Up at Strawberry Valley.

So its Friday and this brings an end to the first week up at Plumas National Forest.

The Area is beautiful!!! absolutely gorgeous! So on Monday we packed the van up full and headed the short two hour drive from Sacramento up into the Sierra Nevada mountains where we were going to be working. About 45 minutes into the drive we get a call from the Forestry guys and they tell us is was snowing up in the mountains. This was a shock because it was suppose to be 60 and sunny but instead, as we get up higher and higher we end up having to take the chains out and chain the tires so we could get up some of the hills.

As soon as we got past the foothills we lost service on our phones completely. And that was the end of outside communication. When we reached the forestry barracks which is about 20 minutes from the engine house we were staying in, it was snowing so bad that the electricity had gone out up where our housing was so we ended up staying at the barracks for a night before we could move into our housing. the housing is very nice, its a small little house attached to the Strawberry Valley Engine House and it has a big kitchen which is perfect for all our food (because we eat A LOT!). I am sharing a tiny little room with my team mates Maggie and Warith. There are two beds in the room and a mattress on the floor for Warith but it doesn't really fit so Warith has to sleep with his feet under my bed hahaha. But its cosy and not bad at all.

The Mountains are really amazing. The whole town we live in has only about 20 structures. Two stores, and about 80 people in the whole town. The forest encompasses everything. Huge Ponderous pines with their trunk diameters up to 5 feet wide. Sugar Pines with pine cones as big as my forearm and my favorite trees, Medronas. There are 5 beautiful lakes near by and a stunning reservoir in walking distance, the water of the reservoir is a bright turquoise green because the soil is dark red from the cedar trees.

The guys we are working with are GREAT!. They are all really chilled out and relaxed and funny as hell. They really know their stuff about the forestry and firefighting and chainsaws and in the few days we have been here they we have learned so much already. We haven't done much work yet. They spent the first few days getting us certified to cut bigger trees down and teaching us more techniques.

The chain saw we are using is SO heavy! before this we have been using chainsaws with 24 in bars and pretty small engines. Two days ago I ran the new saw for about 2 and a half hours and my forearms were DEAD. Its the 460 which is one of the most powerful chainsaws so it cuts like butter but its bar is about three feet long and it weighs close 25 pounds which gets tiring to hold up all day. But I am excited to become proficient with it.

The nice thing about our schedule is that it is 4 days on and 3 days off. So I always have 3 days weekends! and we just work 7-5:30 during the week instead. Its great! and it will especially be great once the weather gets nice because then we can spend the weekends like fishing and playing games and hiking all over the national forest, I can't wait!


Ok well I can sometimes get service if I hike around a little bit, but I really am only gunna be able to get service/ web when we make the treck down to the foothills on some weekends so communication might be sketching. Good Luck all and

GO BRUINS!!!!