Written by Rebekah Sutherland, Wild Stew Field Crew Member.
In our first “split hitch” of the season, the Wild Stew Field Crew divided into two groups, with a crew of 6 heading into the Miller Peak Wilderness in the Huachuca Mountains on the Coronado National Forest. This area outside of Sierra Vista has a number of trails up and down canyons, peaks, and ridges with beautiful views of the surrounding area and a number of very large old growth pine trees. The crew set up camp at the bottom of Pat Scott Canyon where they accessed multiple trails for maintenance across the 8-day hitch.
The first priority of the week was to clear a number of trees from across the Comfort Springs, Pat Scott, and Hamburg trails, including an incredible, 4-foot in diameter, tree that had died and fallen lengthwise in the trail, leaving quite the mess. With the help of an extra long crosscut saw dropped off by Sierra Vista District Recreation Staff Officer Zac Ribbing, 3 crew members set out to cut the largest tree they had ever cut, and after cutting it into 6 pieces, they arose victorious, clearing the trail of the monstrosity! But that wasn’t all that was cut—all together the crew cleared 58 trees using crosscuts.
After all of the trees were removed from the surrounding trails, we continued improvements to the trails, retreading 0.5 miles of trail, clearing 20 drains, brushing 1.8 miles of corridor, replacing 3 sign posts, and constructing 6 retaining walls and 5 steps. Overall, we maintained nearly 7 miles of trail around the area we were concentrated. After many days of hard work, the crew celebrated the only way that made sense: by listening to the Bob Dylan Christmas album (we recommend the song “Silver Bells”), sharing a box of French macarons, and temporarily decorating a tree at camp (yes, we know it’s November). A Merry Hitch-mas was had by all.
