When we got there we met our sponsor Seth, and watched a short video about the rim fire and all of the destruction it caused. After that we visited an area where the fire hit pretty hard, then we visited the local ranger station that we'd be working with for the first few weeks, while we reforest the area. After that we got to our housing which is a cute family camp in Groveland CA.
I woke up with no toes, on Thursday since there is no heat in my cabin, ventilation is poor and it gets down in the low 20s at night. Anyways we had our first work day on Thursday. We were just working on a small area of land planting baby ponderosa pine trees. While we were there we met one of the forest rangers, Scott, who is the biologist for the forest service and knows absolutely everything about plants. He also told us that before, during and after planting trees they check the temperature of the soil to estimate the survival rate of the trees that were planted. He also showed us a couple other tests that foresters have to perform while planting trees. When we got back from work we had PT and decided to hike to rainbow pools which is about a little over a mile from our housing. after a good amount of time we realized that rainbow pools was no where in sight so we walked back and found out that we turned down a road too early. The sights we saw were still beautiful though!
Friday and Saturday we worked with volunteers planting trees; and on Saturday after work we decided to go on a hike for PT. I'm not sure what the place we hiked at was called exactly but it was a little over a mile hike in and lead to a beautiful waterfall! The hike was fairly easy other than a few areas that was straight up hill having to climb rocks but once we got to the waterfall it was totally worth it. Once we got there I decided I wanted to keep going so I could stand at the top of the waterfall. On the way back there was an older couple hiking back as well and the lady was having a little trouble walking down the larger rocks, so Joe and I stayed back with the couple to make sure they didn't slip on the rocks or pine needles. We ended up walking back with them the whole way, loosing the rest of the team in the process, and were able to talk to them. The lady told me about the hiking club they were in and that they had lived in the area now for about 25 years... It was actually nice going their pace and talking to them about the surrounding area and I think we made a couple of new friends that day haha.
On Sunday Molly, Maddie, Carlos (one of the employees at the camp) and I went to church in the morning. We ended up going to a non denominational church because there were no Catholic churches within a 25 mile radius. The service was actually pretty disappointing because it had nothing to do with Easter. It seemed to be more of a history lesson than anything. After church we went out for lunch and then went back home. I ended up having 8 plastic eggs from the Easter baskets that my roommate (Chelsey) got for Alyssa and I; so I wrote each team mates names on an individual egg, put some chocolate in them and a piece of paper that said a bunch of different compliments. Then I put them around each of the cabins for them to find. It was pretty funny to see some of the teams reactions. I remember being in the cafeteria and molly asking morgan if he found his egg and he was so confused so he dashed out of the room, then Amanda came in laughing saying she just saw Morgan running out of the door saying "I'm going to find my egg!". Later on we ended up dying eggs which was a lot of fun. I made an Ameri-egg while everyone else made ones with funny faces on them.
~Savannah
sights to Rainbow pool
An example of the cabin I'm living in
One of the areas that we were reforesting
mile hike for PT to the beautiful waterfall!
you cant see very well but right behind me is the top of the waterfall
We had to pull over on Sunday to get a picture of the beautiful landscape
My Ameri-egg!
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