we’ll also get to work with Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC). Hoping to get the entire reroute done before the VOC get’s in for their long weekend. I’d love to have them doing the restoration work as I think they could really get it all done. I think it might be tight to get all of the high priority work done this summer, but I think it’s doable, just have to keep the end goal in mind, keep everyone safe and have some fun. It’s a tall order but someone’s gotta do it.
