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Belated Journal After Spike
17 years ago
I didn't get my PC when I had hoped. It should hopefully be coming up this weekend, along with my sister's car that has been gifted to me.
Spike was quite a challenge. We had to hike down these large pieces of redwood tread board a mile for a bridge we are constructing at the bottom of a bike trail. They were 3x12x72/74 inches, probably about eighty pounds each. They varied depending on how much moisture the wood still had in them. We also had to bring large metal pipes and scaffolding down, then 6"x4"x10' pieces of lumber for the side railings. Basically, I was sore all the time and surprised how far I could push myself. The work was hard, but I noticed that I wasn't getting depressed like I usually do. The constant exercise got rid of it completely. Later in the spike, however, we came to a point where we didn't have much hard physical labor to do, just touch-up stuff. It sucks to be idle and depressed on the grade, there's not always people to talk to as you work.
This was my first time actually constructing a trail--previously I just did maintenance. We had to cut the trail out of the side of a hill using full-bench construction. Full-bench construction is when you cut into the hill as deep as you need your tread to be wide, and then establish the back and fill slopes from there. Half-bench construction is where you cut into the hill partially and construct your tread (the part of the trail you walk on) by cutting into the fill slope (the slope above the trail) and packing dirt towards the outside of the tread, towards the fill slope (the slope below the trail). State parks is really picky about their trails. They require full bench construction because the trail doesn't have to me maintaned as much, even though the process takes much longer.
State parks also wanted a really gradual grade: just 1 or 2 percent over a stretch of trail that was maybe about 200 feet. It was difficult to meet up with their demands; we got confused a number of times before figuring it out. The way they had the trail outlined with flags was not very informative and we ended up having to cut deep into the tread we were working on to establish the slight grade.
All in all... it was an experience, but it also helped me realize that I'm not really cut out for this stuff (trail work pun). My crew is going on another spike to the same place tomorrow, but I'm not going. I'm getting my feet taken care of. I just paid half of the $425 fee for my custom orthotics today, but I don't know when I'll be getting them. Even after I get that, however, I know I don't have as much of a passion for even the "fun" work in the CCC. It's just a job to me, a pit stop on the road to some other destination. It's good for my resume though, I plan to stay in for at least six months for the scholarship money. I'm going to start looking for other work soon. Fortuna kinda blows. :P
Enough tl;dr, later.
Spike was quite a challenge. We had to hike down these large pieces of redwood tread board a mile for a bridge we are constructing at the bottom of a bike trail. They were 3x12x72/74 inches, probably about eighty pounds each. They varied depending on how much moisture the wood still had in them. We also had to bring large metal pipes and scaffolding down, then 6"x4"x10' pieces of lumber for the side railings. Basically, I was sore all the time and surprised how far I could push myself. The work was hard, but I noticed that I wasn't getting depressed like I usually do. The constant exercise got rid of it completely. Later in the spike, however, we came to a point where we didn't have much hard physical labor to do, just touch-up stuff. It sucks to be idle and depressed on the grade, there's not always people to talk to as you work.
This was my first time actually constructing a trail--previously I just did maintenance. We had to cut the trail out of the side of a hill using full-bench construction. Full-bench construction is when you cut into the hill as deep as you need your tread to be wide, and then establish the back and fill slopes from there. Half-bench construction is where you cut into the hill partially and construct your tread (the part of the trail you walk on) by cutting into the fill slope (the slope above the trail) and packing dirt towards the outside of the tread, towards the fill slope (the slope below the trail). State parks is really picky about their trails. They require full bench construction because the trail doesn't have to me maintaned as much, even though the process takes much longer.
State parks also wanted a really gradual grade: just 1 or 2 percent over a stretch of trail that was maybe about 200 feet. It was difficult to meet up with their demands; we got confused a number of times before figuring it out. The way they had the trail outlined with flags was not very informative and we ended up having to cut deep into the tread we were working on to establish the slight grade.
All in all... it was an experience, but it also helped me realize that I'm not really cut out for this stuff (trail work pun). My crew is going on another spike to the same place tomorrow, but I'm not going. I'm getting my feet taken care of. I just paid half of the $425 fee for my custom orthotics today, but I don't know when I'll be getting them. Even after I get that, however, I know I don't have as much of a passion for even the "fun" work in the CCC. It's just a job to me, a pit stop on the road to some other destination. It's good for my resume though, I plan to stay in for at least six months for the scholarship money. I'm going to start looking for other work soon. Fortuna kinda blows. :P
Enough tl;dr, later.
