Get Outdoors - Volunteer: High Sierra Recharge

We pause under a cobalt sky, inhale clear Sierra air, and admire the roaring Boulder River 1,000 feet below - but I can't stop thinking about the phone on my desk. I envision its 6 frantic lines lighting up, hear its electronic ring, and sense the "Message" light blinking furiously.With my ears ringing from a phone 3,000 miles away, we end our break and return to the Roaring River Trail's dusty switchbacks and (all being from Sacramento, Los Angeles, or Washington DC) struggle in the thin, arid air.

Already others in my group, a volunteer trail crew, are shedding their city attitudes. Pat, the owner of a burgeoning computer disk replication company, remarks, "Just look around you: everywhere is something you just can't see in a city. We've just started and already this trip is incredible."

I know Pat is right, but I can't help remembering the phone calls I should have made. I even considered bailing out of this trip, an American Hiking Society Volunteer Vacation to Sequoia National Forest, because so much work was piling up at the office. The trip, a week long excursion to repair and maintain the forest's trails, was supposed to wash away my city stresses and return me to a simpler way of life. But right now, even the river's rushing roar sounds like DC traffic to me.

The switchbacks end, we enter the cool shade of a red fir and lodgepole pine forest, cross a gurgling run, and set up camp aside an old Forest Service cabin on the edge of the lush, deep green Rowell Meadow and the dramatic stony backdrop of Kettle Peak. We unpack coolers of fresh strawberries and cantaloupes, eggs and milk, ground beef and veggie burgers, even whipped cream, brought in by mule train.During a burgers-turned-sloppy joes dinner, we discuss home towns, families, and (unfortunately) jobs. Night falling, we slip one by one to our tents. Before unzipping the door, I look up and am bewildered. Here, high away from the junk-glare of city light pollution, there's a brilliant show of awesome numbers of stars. Archers, dippers, and bruins'at best faint in the city'stand full and bright. For several moments I do nothing but stare up and smile.

The next morning we're on the Sugarloaf Trail; Pulaskis, McLeods, clippers, and an eight-foot crosscut saw in hand. Soon we're cutting trees, trimming branches and clearing waterbars. The trail has wintered well though, and Frank, our guide and Sequoia National Forest Forestry Technician, jokes that the saw will probably not even leave its sheath today.

Just past a shallow creek, we settle down for a lunch of cold cuts, cheese, fresh fruit, and granola. I sit in the sun, listen to cool Sierra breezes brush tree tops, look around at smiling faces, and realize just how far away my phone really is.

After lunch we hike to the Seville Lake Trail, which has also wintered well. We take our time with the light work, joke, and get to know each other; Jim recently retired from the National Institute of Health, Pat recently rediscovered his church, Charles just settled in California after 20 years in Chicago, and Melissa's company builds snowshoes for the Marines. The light softens and our thoughts turn toward dinner--until we find a three-foot thick tree laying across the trail.

We take turns at the saw handles. With sharpened saw teeth pulling three-inch long shavings from deep within the trunk, it's not long before the trunk bows and then cracks. Attempting to spin the trunk away from the trail, half the crew pushes on one side while others push in the opposite direction from the other end. The tree is over thirty feet long. The tree is heavy. We squat down low, drive our legs, shout encouragement and push... but the tree barely budges. We rotate fresh bodies in, again drive low into the tree, and again it barely moves. Another rotation of people, a countdown from Frank, another heave, a collective groan, and the tree, suddenly finding a fulcrum, spins 90 degrees and clears the trail. We manage a winded cheer and start back to camp, our hearts filled with accomplishment and pride.

Melissa, a native Alabaman relocated to Sacramento, says with a slight drawl, "I hurt, I already have a few blisters, and I'm totally exhausted but I couldn't be happier. To leave the city behind for a while, come out here, and improve trail, making this place safer and more accessible for others, is just incredible."

Focused intently on barbecued steaks and baked beans, the only sounds we hear during dinner come from chirping Western Tanagers and whistling Marmots. As the dishes dry and cool evening breezes turn to chilly night air, we sip coffee and listen to Frank's tales from over twenty years of fighting forest fires; jumping from choppers into smoldering LZs, falling from cliffs on moonless nights, trees exploding from the heat, firefighters cowering under tin-foil shelters as infernos rage around them. We're silent as he speaks, both out of respect and because our own tales of white-collar woe just don't hold a candle.

The next day we attack the Kanwayer Gap Trail. The crew is already developing a rhythm: Frank points out a trouble spot, a squad of three assaults it, and the rest leap-frog around them. Soon we're spread along the trail, the last group leapfrogging the others until the work is done. As days pass, our rhythm intensifies until Frank can simply say, "Head up there, you know what to do," and we do it.

After trading hellos with the passing hiker or two who compose "rush hour", evenings consist of perfecting powdered-milk alfredo or other recipes, a slow dinner, dancing amber and orange campfire hues, swapping gear advice, and staring at all those incredible stars. Mornings are just as slow and easy. Butane burners roar in the cold stillness, water boils, crew members emerge from dew-covered tents to sip cowboy coffee, and we savor every pancake, egg, or bagel as fuel for the day ahead. We tend to blistered feet and hands, tighten boot laces, don hardhats, choose tools, and hit the trail.

"You tell someone you're spending a vacation doing trail work and their eyes about fall out of their head," says Jim between strikes of his Pulaski. "They assume its pure torture and dont understand just how rewarding it really is."

On Wednesday we work up to the top of 10,365-foot Mount Mitchell. The summit is scree, the winds are fierce, and the 360-degree panorama of the Sierras is breathtaking. We explore, take photos, or just stare at forested acres, glaciered peaks, and lush meadows far below. Phone? What phone?

By Thursday we evolve beyond simply clearing trails and seek to perfect them. These are "our" trails now, not just something walked upon but places we've put our selves into; our labor, our sweat, our blood. Under Frank's tutelage, waterbar holes are dug deeper, the stones chosen get larger, the dirt tamped tighter, and we check stability with hard kicks. These are no longer just waterbars, they're monuments, permanent symbols of our stewardship, our labor, and our love.

Aligning a stone, Charles says, "These waterbars, the good ones, will last for decades, really decades. We'll be able to bring our grandkids back to see them."

That night, Ranger John Mincks joins us for dinner. John sincerely thanks us for our work and offers a seminar on Forest Service policy, federal budgets (or lack thereof), and user-fees. John then asks for everyone's opinions on recent world events but, getting only blank stares, says, "That's right, you folks have been out of touch for a while." We've had no CNN, no Washington Post, no 67 channels with nothing on. But being out of touch with world events, I realize, has intensified the "touch" we're in with both ourselves and the immediate world around us. I've feel like I've never been more "in touch" in all my life.But unfortunately the next day is Friday; one last half day of work on the J.O. Pass Trail, lunch on Kettle Peak over looking Rowell Meadow Basin, and we hike back to the hot showers, soft beds, and friendly hospitality of the Horse Corral Pack Station, the trip's staging area. As we reach the stables, sheds, and lodge, I spot a cordless phone on a picnic table near the cookhouse. It looks so odd to me, so utterly foreign, almost wrong. While crew members' conversations float past, I drop my backpack, and sit. I think about the miracles and curses of modern technology, my new friends, all those brilliant stars, and the timelessness of trails. Then a smile breaks through my dusty face as I think of my waterbars and the day I'll bring my grandkids back here to see them.

Chris Chesak, American Hiking Society's Development Manager, is also a writer. His work has appeared in Agni, Apocalypse and other literary journals.