Training:

            We started out our one year tour with the Nevada Conservation Corps (NCC) on a muggy Monday morning in Las Vegas on October 3^rd. My new roommate Aaron and myself arrived at the shop early, just as the current crews were preparing to leave. We received some interesting looks as we were the FNGs and had not yet earned our place into the NCC.

Slowly the remaining members of the new MACC crews trickled in to the first day of training. Erin, Casey, Veronica, and myself would be on Brock’s crew, Brock has long hair and a beard befitting his laid back Lebowski attitude. Miguel’s crew would consist of Deshika, Aaron, Greg, and Kaiter. Both crews would spend the next six days going through orientation for the SOP of the NCC. Jen and Dave Tepovich, higher ups in the NCC, would be conducting most of the orientation teaching. After the basic orientation overview in the first few days we moved on to first aid and CPR training. The first aid was extremely basic, only covering the application of a simple dressing and how to splint a wrist injury. I pray no one gets hurt.

              We spent a day in Sloan Canyon to begin our trail training. Sloan Canyon is about an hour outside of Vegas and is a rocky canyon with sparse desert vegetation. A few of the other crews had been rained out of their spikes and so joined us on the hike out to start trails training. We started by cutting a section of trail. Each of us was given a short section and told to have at it, that instruction would be given after we had begun.  The section we worked on was a straight section on an uphill slope, fairly basic trail stuff no rock structures or drains to deal with. The substrate was mostly sand with a fair amount of rocks to hit with the pick mattock that sends a jolt through your hands and arms. I dusted off the cobwebs of my trail experience and finished my section of trail, but most other had a rough go with the rocks in the trail.

            The following day we set off for a three-day spike for chainsaw training. The first day was mostly spent at the shop going over proper safety and handling of a chainsaw. Dave was suppose to be leading the training but had thrown out his back and could not make it to help train us. After the class room portion we set off for a boy scout camp slightly higher in elevation in the pinon/juniper, so at least there we some trees, all be it short ones. It had rained heavily in the pervious days and the temperature had drop with nighttime temps getting below freezing. There were cabins that we could use for the bathrooms but we camped outside in our tents, which was slightly cold. Dave had still not recovered from his back injury and so it was up to Migul to lead the training. We were using the sthil 290 farm boss, after having used a sthil 440 magnum at CREC the farm boss was just a little guy.

            I still felt comfortable with the saw and it was good to refresh some of my saw skills. Juniper is not much fun to cut, especially when compared to falling large Ponderosa. How I long to cut pondo again. Since we were short handed on instructors we mostly just limbed and bucked, some of my crewmates learning the in and outs of the saw. The chain break use seemed a little harsh, sometimes being slammed on when the saw was at full throttle. I don’t think some of those chain breaks are long for this world, let’s hope they hold.

            After a day or so of limbing and bucking we spent the finally hours of our saw training making practice face cuts on a stumped juniper. The chains were heavily rocked and dull; they were given to us dull and only got worse from there. The juniper wood hard and dry with shaggy bark that obscured the wood. The underpowered saws struggled to overcome, the dull chains spitting out dust, while the kerf smoked from the dull teeth burning their way through the heartwood. With face cuts made, and no actual trees felled, we returned home sawyers. Maybe more practice is needed.