Trails in Transformation – Transcript

(Acoustic music plays)
Narrator [00:00:02] Where can we go to be transformed? A change of scenery and a change of pace can help. And we can find both on backcountry trails within national forests. (music fades as sound of boots walking on a trail begin)

On a cloudy summer day, a backcountry trail crew was hard at work on one such trail, the JMT, which is shorthand (sound of walking fades) for the John Muir Trail. Through 200 miles of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California the JMT meanders mostly within wilderness areas and often follows the same route as the longer Pacific Crest Trail. At work on this section of the trail on the Inyo National Forest, were a few U.S. Forest Service employees, but mostly a crew from the California Conservation Corps. Backcountry Trail Program Director Karlson Hubbard was also with the crew, and he told us a bit about the program, which is also referred to as the CCC or simply the Cs.

Karlson Hubbard [00:01:04] Yeah. So the California Conservation Corps is is the oldest and longest running state conservation Corps in the country. And what we mean by state Conservation Corps is the CCC is a permanent department of the California Natural Resource Agency. We were written into law in 1979, and so within the Cs there are various special programs. And so the Backcountry Trails program is one of those special programs. Our value to the public land management agencies comes in the fact that as long as our partners can support our crews remaining in the wilderness, we stay out here for five-and-a-half-month season. The skill development, when you are working with the same group of people day in and day out, you know the learning curve is just huge. They they become very proficient, you know, within a couple of months of the season and thus are able to kick out a lot of work. And we're working in remote areas where it's difficult for the public land management agencies to to get a workforce out there.

Narrator [00:02:06] The relationship between the CCC program and the U.S. Forest Service is rooted throughout the state and has grown over decades.

Karlson Hubbard [00:02:14:16] We have worked with the Inyo for over 35 years. We have other national forest throughout California, the Klamath National Forest, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, the Stanislaus National Forest. We've all had a crew presence for 30 plus years in those forests as well. It's a service-to-employment pipeline. You talk to a lot of folks in the in the forests throughout California and people on the trail crews or on resource crews, we have a lot of alumni that have gone on to be employed by the U.S. Forest Service.

Narrator [00:02:45]
Natalia Muglia and Joseph Mauer, Inyo National Forest employees, are Forest Service sponsors of the crew, but also worked alongside them. They each spoke about their own pathway from the CCC or similar programs into future careers with the agency.

Natalia Muglia [00:03:03] I started kind of like them with the Conservation Corps and yeah, then I decided I wanted to go federal after a couple of years and last year I worked up in Washington and then this year I got a call from Michael Morse and he told me that there was a Cs crew that I could work with.

Joseph Mauer [00:03:21] I joined as a corps member in the summer of 2017 and I spent two and a half years as a corps member. One of those summers was spent here on the Inyo on a backcountry trail crew. Once I finished my time in the Cs I decided to continue doing trails. Did a season with state parks and then decided I wanted to come back to the Inyo. So I got hired by the Forest Service. And this is my second year as a sponsor for the CCC crew. As far as my job goes, and the Inyo specifically, we have like four trail crew members. So when we get a crew of like 12 to 16 ready and able workers to do jobs, we can do stuff like this, like these massive projects and huge staircases and really, really big like impactful projects when we have a good, good sized crew. We're just working on like a two-mile section of the JMT that gets a lot of use and it's particularly eroded because most of the ground here is made of pumice, which is not very stable. So we're putting in a lot of check steps.

Narrator [00:04:31] Unsure what a check step is? Join the club. Turns out it is a rock or timber step placed in or across the trail to slow water flow and prevent erosion. The sign of success of their construction? Their very invisibility when the work is done. Seeing the work in action makes you think about how many trail features you have walked upon without even knowing. As CCC crew member Jonathan Sullivan relates the greater awareness of what goes into a trail is one of the benefits of doing backcountry trail work.

Jonathan Sullivan [00:05:06] I really like learning how all of this comes together. You know you see a lot of it as you're hiking, but you don't realize how much more goes into it. How much thought goes into both like the large scale planning the trails and also into each structure itself. It's really interesting to see.

Narrator [00:05:24] There are several steps involved in creating a check step. Excavating a trench, swinging a hammer to crush stones into gravel and scooping dirt to complete the fill. Craig Clark and Anna King were hard at work with another key component (sound saw cutting into a log).

