Southwest Conservation Corps Members--Tough Hombres!

There are not many young Americans (outside military members and others serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and similar places) who work harder than the members of groups like the Southwest Conservation Corps, the Montana Conservation Corps, and similar groups working on the wildernesses, national forests, and national parks throughout our country.

My daughter Carolan is one of those people, a crew leader for a Southwest Conservation Corps working in the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness in Colorado. Carolan, her co-leader, and her crew work 9 straight  days in the wilderness, a tenth day back in Salida town, and then get 4 days off to rest and recuperate from their tough hitch. They live in tents in the wilderness, carry all their food and tools on their backs, secure their water from mountain streams, and do hard, physical work for 10 hours per day maintaining and repairing the mountain wilderness trails. Often this means swinging a double-jack (double heavy sledge hammer) all day long, pounding large rocks into smaller rocks. Because of wilderness regulations, they do not use power tools--this is pure human power and ingenuity at work. I don't think that one of 100 American youth could (or would be willing to) do this work.

On Carolan's last hitch, one member had a personal crisis, a bear got into their "bear hang" and stole some of their food, and they were belted by a vicious mountain hail storm. Despite all these difficulties, this SCC crew managed to get their trail work done. It's no wonder they were exhausted walking out of the wilderness this past Tuesday. I bet they are looking forward to a steak, a cold beer, and a comfortable bed!

These are amazing amazing young people--among the best our country has to offer. And I salute all of them!

Below are a couple of the hand tools used in the wilderness, the "double jack" and the "pulaski." The double jack breaks up large rocks, which can really hurt horses on the wilderness trails. Pulaskis serve many purposes, but are really good at cutting roots and digging through dirt.

There's a Wikipedia entry on the pulaski tool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulaski_(tool).
There are images on the Southwest Conservation Corps' website that show crews maintaining trails with these and similar tools: http://sccorps.org/

I located a cartoon illustrating a "bear hang" here: http://www.trailspace.com/articles/2009/10/07/book-review-bear-essentials.html. Apparently a smart bear can outsmart even these bear hangs!