Roaring River: Take One... and Two?

Hello again all! Its been along time since I've written so hold on to your hats... this will be quite a journey.

For the last month I have been stationed in a beautiful little place in Southern Missouri. The park itself is called Roaring River State Park and it is located near the roaring metropolis of Cassville (population 3,000 and state football champs two years running). Like its name leads you to believe, this park has a river that is stunning. The CCC built a a lot of the structures in the park including a hatchery that was only a couple hundred feet from our cabin. Every morning I would wake up, get ready, and then walk out the door and see the river. On cold days it was steaming because the water was hotter then the air. I would follow the river to the hatchery and watch the thousands of rainbow trouts swimming around in their pools. The hatchery was fed by a underground spring, and the stones the water passed through made the water a very pretty deep blue color. Towards the end of my weeks of visiting the hatchery, one of the night watchmen, Rick, started leaving me fish food so I could feed the fish every morning. It was quite an adventure! Oh and because the river was teaming with so many trout there were always fishers and cool birds like bald eagles and kingfishers to watch.

So you are probably thinking... why was Elsa at Roaring River... did they just need another person to feed the fish? Nope, the first two and a half weeks I was there my twelve person team worked with the DNR falling invasive Red Cedar Trees to open up natural glade areas. Now this task is quite a daunting one. We were working on one hill, and from it hundreds more were visible... all were covered in Red Cedars. The trees themselves are not bad, but they have grown into areas they don't belong and are chocking out glade environments. This happened because settlers put out wildfires, but the fires are necessary for healthy ecosystems. The small cedars didn't burn and were allowed to keep growing and are now everywhere and very large. In my first two and a half weeks I became very comfortable with a chainsaw. We worked with skilled sawers until we proved that we could handle these trees on our own. I probably cut around a hundred cedar trees in my first stint.

I got to go home for Thanksgiving, and it was a very needed break. There is nothing like home cooking and family. I was not ready to go back... but I did and felt very refreshed. I was told that me and nine other people would be going to Roaring River for two weeks. A repeat for me, but I was okay with it because it was such a great project. The second time around I was with four other people and we were cutting with the MDC (Missouri Department of Conservation). Our project was still lade restoration, only this time it was on MDC land. The first two days we drove through the woods on a poor excuse of a road to get to a place to park the truck. Then we hiked down Potato Mountain to our cutting site. On the way out we had a steep climb, and then walked in front of the truck to cut branches, and stumps in our way. On the third day we got smart and found a short cut... it required us walking across a very sketchy bridge over the river. It was basically ladders connected together with a saw horse in the middle for them to rest on. Every day was an adventure from then on. I spent those two weeks cutting with another first year, Lane. We got really good at taking down trees quickly and I had a blast. The weather was chilly the whole time(nothing like Minnesota though) and the last couple days required so many layers that I felt like Ralphy's little brother in A Christmas Story.

I was one of three first years who spent the entire month at Roaring River and was told that if another group goes back there I might be leading it... or at least helping out a lot with the organizing of the project. In a month my tree falling skills have climbed exponentially and I am very confident in my sawing abilities.

Now I am back in St.Louis for the weekend. I am not sure where I will be next week, but the rumor is that Christmas Break starts on the 18th. Keep your fingers crossed for me...

Missing you,

Elsa

Montana and Missouri only share one similarity... the letter M

So there is really no good excuse for why I have not updated my blog lately, so I wont even try to make one up. Instead, I will try to summarize my Montana trip for you and then let you know what I've been doing in Missouri.

Montana
Week 1 : I learned that mountains are tall
I was put on a team of 12 and we packed out to spend the week working on trails and sleeping in tents in the mountains. We arrived at the Ranger station in Phillipsburg and the guy in charge of our project did not want us sleeping miles away from civilization because a huge snow storm was heading our way. He was afraid that we wouldn't be able to get our pack train( mules loaded with our gear) back in to pick us up at the end of the week. So instead we stayed at a variety of places and hiked to our work site everyday. It was only a two mile hike in and then another two mile hike out, not bad right? Haha think again it was up hill both ways and we walked in two feet of snow. Ok so that's a bit of an exaggeration... but not by much. We were hiking up and down a mountain every day to get to a beautiful lake where we built a 60 ft bridge. We also improved the trail leading down to the bridge. It snowed on us and was pretty cold some days, but looking at the finished product and enjoying the beautiful view around us made the whole week well worth the work. (Now if thats not a heck of an alliteration I don't know what is ;)
Week 2: Snow is not dirt
Most of our group spent the second week building a long curved bridge in a park outside of Butte. It was snowy and cold the whole week, but we had a heated cabin to go back to at night. We were even allowed to sleep inside when it got really cold at night... although silly me decided to brave the twenty below in a tent outside. It wasn't too bad actually.
Week 3: Bridges, and trails, and chainsaws
This week was spent taking apart old bridges, building better bridges, and digging new trails. We also took our chainsaw training class and before we left for St.Louis we all took chainsaw tests. These tests consisted of starting the chainsaws(not as easy as it sounds), falling a tree about a foot in diameter, and bucking and limbing our fallen trees. I did pretty well and am happy to be among the ranks of all the A sawers out there.
Missouri
I spent the last couple weeks in Missouri training for the year ahead. We all became CPR, AED, and First Aid certified. We also got to hear from some pretty important people who work with disasters on a regular basis. After hearing from groups like FEMA, Salvation Army, United Way, Missouri Department of Health, Missouri Department of Mental Health, United Methodist, and the American Red Cross we set up a mock VRC (Volunteer Reception Center). I was the Liaison Chief. It was kind of intense. This is something Americorps St. Louis is know for. We organize volunteers and connect them with projects after a disaster has happened.

