Thread: My USA trip - LONG

It has occurred to me that I haven't really said much about my trip since I got back, even though I used this site a lot to get info and gear. This is going to be a brief summery of the kind of stuff I did and the thoughts I had on my gear, much of which I would never have come across with out this place and BCUK.

Before I left I had a very vague idea of what I was going to be doing. All I really knew was that I was going to be labouring in national parks, they could have been almost any where in the states (but most likely in the south west) and I could be doing pretty much what ever they wanted me to do, generally for 4, 8 or 9 days at a time.

Once I got there, we were given more or less the same vague info all over again with loose recommendations about what to buy kit wise and where to buy it - by this point I had most everything and felt comfortable that I'd made good purchases - a lot of people spent a lot of money over the next couple of days buying gear at brick and mortar prices, american B&M prices at least.



I was based in Flagstaff, Az which is a pretty small town about 2 hours North of Phoenix, in the mountains and on Route 66. It's a great town, and I enjoyed living there. We had everything from forest fires to monsoons.


The view North of the fire from the intersection about half a block from my house.


The rain! Looking South, from the porch.

The house I lived in contained approx 30 beds. On the weeks I lived there with people on my rota, another group of people were on project. I lived in the same house as some of those people for 3 months and never met them - there were generally less than 15 people living in the house at the same time as me, and quite often I had a room for 4 people all to my self, with people going away on their off days it worked out really well - space was at a bit of a premium though.



My first project was a touch on a tedious sides. Me and 14 other people went seed collecting at Lake Mead, Az. Basically hitting bushes with tennis rackets and collecting the seeds that fall off, to be planted a long the new stretch of high way for the new bridge at the Hoover Dam, actually fairly important work and something people will see the end result of. We camped at the bottom of Fortification Hill for a couple of nights, and up in the mountains for a couple of nights. It was hot at windy by the lake, and cool and windy higher up. This was the only time I used my own tent, I decided and I don't regret it that I didn't really want to use my own tent camping on rocks, and used one of the companies instead.

The first campsite, the sunset over the lake - looking towards Vegas, and the fruits of our labour. Also a shot of some hot springs, and the colorado. We took an afternoon off and did about a 6 mile round trip down there and back, back was up hill in sand, great! It was incredible though, like bath water.

This project was the only time I saw and heard a rattle snake - which is a bit disappointing. Socially this was a good project, you could work and chat for the full 8 hours. Our supervisor was a nice guy who comes from the same town as me. In terms of work, it was rubbish. It did give me a good feel for things to come, in terms of the heat and work hours etc. I reckon I knocked about a third of my kit list after this project.

I didn't get up to much on these off days, I spent it with the people I'd been working with in Flag. I'm glad I did, a lot of people spend hardly any time there, but I'm happy I got to know the town, it allowed me to do a great deal more things efficiently for the rest of my trip.

My next project was perhaps my favorite, and one I repeated twice more. It was a 4 day fencing project at Wupatki national monument. This is quite a small park, full of ruins. Our supervisor on this project became a good friend of mine, a Texan who goes by the name ATG. This was hard work, and we had two crews because one crew couldn't get to where they were meant to go and joined up with us.

Wupatki is on a volcano field, and is covered in cinders. Very dusty, very dry, very hot. In order to put a post in, you had to dig away all the cinders to bed rock, and then drill. The tools we used were pionjars - Sweedish, great bits of kit. ATG worked for Wupatki in the past, and was a wealth of knowledge. This hitch was quite a bit more relaxed than the last one, and we did take time to go and see ruins and petroglyph sites. Little things like that make a big difference.

Of course, you had to hike all the materials and tools in as well. A pionjar weighs about 70lbs - we used 3. 10 bags of 60lb concrete, water to mix it, 4 60lb spools of wire, posts - you get the idea!









I was very glad I had Desert slacks. Beats the hell out of jeans in that heat. Off days were spent in town again, because we only had a couple due to the short hitch. I went back to Wupatki. Slightly different set up, we effectively camped in Flag (due to the heat in Wupatki) and drove the 40mins there and back every day. Also, our crew of 8 was split in half, with some people going and working on a different project. I stuck at fencing. With 4 people we did about the same amount of work in 8 days at 16 did in 4. You don't need a big crew for fencing and the work goes smoother with less.

Lots of hauling this time, although me and ATG marked out a route to bring the van and trailer in on the last day, which made a massive difference to our work load.

Me carrying a bag of concrete about half my weight. I did three of these about 3/4 of a mile each.



My foot, and a snake.



And the reason for the fence. You can see the right side is darker because of the cinders, and the left lighter because of the grass. The right side is ranch land, the left Wupatki. The US cattle laws are such that if your land boarders a ranch, it's up to you to keep the cows out, not the rancher to keep them in. The grass is promoting Prong Horn Antelope, which is good.

