A Blue collar Monday

On June 8th 2002, Terry Barton (a forest service officer) started the largest fire in Colorado history. She claims she was just burning letters from her ex-husband but later plead guilty to arson and served six years in prison. The fire consumed over 138,000 acres and crossed through 4 counties. A forest fire on this scale is devastating for all of the obvious reasons but much of the damage continues years after the fire is out.

Without the vegetation to keep the soil in place, it looks as if the mountains are melting. Even 8 years later, the roads in the area are frequently impassable after a rain storm because of mud slides. All of the soil starts coming down.

This year Vail Resorts pledged 1,500 volunteer hours to the restoration project. On Monday I contributed 6 hours to that total. Instead of a pen, a phone, and a keyboard, my tools were gloves, a hard hat, a polaski, and a sledge hammer.

My group started out on erosion control. Our job was to fill in a gully, install logs across the slope (erosion bars) to divert the run off and plant grass seed over the finished product. To keep the logs in place, we hammered rebar on the downhill side of the log and that is where the sledge hammer came in. I got to be John Henry for a little while but as far as I know, no songs were written about me....


We were making good progress until the winds came. Really big winds. Earlier that day we received a safety briefing and they warned us about the danger of falling trees after a forest fire. I didn't take it too seriously and figured they were being overly cautious. They weren't. First we heard trees falling and we would jump and look around and hope to catch one in action. Then we saw one fall and thought that was pretty cool. Then we saw three fall and thought that would be a good story. Then we saw a dozen fall and our forest ranger supervisor said "that's it, we're out of here". Before we could pack up and leave we saw trees flying through the air with the bottom of the trunk landing 50 feet away from the stump. I told myself that when I retold the story, I'd say we were running and dodging and lost a few good men but the truth is I never really felt I was in danger.


We relocated outside of the burn area and switched to planting trees. I was on a six man auger crew (a very manly tool!!!) With the auger and six people we could drill a three foot hole, pop in a willow tree, cover it, and water it in about a minute and a half.


By the end of the day I was dirty and out of breath. My back hurt and my grip was gone...but I felt great! I'm grateful for my desk job that doesn't involve daily punishment to my body, but for one day it felt really good to be exhausted and be able to point to something and say "I did that".

I wouldn't mind if I did the same thing every Monday...except for winters...or windy days I guess...or if I didn't feel good, like, you know, a stomache ache or something...but every other Monday for sure!!