Craig Clark [00:05:45] The crosscut it is from the Wilderness Act of 1964, when power tools were banned in the wilderness. We've just been using it since it's the best accessible thing that's not a power tool. That way we can cut through logs in an efficient non and like environmentally impactful way and it's pretty nice and a good way to get the logs out for a log out or whatever else it may be for a check step.

Narrator [00:06:07] Their work looked exhausting, but both Clark and King were with smiles and even gave a fist pump in the air when the log was successfully split in two. (sound of more rapid sawing, then a break in the log Craig Clark: rollin! Anna King: muffled cheering). Most of the crews shared that exertion was part of the joy of the work.

Lionel Ojeda [00:06:28] I like the challenge.

Craig Clark [00:06:30] It's tiringly entertaining.
 
Anna King [00:06:31] Yeah, usually fun. Sometimes it gets really hot, though.

Raphael Gonzalez [00:06:34] For me, I think that the biggest part of making it a check step, check dam, is just swinging a single jack to make crush. It's fun.

Adria Burneio [00:06:41:12] Using crosscut saw was really cool, honestly, I'm not going to lie (laughs). It makes me feel like a lumberjack. I mean, there isn’t a part that I don't like. We roll big rocks, and that makes me feel really powerful (laughs) because there's, like, certain techniques to it. Even days that I'm just, like, hauling bags of dirt around aren't so bad because it it makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger.

 Narrator [00:07:04] As Adria Burneio alluded and continued to impart, trail work and the CCC program provide opportunities to take part in meaningful work, to challenge oneself, and to step outside the normal routine.

Adria Burneio [00:07:18] I had a very sedentary indoor life. I wanted to challenge myself and experience, like, outdoor work. I'm pretty happy here. I've gotten to experience a lot of cool things.
Narrator [00:07:29] Other crew members said much the same.

Zoe Blankenship [00:07:31] My name is Zoe Blankenship. Before this, I was working at a daycare with two- and three-year-olds. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, so was like, why not? Let's go for it. I think working really hard for just people to use the trail, it's really gratifying work (laughs).

Louie De los Reyes. [00:07:52] My name is Louie De los Reyes. I mean, look around. It's such an office, not tied down to a desk and in front of a computer screen all day.

Erica Bradley [00:08:03] Um, my name is Erica Bradley. I work at a different corps called Civic Corps. Our program director, he's like, there's this job opportunity. If you want to live in the wilderness for five months and do trail work without phones and stuff. And it just seem like something I’d like to do.

Ava Dawson [00:08:20] Hi, my name is Ava Dawson. Honestly, I got to say, it's a once in a lifetime experience. It's really nice to be out here, kind of away from everything. We don't have our phones. We have, like, very limited technology. I have a calculator watch, and that's kind of it. And I don't know, it's just kind of freeing.

Narrator [00:08:38] While freeing, crew members are away from their friends and family and away from the technology that enabled them to communicate immediately for over five months. This is why the cultivation of community is essential.

Karlson Hubbard [00:08:51] You put a group of people from all different backgrounds together, a key to having the type of success we need on the trail is is having a healthy community out here. So when they can learn how to get along with each other, accept one another, resolve conflict in an effective way, and build bonds with one another, the relationships they build are incredible, it could be lifelong. And I mean, you talk to a lot of the folks that have finished the program, a lot of our alumni, you ask them to describe their crew, and one of the common words is they'll say, we were a family out there.

Narrator [00:09:27] But how is that family feel created?

Karlson Hubbard [00:09:29] Here on the Inyo the Inyo Pack operation, stock animal operation, they resupply our crew on a weekly basis to bring in the food that they need to stay, you know, healthy and strong. And so all of that, it has cost right? And the GAOA, has brought an influx of funding to the various land management units to help pay for our services, but to also help support their, internally, the resources needed to support our crew.

Narrator [00:10:00] Funding from GAOA, or the Great American Outdoors Act, has helped the crew come to do this important work, in part by enabling the Forest Service mule teams to equip them for the task. Michael Morse, the Wilderness and Trails Supervisor on the Mammoth Ranger District of the Inyo National Forest and co-director of the Region Five Pack Stock Center of Excellence shared more on how this is done.

Michael Morse [00:10:25] It's the same thing we've been doing pretty much since 1983. We've had a partnership with the California Conservation Corps, and I can't even imagine how many miles of trail they've resurfaced, rebuilt, created and repaired over those many, many years. Every week we take an average of anywhere from 8 to 10 mule loads of food, groceries, supplies, propane into their camp that we established back in early June, which took about 35 mules to get their whole camp in. And during the course of the summer we will go back every single week. We'll also, and more importantly, make sure they get their mail. It's all handwritten letters and they have no communication any other way. And also, we make sure they have all the tools they need to do the project. Once they go in in June, they don't come out until the end of September.

