Red Rocks--Sedona Spike

I turned into a boulder!

Woodsboss Chris looking at the view. He is giving me his bed soon!

I can be a gargoyle!

Oh crap, Dylan is under a rock!

Amanda and Dylan pretend to pull up a boulder--really, we used the grip hoist to bring it up the side of the trail. Amanda joined our crew this week from another. She said she wished she could always be on our crew, and asked to stay with me in my tent the last few nights.

Matt and I splitting a huge rock to use as two steps. Here, I am holding the slab splitter in place while he hits it with the double jack. The double jack weighs about 15 pounds, and we traded hits every ten or so because it is such an exhausting tool to use. The double jack is possibly my favorite tool.

Dylan, me, Matt--planning maneuvers to aid the grip hoist with rock bars. This is half of the rock Matt and I split. We were able to use the rock for two separate steps. It took us nearly 10 hours to split it, dig the two holes, and grip hoist the rocks in place. We then spent most of the next 10-hour day adjusting the rocks in the holes, filling the holes with crush and dirt, and naturalizing around the steps. 

Matt, using a rock bar as a wedge. This is the huge rock he and I spent over a half hour splitting with a double jack, and it was only sandstone. Imagine a more dense rock--another that we split took over three hours. Super satisfying! I was lucky enough to have the final breaking hit for both.

    My crew, the "Platypai TruckAZ," spent our last spike in Sedona fixing a few areas of the Munds Wagon Trail, which is a trail for hikers, bikers, and equestrians. Our eight-day spike was spent primarily within 30ft of trail doing some incredible rock work. It was awesome--not only did I wield the double jack for many days (YES!), but I learned how to use the grip hoist. I have yet to learn how to set up a highline with the grip hoist, but Brian said he will teach me soon regardless of whether or not we have a rock project that requires a highline setup. 

    One of the days, we had to quit work halfway through the day and work in the shop at the ranger station because of a crazy rainstorm. Because Arizona is almost always sunny, people here call anything other than sun "weather." Matt and I have had a hard time grasping this concept, because for us even sun is a form of weather! Any time there are even a couple of slightly dark clouds, Dylan says, "We're going to get weather today." I think it's funny. He always predicts the "storm of the century." Typically, the "storm of the century" amounts to a few rain drops, but this week we really did have a crazy storm. Rock work in itself is quite dangerous, and with the rain the sandstone became quite slippery and the area of trail we were working on became a mudslide. Luckily, our project partner came by and asked us if we were crazy and sent us to the shop. Ha. 

    Although the rain made work a bit stressful, I was lucky enough to experience one of the most beautiful events in nature I have ever seen. All week, we were working near a wash, which was dry and where we harvested most of our rocks/boulders for the job. On the day of rain, I was working up the hill, and heard a sound like running water, which confused me. I looked down to the wash, and saw water began to shoot down the wash! I ran down to the wash, and literally saw the wash turn from a dry bed to a flowing creek. It was incredible. Only Shari, Matt and I were there, and we watched the water front cover the dry rocks and slowly swell. I was standing next to Shari when I first heard the water, and apparently I screamed, "the water, it's happening!" and ran down to the wash, leaving Shari totally confused. I can't fully express what a beautiful moment it was. To spend nearly a full week walking back and forth over a huge, dry wash, and to then see the front of water shoot down the wash was absolutely wonderful. Apparently it is a pretty rare thing to experience. The desert is SO COOL! It was a beautiful moment, it almost brought me to tears, though I can't exactly explain the feeling it gave me. Total awe.

     Tomorrow we head out on our first backcountry spike. We will be heading to the Coronados again. The area we are driving to is about 9 hours away from Flag, so we are going to camp more or less on the side of the road tomorrow night, then wake up Thursday morning and hike 5 miles with all of our gear to our campsite, with over a 3000ft elevation gain. It is a wilderness area that does not allow chainsaws, so we will be using crosscuts to clear out trees. Definitely going to be a tough spike, but I am very, very excited.