During transition week a few weeks back, Rachel and Steve and I made the trek to Boulder to see Jessica Lea Mayfield play. It was a fun night and I ended up really enjoying the opening band, Nathaniel Rateliff and Fairchildren.
We also got to do a fun ISP at Red Rocks park our final weekend in Denver. We slashed up a social trail, put up a little fence, and helped put in a few trail structures to help protect the trails from water and sediment runoff.
This round I'm back with my original pals on Water 2 and we're doing various environmental and conservation projects with an organization called the Rocky Mountain Field Institute, which is located in Colorado Springs. Throughout this round, we will be completing several projects with RMFI, moving locations at least every 3 weeks, sometimes more frequently. Another important detail, our housing this round is.... cammmmmping! In tents. In the wilderness. No showers. 10 weeks. Yup. Well I suppose that's not entirely true, we do get some occasional weekend perks as you will see in the tales to follow.
For the first 3 weeks of our project, we have been working, and camping, in the South Platte Watershed in the Pike National Forest, about an hour outside of Colorado Springs. Our main goal in this area is to help re-stabilize drainage channels that feed the water supply for this area of Colorado. The South Platte was part of the area destroyed by the Hayman Burn back in 2002, the largest forest fire in Colorado's history. The fire has essentially wiped out the root and support system of the hills, having burned up all trees and vegetation. This weakness in the soil and structure has resulted in the formation of deep and widening gullies and what are called head cuts, where water and sediment runoff build up so much intensity and speed that they begin to cut backward into the hill and remove more and more sediment. Our job has been to treat these head cuts and deep gullies by constructing and installing erosion mitigation structures, using found logs, fallen trees, branches, and large rocks and boulders. To give you an idea of what this looks like, let's take a look at the cycle of a rather large head cut from pre to post treatment.
The dark and shadowy areas in this photo are an example of a rather large and lengthy head cut and gully that have been carved over time as sediment is washed downhill.
Here is another portion of that same gully, further up where the main head cut formed. This is what the strategy for laying the logs in ends up looking like, with longer, larger logs in the base layer and then having the following layers grow gradually shorter while building height. This method creates a gradual slope in the treatment which follows the natural slope of the hill.
Finally, we see the end result. The log structure from the previous photo has been completely filled in with dirt (taken and hauled from other areas with an abundance) and the treatment is complete!
This is the basic strategy for head cut treatment structures, but we have also done a few other structures as well.
The first structure we built involved selecting, moving, and placing about a bajillion huge boulders into a gully. The idea was to construct them in a sort of V-shape to add support to the banks while providing a guided path away from the edges, channeling water to the center of the path.
A more frequent structure we deal with is the tow-bank stabilizer, in which we excavate (smooth out) areas where deep edges have formed and fit and stack large logs to prevent further erosion of the bank walls. We've also done a couple other structures, Rock-and-Roll and what I am deciding to call the Baby Rock...and Roll which, ironically, have nothing to do with rocks. With these, logs are installed and overlapped in the base of the stream paths at diagonal angles to encourage the movement of sediment and water one way or another (no photo, sorry!)
The overall process of constructing any of these structures goes something like this:
1. Excavate, smooth out and prepare work area
2. Locate appropriately sized logs and branches
3. Saw
4. Saw
5. Maybe you'll get lucky if Shaina is around with the chainsaw, but if not saw some more
6. Place logs, branches, and rocks
7. Locate dirt supply that can be extracted without potentially causing further damage
8. Shovel dirt
9. Haul dirt
10. Fill in structure with dirt until it looks evenly sloped and part of the hill
There you go, ten easy steps...
As you can see, a trusty hand-saw would be an essential tool and resource during this process. Lucky for me, I have formed a special bond with this guy, complete with a ninja strap for convenience and style.
And just for fun, here's another example of a head cut from the opposite angle, also a bit smaller than the previous one.
In the midst of all this amazing productivity, we've also received quite an interesting array of weather, especially the first week. Nearly daily, we were experiencing some kind of rain, sprinkling, or graupeling during work, hence the stunning rain protection outfit seen here.
The most interesting weather by far came to us during work on Thursday our first week as a thunder storm rolled in. With lighting continuously flashing all around, we were forced to drop our tools and book it back to camp. We drove down to town to get away from the madness for awhile and upon our return later that evening, we were greeted by a world of white... in May.
There was one advantage to this inclement weather though, we got to spend the next day working in Garden of the Gods in the Springs, installing a couple of stone staircases on a climbing trail.
It was overall a lovely day, though the mysterious weather did make an appearance by the time we were wrapping up...
Our first weekend, we bailed on our campsite and the crappy weather and stayed a night with another team in the area. They took Grace and I on a cool hike Saturday right outside their house. Another extraordinary view discovered in the hills of Colorado.
Near our campsite and work area, there is another mysterious and tempting rocky peak called Sheeps Nose. A few of us did our best to get near the peak. We didn't quite make it as things get pretty vertical near the top, but we did reach the top of its sister, which we've named Sheeps Tail, and had some amazing views of the Hayman Burn area and layers and layers of glorious mountains.
This week we finished up some more work in South Platte and helped RMFI lead a group of about a hundred volunteers who came out from Vail for a volunteer day treating a couple of very large head cuts and doing some seeding and matting in another area of the Pike Forest. It was an extra short week for me as I took Friday off to come back to Denver and see Cotton Jones and David Bazan play at the High Dive Thursday night and to work on job applications and my blog and other fun things this weekend! Woohooooo!
Plus a tuba!
"Hi David!"
Tomorrow we depart from the Springs for the South Colony Lakes Basin, which we are told is extraordinarily beautiful! There we will be starting a new phase of work at some campgrounds in progress. We will be building tent pads, installing fire rings (though we won't be allowed to use them as there is a fire ban and it's against RMFI policy anyway :/), and constructing access trails throughout the campground. I'm very excited for this change in scenery and work! And for no cell phone service! We're really getting rugged now! Next weekend we'll be back in the Springs doing our Day of Service at Garden of the Gods and maybe showering... and transitioning to our next project phase, two weeks in the back country! Thus far, this project is proving to be quite exceptional!
Love and light to our dearly loved Michelle Warren, we miss you and think of you constantly.
To all of the teams on disaster, keep it up and stay strong! You guys are amazing!
Until next time, friends!
WOAH U R AWESOME
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