Back on the Shovel

After an early summer spent traveling, I finally had a few days to get up into the Sierra and lend a hand, in this case to Desolation Wilderness. I've been volunteering for them for a few years now, and really enjoy it.

My assigned zone is 39: American, Channel, and Desolation Lakes. There is no established trail to the zone, and one of my assigned duties is to remove any signs of human passage---that includes cairns. So to get to Zone 39, you'll have to do a bit of navigation.

Plenty of people manage to do that, and sadly, a few of them leave more than footprints. So each summer I go up and attempt to restore that damage as best I can--picking up trash, removing cairns, cleaning up fire rings (fires have been prohibited since 1990 in Desolation Wilderness) and making areas within 100 feet of water less appealing as campsites. I also spend a fair amount of time talking to hikers--letting them know that someone up there cares.

But in addition to that, I get to spend a few days in Desolation Wilderness.

Over the past three days I managed to eliminate one campfire ring (more on that below), restore a few campsites, pick up a little trash, and talk to more than 300 hikers: from PCT veterans to first timers, from dads taking tiny tots to elders who have hiked the region for decades. Nice people, every one of them.

But somehow, I never meet my nemesis--the backpackers who build a fire ring every few weeks in Zone 39--always in the same place. Every time I go up there, I find a fire ring in the same spot. Every time I find that fire ring, I take every blackened rock and toss it in the lake. (fire-blackened rocks are not only unsightly, they also suggest that a fire ring is possible.) I bury the ashes and cover the site with clean soil.

And this year, for the first time, I have help in Zone 39. My colleague dropped me a note a couple of weeks ago--he had found and taken care of the fire ring I mentioned.

Sure enough, when I went back this week, another fire ring was there, full of charcoal and ashes, surrounded by blackened rocks.

I took the rocks and tossed them into the lake. I dug a hole and buried all the charcoal and ashes. I took my shovel and flung sand and clean soil over the area.

The work continues. At least it's in a really beautiful place.