They Might Be Doing Yoga, But We’re Doing Push Ups

Written by a Climate Corps member, Heather Gossett, with the Los Valles Region:

The group at the end of our Colorado State Forest State Park hitch

If you have been around our crew for any short period of time, you would easily see that we challenge ourselves to strive in any and all conditions.  Chainsauce’s 2^nd hitch was up in northern Colorado’s State Forest State Park, about 20 miles from the Wyoming border.  There were several other crews there throughout our stay.  The Rocky Mountain Youth Corps had several crews working near us in Ranger Lakes in the SFSP.  One crew in particular was there longer than the others, and since we were working with them side by side for 2 of our days we got to know them the best.  Meeting their crew was a turning point in our crew’s PT dynamic of the summer.  The entire crew would do push ups, flutter kicks, bicycle crunches, leg lifts, or an assortment of other exercises during down time.  They saw some of our crew doing yoga one night, and while they thought I wasn’t listening in my tent, I heard one of them say “They may be doing yoga but we’re doing push ups”.  Then it became a mini crew-on-crew competition.  But honestly, their motivation inspired us to become a collectively stronger crew throughout the rest of the summer.  We joined in their work-out shenanigans during that hitch and it has stuck with us since. 

Julie Q, one of the crew leaders, working her magic felling a tree

Personally, I can feel myself getting stronger and I can actually see the muscle growth.  The combination of doing hard outdoor labor and pushing yourself to not be lazy when there is down time makes for huge strength improvements.  I can also see my fellow Chainsaucers getting stronger.  The 2^nd hitch for me was my favorite so far.  We got to do a variety of projects.  We cut trees down (the pine beetle did some major damage up there), cleared trails (where machines came in to either harvest timber or clear cut beetle-kill trees and left a mess), planted trees (4500 trees consisting of Douglas Fir, Englewood Spruce and Lodgepole Pine between the RMYC crew and us), and fixed up a clear-cut area to be more aesthetic looking.  Our crew helped make Colorado State Forest State Park look as much like it used to as possible, although it might take 40 or 50 years for those trees to get a decent height.