The best part about trail work, is that you learn a whole bunch of rules – how to set rocks, where things should go, where they shouldnโt go – and then you get to break all of the rules.ย Nature does what she wants, and doesnโt give a hoot about your so called โtrail rules.โ ย I love this because it means thatย every project must be approachedย differently. You never know what youโll find when you set out to work. ย This means that as trail workers, we have a set of skills that we have to adapt to new situations. When I first found out weโd be working on a mudslide on Mt Evans, I was excited- I had no idea what that would entail, besides finding the trail.ย The mystery grew as I looked at a map and realized that the directions I was given didnโt make any sense, there wasnโt a trail between those two lakes!ย Maps donโt always have all the trails though, so we met our volunteers, drove up, found a trail and then started hiking. And then we saw it.ย A HUGE MUDSLIDE.
So we got to it, rearranging the decomposed granite, figuring out where the trail might have been at some point and how to keep everyone in one spot with cairns, mono-walls, and retaining walls.ย Itโs been a new experience for me and I canโt wait for the next challenge.