When I moved to Durango in August 2019, I chose to hunker down for the long Labor Day Weekend. The same weekend as the Four Corners Motorcycle Rally. After all how bad could it be?
It was bad. Over three days of excessive noise, excessive machismo/testosterone and too many red MAGA hats on Main Avenue. I made a silent Sambini vow. “Never Again!”
In 2020, I drove across the state of Utah and settled down in Nevada’s Great Basin National Park.
In 2021, I won an online auction item for a ticket to the “Yampa Valley Crane Festival.”
In 2022, I made a repeat performance at Great Basin NP.
This year with gas prices hovering over $4 plus/gallon, I decided a getaway closer to home was economically speaking the correct escape plan.
That’s why I signed on for a volunteer trail maintenance gig on a nearby over 14,000 foot mountain. (Depending on the source, there’s between 53 to 58 of these stoney behemoths in Colorado). In this post, I’ll leave the mountain and the non-profit organization unnamed.
About a week before the gig, I received an email from the non-profit on where we’d meet followed by a rudimentary game plan for the Labor Day weekend. The message turned out to be classic hooey/Fake News. The note was a far cry from the reality of what transpired on that long weekend.
Me being me, I arrived 1.5 hours before the starting time. I figured this would be a great way to meet my fellow volunteers and organizers as they drifted in. Here’s what happened:
Two volunteers were surly, the rest were friendly and all were incredibly younger than me. (Fourteen years separated me from the next “light senior.”) The three crew members representing the non-profit were half an hour late.
A bad omen.
We gathered around the late arrivals, who dispensed little information except for “Wear lots of sunscreen!”
I glanced at my watch and realized we were getting dangerously close to Happy Hour. It’s then when I blurted out, “Are we camping here or camping to our work site?”
“Find a place to camp nearby and meet here at 6am tomorrow” was the reply.
I popped my camper up while popping a can of IPA. All volunteers and crew members retreated to neutral corners. So much for the social aspect of this campout. (I even packed extra beers and boxes of cookies for sharing.) I this point I began to have serious misgivings over my choice of volunteer gigs.
It was a crappy nights sleep between the night owl ATVers and the 14er hikers slamming vehicle doors at 3:5O am. There were more sleepless nights to follow. That first morning I became conscious, somewhat oriented and alert around at 5 am.I figured the crew was late for the meetup so a 6 am start was a Jewish 6ish. OY! Was I wrong. At 6:03 we were told to “load ‘‘em up, and move ‘em out.” This was quite shocking to me.
At the worksite trailhead, we met the crew leader for the first time. (You didn’t need to be a management consultant or play one on Facebook to realize there was dissension in the ranks).
We were told to grab some tools and amble up the trail. Which we did. Eventually we got to work. The gig was both Herculean and Sisyphean at the same time. Let’s just say we moved a lot of rock (including an estimated 640 pound hernia inducer. ) On the first day in the first hour, I made a vow to myself. “Self! Don’t get hurt! Self! See this gig through and don’t EVER think of volunteering for these guys again.”
And that’s how I spent my Too Extreme Four Corners Labor Day Weekend Escape. Good thing I had a hefty supply of aspirins and IPAs.
All in all we created three steps, and one nice retaining wall. My advice. Read the fine print before you volunteer.
All in all I’d rather be a Forest Ambassador or a Trail Angel.
Cheers,
Jeff
My sympathies, Jeff! I recommend the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park for next year. Bison, deer, prairie dogs, and fewer people than the South Unit. Good place to plan on camping, too, as the only motel in the South Unit's nearby town takes advantage of that to be $$$$.
ReplyDeleteWow! I've had good experiences doing these multi-day volunteer stints. Maybe I've been lucky, or maybe the world has just moved on?
ReplyDeleteYikes this was a terrible volunteer gig and thankfully you didn’t break your back. Next time spend the $ on gas and get into some quiet zones. What volunteer organization was this? Let me know sometime.
ReplyDeleteNext time I will come and supervise. Ha!
ReplyDelete