Outside is the Funside

Written by Elizabeth Etzel, an AmeriCorps Climate Corps member with the Los Valles Region:

Moonset of the Sand Dunes

From glorious sunrises and beautiful unadulterated land to fireside giggles and true commradery this job is far from price checks and parking lot wastelands.  There still exists a routined work day but within this work day a million and one things may happen.  Take a couple of my experiences for example. Rise and shine in Great Sand Dunes National Park for breakfast just in time to get a glimpse at the stars and watch the sun creep over the mountains.  After loosening up with Stretch and Safety we pile in the Suburban for a bumpy ride down a 4-Wheel drive only road.  We work in a valley alive with wildflowers, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and sand dunes surrounding us while we use hazel hoes and Mcleods to make an eroded trail useful again.  During one of our breaks we dip our feet in a cool creek and spy beaver foot prints and wild hopps.  The work day ends and we take our quinoa surprise to dine next to the dunes.  As we ascend over these great piles of sand the moon, that big bright hole in the sky, rises with us.  We reach a nice peak and for thirty minutes there is silence among us.  Staring in reflective awe at the giant black sky looming above us and the soft

Nice and dirty finishing up the first hitch

moonlight spilling out onto the world below us.  For a crew that talks, laughs, jokes, and sings almost every waking moment, this silence is a rare and magical thing.  Of course it ends and we slide, run, and roll down the dunes laughing, reinvigorated with crazy moon energy.  On other days at Great Sand Dunes we labor heavy rocks down hillsides and push, pull, and prod them into erosion prevention structures, while feeling your muscles grow stronger.  Another day doing the limbo under 350 pound telephone poles.  The Kitty Creek and Hope Creek trails near the Continental Divide and the town of South Fork, CO were our next projects.  Backcountry camping and working is hard work, but the Weminuche Wilderness had something special for all of us.  It could be seeing only one other group of people in eight days, the elk bugels heard almost daily, or simply the way the sunlight filters through the 80 foot pines tiny insects and plant debris, little fairies floating in her rays.  And I just know that whatever comes next will be just as magical.