Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Mill Creek Trail


Hi guys!

I just thought I'd take a minute to share a few photos I took of the area I'm working in with the Forestry. Right now we're working on the Mill Creek Trail, 16 miles of mountainous terrain in the Ishi Wilderness following (as far as I've seen so far) Mill Creek. It's a rough hike mainly because it's so long and there's no real tree cover to speak of (dry as a bone at 2300 feet.... the lush greenness you see in the photo is really only down where the water is.... the trail is pretty constantly 100 feet or so above the water), but the scenery is awesome. I have seen so many gorgeous swimming holes... oh my goodness. Would that I were not there on government time! Most of our time has been spent hacking through the black berry bushes which take up entire hillsides. Awesome place to go for black berries, I'd say wait about 2 weeks and they should be about ripe. I've also seen wild grapes, wild olives, and LOTS AND LOTS OF POISON OAK.

For those of you who don't know what I'm doing this summer, I am working for the United States Forest Service on the Almanor Ranger District's trail crew. There are now five of us who go out and hike the various trails in our district and make sure that any loose rocks are out of the way and any fallen trees are out of the way. We basically make these trails safe for you outdoorsy civilian types.

The photo to the bottom left is of Black Rock, the big marker at the south end of this trail. Below that is a photo of three of my co-trail blazers.

























Below is Troy, the newest member to our crew, just finishing up his first week with us. He is standing in front of a patch of black berry bushes, reeds, pacific ewes (spelling?) and several other trees. The photo below him is that area after we're finished working it.



































Above is a view from a rock about 150-200 feet above the creek (by our reckoning). No one else wanted to crawl out there and take some photos so I did. For some of you, this might seem like a strange thing for me to do, but.... it did. :)

Sorry that the layout on this post is less than perfect. I'm still trying to get the hang of all this. I just wanted to give ya'll a taste of what I'm doing.

Peace and God bless!

-Joseph

3 comments:

Adria said...

Beautiful pictures Joe, thanks for sharing! Sorry to hear the fire ruined the camping plans for this week. :(

Pilgrim said...

Mine aren't quite as epic....considering it's pitch black out there.

Serena said...

Wow, I totally missed this post in my email somehow . . . Neat pictures. I envy you. :D

The Creator