I just got back from a week of fire training( I am now a level 1 wild fire fighter in Missouri) and conservation work at Peck Ranch. I spent a couple of days cutting autumn olives and other invasive species. And yes I used a chainsaw to do it.

Well that's all I have for now.
Hope to update again soon

I was told Montana would be colder then Minnesota... it is !!!

I can't blog long because there is a line behind me waiting for this computer, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I am doing well and keeping warm... kinda. We have spent the last two weeks working on trails, building bridges, and hiking up and down mountains. It snowed my second day here and the weather has been consistently cold the whole time. The mountains are really beautiful with a layer of snow. This is my second day off since I have been here and I am spending it learning about Butte Montana, known as the riches hill in the world. I can't wait to find out why. Well I better go but the rumor is that we will be taking our chainsaw certification test on friday and leaving Saturday for St.Louis. I will let you know more details then. Cross your fingers that I pass my chainsaw test...

Talk to you soon
Elsa

Montana here I come... I think

Today we got most of our issued gear. I will be rockin out in a helmet, yellow jacket, big leather boots, and a big red pack. (I will try to get a picture for all of you to see... it should be funny) I was told at 5 p.m. that we were leaving for Montana on Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. At 6:30 p.m. I recieved a call letting me know that we will be leaving sometime thursday not wednesday. So I am hoping that sometime this week I will be sent to Montana. I don't know when, but I am ready for anything.

Also I will not have internet the whole time I am gone so if you need to get a hold of me try calling my cell phone or sending me a text.

All my love,

Elsa

I made it through the wilderness...

I am back in St. Louis after a week of wilderness fun in southern Illinois. I was pretty close when I guessed that they would drop us off in the woods and make us find our way to camp. We were broken into teams and each team started some place different. We had a series of places that we had to go to and we used a topography map and a compass to find our way. We quickly figured out that the map was very old and outdated when we got to our first stream... clearly marked on the map, but in reality was just a dried up stream bed. We started our hiking around 7 in the evening and it quickly got dark. We hiked until 11:30 when we got to our camp site for the evening. We slept under a rock overhang and around 5 a.m. realized how very lucky we were to have such a great shelter. It rained all morning and we managed to stay nice and dry. The next day we hiked from about 8 to 2 then stopped for lunch at our site. There were canoes waiting for us because to get to our final site we had to canoe across a lake. I thought this would be the easiest part of the journey. That was not the case. The lake was really an old valley that was flooded to make it a lake. There were trees sticking up everywhere... but the real challenge was under the surface. After about ten minutes of leisurely paddling we managed to wedge our canoe in an under water tree V. We had a small canoe with three people in it and our 45 lb packs... needless to say we were ridding pretty low. After much spinning we managed to free ourselves only to get stuck a couple more times along the way.

Never the less we made it and I can say with certainty that Qwest was defiantly challenging and exciting and I am very glad I did it. The rest of the week we learned more about the history of Americorps and how the program runs. We also spent a day doing service work. I worked with the forest service and helped clear a fire line. All in all it was a great week and I met a ton of very incredible people, all are driven to serve and know how to have fun doing it.

At the moment I am blogging from a laundry mat that has free wifi and expensive laundry... yes it is the same mat that I walked to last week. We are without Internet still, but we are making it work. My third roommate moved in yesterday and she is very cool. Yeah for rent split three ways.

The rest of the week I will be filling out paperwork and getting ready for Montana. I am not sure exactly when were are leaving but I will let you all know when I find out.

Until then,
Elsa

A lot can happen in a week

Life in St.Louis:
As of today I have been in the wonderful city of St.Louis for a week and two days. Last Sunday was my first night in my apartment and as the week has gone on I have learned some things about living in the beautiful neighborhood of Soulard. First lesson: neighborhood with lots of restaurants, bars, and pubs equals lots of cigarette smoke coming through my open window at night. Second lesson: just because it looks run down doesn't make it a thrift store. Third: the laundry mat is not really only a couple of blocks away( I learned this while carrying all my laundry to said close laundry mat... 13 blocks later). Other then these growing moments I have had a really great week in the city. I know where a Super Target, Home Depot, Kohls, and Barnes and Noble(with Starbucks) are located. The arch is visible from my street so I see it everyday and I will be honest... everyday I marvel at its beauty.City life is really agreeing with me and I am getting very comfortable with my surroundings.

Why am I in St.Louis?
I have been accepted into Americorps St.Louis's Emergency Response Team(ERT) and its head quarters are located in St.Louis.

What is ERT?
Lets be honest... everyone is a little bit confused as to what I am really doing this year and so am I. Here is what I do know:
1. When there is a disaster a team of ERT members will be called in to help. We will be doing physical work as well as organizing other volunteers who want to help with the disaster relief.
2. When there isn't a disaster I will be doing conservation work in the parks of Missouri as well as other states in the area. This includes cutting down trees with chainsaws(its probably good you guys are so far away ;)

What will I be doing next week?
Thanks for asking! Tomorrow morning I will arrive at headquarters with a black plastic bag full of camping gear. For two day the new Americorps members will be Qwesting. No one will tell us what this means, but I am pretty sure it is a fancy word for "dropping you out in the wilderness with nothing but your packs on your back and making you find your way to shelter without using GPSs." I will give you all the juicy details next weekend when I get back to the city.

What will I be doing from Sep 23rd to October 16th?
Another great question! I will be in Montana doing conservation work and being trained with the rest of the ERT team. There about 50 of us all together and 30 or so new members.

As you can see my next month is pretty packed but I will try to keep this blog updated. Hope to write again soon.

Elsa