At a glance we trail workers are rough around the edges. We’re dirty, smelly, and sunburnt. We cuss and spit. We heckle each other for fun. Beyond the roughness, we are can-do people. Optimists. Visionaries, even.
We look at a steep pitch, an eroding hillside, an unassuming piece of alpine tundra and imagine a sweet section of single track reinforced with rock steps or a retaining wall.
We quarry rocks imagining in our heads how this shape might fit into that space. Then, we recruit our crewmates to move the chosen rock to the empty space. We use a grip hoist or a rock net, or sometimes just our hands to maneuver the rock, carefully, to not crush fingers or toes, to lessen the impact on the tundra, to avoid demolishing any of our previous rock structures. We imagine the angle it will sit in the hole, how it will match the faces of nearby rocks. We imagine how gravity and water and the weight of thousands of people stepping on it will affect it over time. Will it hold in place or will it fall out?
With planning and some luck we fit the rock where we want it. We decide it will stay. We use a single or double jack to crush stones around it, cementing it into place. We move on to the next rock, the next piece of the vision.
Sometimes, things don’t go so smoothly. No matter how we envision it, no matter what we try, the rock we chose will not sit in place. We look at the problem some more. We throw out new ideas. We talk things through. And the vision changes. “If this was easy then anybody would do it’ we tell each other, reassuring ourselves that this is the process, this is the way of rock work. That sinking feeling in the gut telling us we’re in over our heads? That’s normal.
Eventually, it all works out. A steep section of loose mineral soil and some piles of rock becomes a solid staircase that we hope will last a hundred years. Behind our work, there is a spirit of cooperation. If one person doesn’t see a solution, someone else will. We debate, we do stuff, we make mistakes, we correct or capitalize on them. We smile and laugh a lot. We have fun. We screw up, we apologize. We get on each others nerves, we move on. We create community and art together in a place that amazes us with it’s beauty and remoteness. It could be that our optimism, our willingness to keep going, is just as important as skill and luck in building with rock.
