Project 1: Wupatki National Monument - Fence Building

I arrived in Flagstaff Arizona after a 10 hour flight and a 3 hour drive from warm 30 degrees Phoenix. In Flagstaff it was anything but 30 degrees. Soon I was however, settled into the house I would be calling home for the next seven weeks and over the next few days we received our orientation and safety training plus a little time for shopping and exploring Flagstaff city. Flagstaff has a small town friendly feel to it, where everyone is helpful and polite especially in the supermarkets where they greet you as 'Ma'am', and ask "How would you like to pay", "Would you like paper or plastic?", and of the course the obligatory, "Have a nice day"!

The buildings are all mostly one level, flat and huge. Which means they are spread out, there's so much room in between , it's crazy, but it means Flagstaff looks big and is big to walk around luckily there are also a lot of buses fairly priced. There are so many places to eat its crazy, and a massive Wal-Mart that dominates down town. But with all of this, its surrounded by the mountains and dessert so its very pretty, and there's usually beautiful blue skies and sunshine during the day. As soon as ths sun drops however, so does the temperature, and the lack of humidty (around 20%) means your skin, lips, hands, and even eyes feel quite dry which takes some getting used to. Plus we are some 7000 feet above sea level.

Soon I found myself with details on the first volunteer project I would be working on. Wupatki National Monument is the remains of a community dwelling used by native Americans and dates back to about 700AD. In the surrounding area there are lots of artifacts such as pottery remains, and for some reason, protected 50+ yr old trash cans (maybe left by old cowboys or something?!). Anyway, these artifacts (and old trash) needs to be protected by wandering nearby cattle, hence the need to build the fence. So we left on Tuesday, backpack in tow to drive the 1 hour jpurney out of Flagstaff. Driving through strange dust clouds and real tumbling tumble weed (for real) to our campsite where we each set up our tents and headed out to the worksite for a safety briefing and to start work. However, it was so bitterly windy that day that it didn't start well and we ended up first visting the vistor centre before going back to the work site and simply carrying out barb wire fencing from the work site to the truck for the rest of the day. To and fro we trekked over dusty, windy, rocky, dessert. The land is protected so you have to follow a path of foot prints which is difficult when you are walking by yourself and you come to a junction with footsteps going off in two directions. But after a mild panic I found my way and heaved the load back and forth against the wind, and enduring the prickles of the barbs sticking into my legs and arms until it was time to call it a day. We went back to huddle in the truck at the campsite with fish and rice (with plenty of ketchup for me) while watching an episode of Friends on our Supervisor Max's laptop, before going to bed at 8pm.

The next couple of days passed in a blur of wind, snow, heat and sunshine - taking a pike axe to vegetation, clipping barb wire to fence posts and mixing cerment to suppport the T-posts. The hardest gruelling part was still the continuous trekking across the rocky desert trail back to the truck either taking new poles and equipment to the worksite or bringing back old poles and equipment. The trekking usually meant you'd walked about 12 miles before 11am in the morning - it's at least a good way to build up your appetite - which, is why it's a good thing they supply you with a lot of food; cereal, bagels, trail mix, salad, fruit, ceral bars, Gatorade (sport's drink) plus great dinners including hamburgers and my favorite..broccoli! The next couple of nights we could build a fire which made all the difference and yet you still found yourself tucked up in the sleeping bag ready to sleep by 8pm! Which was good as you had to up again by 6am. With no bathroom facilities to speak of, it was just a case of you and nature, however the morning sunrise made a great bathroom view ; )

On the last night I awoke at 1am to the sound of Coyotes howling in the distance - it was cool but also made me a bit nervous as my overactive imagination ran away with me and I started to imagine they were getting closer and were going to scratch their way in. I even thought at one point I heard the tent zip opening before common sense kicked and I realised, (a) it was the wind on the velcro and not the zip, (2) the Coyotes are probably miles away and the sound it just being carried well in the night air, and (d) Coyotes probably can't open zips.

By Friday we were all exhausted as well as bruised, aching and lacking blood from all the barb wire scratches, plus in great need of a shower. When we arrived back in Flagstaff, unloaded and washed the truck there was just time to grab a shower (it felt like the best shower in the world) and a bite to eat before I was out for the count, but at least I managed to stay awake til 8.30pm this time.