In this set of off days, we went to vegas. You know what that looks like. My friend Simon walked about a thousand dollars up. I missed an exist on the way there and we ended up in California! It was only a 90 mile detour. We also did a bit of a day trip to slide rock, sedona. Really cool swimming spot, the rock is smooth and slippery, natural slide. huge jump too, over 30'. Did it 3 times and on the 3rd time me and my mate were more nervous than the 1st!





I went to the Grand canyon after that. South rim, 9 days, trail work. Probably my least favorite project in the best location. Supervisor and me had very different ideas on how things should be done. He babied us, or tried to. The work wasn't great, there just wasn't enough of it to go around. How ever, if you do go to the South rim, I did and extension of the rim trail ending by the trail head for the South Kaibab. I also put in a bunch of signs telling people how far the next bus station is.



Sign - Not sure how many there are total.

Sections of the trail, you can see why they call it the rim trail.



Me on the edge.



Sunset at the Canyon



In the rec centre. Included regardless of my pose because it's got my trusty Rat-1 on show.

The next off days were pretty incredible. We went to the beach. San Diego and LA, about 8 hours each way. We camped 2 out of the 3 nights in Cleveland National Forest. California is a very nice place indeed, I didn't think I would like it, but can see my self going back with less windshield time. I reckon of the 4 days we spent a full 24 hours in the car. Had a couple of run ins with Rangers, the first night because we were camped some where we shouldn't have been, and the second time because the couldn't find our receipt for the campsite. O, and we had 4 army men with guns surround the car when out french driver drove straight through an army checkpoint for a military base, that was fun.





The view the park ranger had before asking if any of us were sober or under 21! Fortunately, one of us hadn't touched a drop, so we could drive to the campsite. Which was stunning in the morning. Up in the mountains.

The infamous Wall.





4/5 of us walking on the beach. After living next to the sea my whole life, and then living in the desert for 2 months, you cannot imagine what it felt like to walk along the beach.



On Santa Monica beach, just before driving back.

Back to Wupatki, back to fencing. Did some really cool stuff on this hitch. Because by this point, July, Wupatki is so hot, we worked higher up and rather than doing major stuff - Me, ATG and a guy called Jackson went and did maintenance on old fence. We also did some invasive species removal (knap weed) with the whole group, and put in some signs. I was also fortunate enough to go to inscription point, a massive petroglyph site. We were starting to get into the monsoons by this point.



The truck with a shed attached. Very redneck, good laugh though.



Sign installation at Bonito Park. Bits of this had been hit by the fire.



Most every rock in that picture had carving on it.



A few examples. I think this is all Hopi stuff.

Amazing place, really.

Off days were quite relaxed. Although we'd had long projects, the days off were cut to fit in one last one. We did go to Fossil Creek though. Would love to go back here. The water wasn't cold, but it was clear as anything. We had a good laugh here. It was the days like this one as we all neared the end of out stint that made us think about how lucky we all were.







That's me with the rubber ring. What a stunning place.



The view driving out. Rain stopped play.

Back to Wupatki. This time, pulling weeds. There were 14 people on this crew and for 12 of us it was our last hitch. It was the supervisors second, we pretty much got on with it. There was a lot of rain, and a lot of lightning. We didn't work when the lightning was close, and it got pretty close. We did everything we were meant to and more work wise. There was a lot of flooding in the area and we left early on the last day. We had a lot of fun, there were too many of us to fit in a van, so we got a car, which me and 2 of my mates had.



Tough gig, pulling weeds.

Rain/thunderstorm and resulting brush fire.



Give you an idea of the camp set up.



Happy to be finished.



This road flooded later. It was downhill of where the fire had passed through, so nothing to stop the water flowing.

I was now finished with ACE. I stayed in the states for about 2 weeks more, did various things. As one last lot of pictures, I'll show you the mount humpry's climb. This is about 4 miles each way I think. With 40 mins at the top, it took us about 5 1/2 hours, which aint half bad. We did forget the beers for the summit though!

At the trail head.



In the middle some where



It got a little more ruggid out of the trees. That is the trail.



This must have been taken on the way down, but that's just below the summit.



Summit, before we got cold!



Summit, with lumberjack layer.

And that's just about it. I was going to write reviews of kit as I went, but feck it's taken long enough to write this - congratulations if you read this far through my ramblings.

So what did I think of it? I loved it. It was a really superb experience and a great way to see that part of the world. I would recommend this to any one who could take the rough with the smooth, age perhaps is a factor, but I worked with women in their 40s who were out there doing this, just mind set I think. If you have kids taking a gap year, and they're not sure what they want to do, get them to check this out. Volunteer USA with BUNAC.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Greg. Very interesting. It looks like it would be a lot of hard work but with hard-to-replace rewards!

I want to take a road trip now

Looks like you've got some amazing memories there! I enjoyed looking through it.