The Trail Dog Life

My crew, being silly in camp with our tools.

Duncan and Nate, my coworkers
for the season.

Nate and his cloak of bark

The people that work on trails call themselves (and apparently are called by others) trail dogs.  I guess it's appropriate because we work like dogs to be sure.  My crew started out with a trail leader, Duncan, who I also worked with in Antarctica.  His right hand guy is Nate and then there are two worker bees - Emmette and me.  The boys ranged in age from 17 to 29.  Emmette didn't love trail work and only made it about a month but the other three of us were together all summer.  

We cut down and de-bark trees
to be used for bridges later in the
season.  This 800lb beauty was
moved by hand - four people and a
LOT of grunting.

The "kitchen" area at one of our
many camps.

Putting log water bars in the
trail to divert rain.

Duncan, my trail crew leader on the Sinopah
- the boat that takes people across Two Medicine
Lake and saves us a few miles of hiking when we
are lucky enough to catch it.

Time in camp was spent cooking, reading
and occasionally on chess.

The toilets usually had the best view
but no privacy at all.

Trail work varies a lot depending on where you are working.  We spent a lot of our summer on hitches, which is when you pack your things into the backcountry on mules and then work on more remote parts of the park from your camp base.  To be clear, these camps are not campgrounds.  They are areas of the woods that sometimes have been cleared and a pit toilet added and sometimes are just a patch of forest where you can all fit.  We each get our own tent, which is nice.  Days are usually 10 hours long with two 15 minute breaks and half an hour for lunch.  We take turns cooking meals and you are responsible to buy the food and plan for your meal.  

Nate and his girlfriend Laura watching a
rodeo in nearby Browning.

Rock work (building water bars) is
exhausting.

This is what most of our lunches and
breaks looked like.

The completed bridge project over
Two Medicine Creek

Our work generally involved pretty short hiking distances (usually around 5miles/day) but often carrying a chain saw or a brusher (basically an industrial weed whipper that weighs 50 pounds) on your shoulder as well as 25 pounds of gear and food in your pack.  Typical daily tasks were shovelling, digging holes, hauling huge rocks, cutting down trees, moving the giant trees, building rock walls and building bridges.

Scouting the eroded cliff side
prior to trail repair.

Trying to widen the trail (we
had to jack hammer the side
as below was a cliff)

The rock retaining wall!  Took us 10 days.

Preparing the area for a rock
retaining wall

My stack of filler rocks.