Step 18: Catching Up and Changes on the Horizon

Well I am now officially over halfway through my internship and it has been awesome.
Since my last blog post it has been non-stop. I went back to the canyon for 9 more days of work followed by flying the next day to southern California where I met up with Becky and road tripped up the coast visiting family until we arrived in Davis. Davis of course was awesome to see old friends and play some Frisbee Golf. Although a terrible tragedy was the lack of Colorado Enchiladas at Dos. After a far too short 24hour Davis visit it was back to Flagstaff and work the following day where we worked at Montezuma Castle National Monument for 4 days installing a drip irrigation system on a 30acre riparian habitat restoration project. Besides our project partner underestimating what ass –kicking workers we were and running out of work after 2.5 days it was a blast. It was cool learning new skills and quite relaxing doing car camping rather than backcountry work. The lack of work allowed us to sightsee and it was quite cool to see the old ruins and cliff dwellings of the Sinagua Indians. Pretty remarkable stuff.
not enjoying the sun

our new friend. Followed him up the trail for 15 minutes

driving up highway 1

my crew discussing the schematics of our irrigation project


However it has been the last 48 hours that has been most exciting. Upon getting back we found out we would have 10 days off before going back to the canyon on the 11th. So the trip planning began as well as the return to the bars. Last night was a karaoke contest at the Green Room($200 for winner) and we have some damn fine karaoke singers in our group(not me). Sadly none of my co-workers won. Luckily there was a raffle for $100 tab at the bar. We didn’t have the winning ticket for the raffle either though. But, in the inebriated confusion at 2am my co-worker Alison ran up to claim she had the winning ticket even though she was 1 number off. No one came forward with the right ticket so the drunk organizers gave Alison the $100 tab so the exhausting night would finally be over. So now we have a $100 tab at the Green Room. Yes this is the place with 25cent drinks on Wednesday. Some quick math with a calculator tells me this is around 400 drinks….wow.
Today I had a meeting with my boss to discuss job prospects with ACE after the conclusion of my internship in June. After 10 minutes my boss offers me a job starting this Wednesday as an Assistant Crew Leader for our fencing project at Zion National Park. We have a badass fencer as the supervisor who used to work for the Park Service before coming to ACE as our lead fencer. I am supposed to learn from him and become an equally badass Fencer so I can lead my own crews. As I have zero fencing skills at the moment I am terribly excited to learn from him and of all places in Zion! So yeah, I am not going back to Grand Canyon for a while. Between now and June I will be splitting my hours between being an Assistant Crew Leader and my internship. I am still not sure how this will work but it will be an interesting learning experience. And if I show myself to be an adept assistant crew leader I will be due for a promotion to a salaried Field Supervisor come July. So yeah, I may be putting off my aspirations to be a backcountry ranger for a little while yet and follow this road a bit longer.
In other news I have been doing a bit more running and by a bit more I mean a 60 min run once or twice a week. I went for an amazing run on my last day in the Grand Canyon, and now that the snow is melting rapidly in Flagstaff the trails are clearing and the running here is incredible. I feel like I am living at the trailhead to the Emigrant Trail in Truckee, but with even more trails. It’s crazy. That’s all I have to say for now. Stay tuned for many pictures and stories of Zion when I return.
run in the canyon

More pictures:
Grand Canyon
Montezuma Castle