A Day in the Life of...

The Dirty Half Dozen Trail Crew 2018

By Kevin Simpson, Crew Leader

The crew packs into the Ford F-150. This wonderful vehicle transports the Dirty Half Dozen to and from their worksites in the Wilderness.

Once the crew arrives at the trailhead, we pack a ridiculous amount of gear into the

backcountry; hiking anywhere from 1-10 miles.

The crew works together as a team to set up a clean, comfortable, and safe base camp.

Two crew members get up at 5:30 AM to get breakfast started by retrieving food from the bear hang, starting a pot of hot water, and laying out lunch food.

Safety circle starts promptly at 7:00 AM. This includes listing out the days tasks, warm-ups, stretches, and a job hazard analysis. After this we begin work!

We use crosscut saws to remove blowdown trees from the trail. The Dirty Half Dozen love to saw!

We also use axes to remove blowdown trees from the trail. The Dirty Half Dozen love to chop!

We use tools such as these to…

build switchbacks and…

build sidehill trail!

We also build structures like these timber steps we are sitting on!

The crew works hard, but also knows how to have fun!

While we are working and hiking we see lots of cool and beautiful things like this tree,

this cascade,

this sign,

this view,

this Turkscap Lily,

this sunrise,

or this sunset!

Sometimes we have visitors like the guy in the middle, Gergo. He is a Wilderness Specialist at SAWS and he is writing a character narrative for the Wilderness we work in, Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness! He taught us a lot about the area and brought us some goodies too! We love having visitors!

At the end of a hard working day we like to get our grub on ferocious like! The Dirty Half Dozen consumes suppers with names like Mackadocious Cheesylicious, Spicy Ricy Burritos, Flavor Town, and Potato Alfredo!

At the end of the day, the Dirty Half Dozen humbly give ourselves a pat on the back for being Stewards of Wilderness in the Southern Appalachians. And, we are forever indebted to the Wilderness for the experiences and stewardship it has given us.

Thank you.