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.