Continental Divide Trail Project Report: Hopewell Lake, NM, August 2011

What a wonderful letter to your sons. Your reflections nicely recall the satisfying feeling of physical labor and collaborative work, leaving behind something concrete and lasting. How many of us have jobs today that produce tangible things? It's no wonder so many actually enjoy such back-breaking work. Thanks for your volunteer efforts, and your words.

Great story. Good view of the effort required to build a trail from scratch.

Reminds me of my days in 1980 as a professional trail builder on PCT, the 9.5 mile Snow Creek section. Live in a tent, pack lunch in your daypack for the day, cook breakfast and hit the trail with your tools, Usually I used a pick to "pull tread" but often a bar and sledge when making rock switchback foundations. Sometimes I ran a gasoline powered Swedish rock drill to make holes for explosives.

Trudge back up to camp beside Snow Creek, rinse the dust off in a deep hole in the creek then have a cold beer retrieved from that same cold creek. Next I'd cook up dinner on my SVEA 123 stove. A hard life but in 1980 $12.90 an hour was decent pay.

At the end of the summer it was back to Pennsylvania to teach environmental studies in high school.