Narrator [00:11:18] Walking in to the crew's backcountry camp has the feeling of stumbling into a mirage. The juxtaposition of the rugged scenery with the sights, sounds and smells of home light comforts is both surprising and inviting.

Alan Young [00:11:32] I'm Alan Young. I'm the cook here for the California Conservation crew’s Backcountry Program here at Camp Minaret in the Inyo National Forest. Oh, I'm brand new at this, but I'm not new to the backcountry. I walked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 1979, when few people knew what the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail was. Later, I became president of the Pacific Crest Trail Association. So this is my first season as a cook and and I'm really having a great time. Forest Service has provided us with really all the gear and equipment that we need. We've got a couple ovens that we use because there is regulations on our ability to start a fire. And so everything's been cooked in these in these ovens. We got a couple of cakes to show you. Here's a vegan chocolate cake that we cooked up this morning and chocolate cake that's just cooling down before we frost it. So it looks like it'll be a successful day here.

Narrator [00:12:48] A deeper tour of the camp reveals additional aspects that helped the crew become a community.

Ava Dawson [00:12:54] As you can see, we have built a lot of things to make it more homely. All of our tables over here in the dining area, were crosscutted … like day by day. We just cut out one or more. And same with the stools. And we have our dish line over here. It's a bit of a mess, with four buckets, one for kind of like getting all of like the crumbs and mess off the plates, one for washing with suds, one for bleaching with, uh, like sanitizing and then a final rinse bucket. And then we have our community tent (sound of zipper opening). So this is kind of where we lead all of our lessons at the end of every workday. It’s where we come to hang out. We have like a pet wall. We have a series of unfortunate events from the season. And we have like art and meme wall, affirmation wall. There’s a guitar, a soccer ball in here. All sorts of stuff. 

Narrator [00:14:00] Doing trail work in the backcountry of national forests allows the crew to form bonds with each other, but also provides an opportunity for internal reflection.

Karlson Hubbard [00:14:09] There's a lot of built-in time for corps members to to reflect, right. And so they do a lot of thinking out here about the choices they've made in their life, who they are, what are the areas they need to improve on. And so that is a very powerful part of the experience as they come out with a stronger character and a greater depth of understanding of who they are and where they want to go.

Narrator [00:14:33] Many of the CCC backcountry trail crew came to this work on the Inyo National Forest at a crossroads in their lives, and each will leave not only with a new technical skill set, but with new personal insights as well.

Josie Anglim [00:14:46] My name is Josie Anglim. I graduated college two years ago. I studied English at UC Berkeley. I did a year with AmeriCorps and then just moved back in with a friend, didn't really have a stable place to stay and was doing DoorDash for like five or six months. And my car broke down in February. So when I was looking for work, I saw an ad for the Backcountry Trails program. I thought it looked really cool because I never had trail experience working outdoors or any backpacking experience. And this program delivers all those things. So I've definitely learned a lot. What I like about this work is you get to see the progress of what you're doing right in front of you.

U Moua [00:15:30] My first name is , just letter “U”, and last name Moua, M-O-U-A. So I am Hmong, H-M-O-N-G and we are a hill tribe in Laos. There is just something about the mountains, they're just calling me. I'd rather hike to work then like drive to work or … just something physical, like just to stay active. That's what I enjoyed.

Jonathan Sullivan [00:15:49] I think the Cs is a great program for young, young people who like the outdoors but aren't sure how to get into it. It's let me get exposed to a lot more types of jobs in natural resource work, firefighting, all sorts of stuff. The satisfaction of a job well done once you can, you know, complete a project and then look back on it and it really looks good. And that's a very, very gratifying and humbling experience to have.

Narrator [00:16:13] Transforming trails through repair work simultaneously transforms the crew, a point which the CCC crew supervisor Sam Boutelle drives home.

Sam Boutelle [00:16:24] For me, it's building the people that build the trails. Just getting to see the skill acquisition over the course of the season. Getting to make the connections between different project types, different, you know, techniques. Getting the contacts between materials coming together and just watching as the corps members really come together and build the structures that we need.

Narrator [00:16:43] (acoustic music begins) For those of us looking for a little transformation, we may just find it on a backcountry trail, on a national forest too. (Sound of boots walking on a trail)