The Can Do Crew

 Our area goes from Donahue Pass in Yosemite National Park to about 5 miles south of the South Crater Meadow in the Ansel Adams wilderness, probably about 30 miles. The way we work is that the back country ranger for our area, Keith Dawley, will usually have a project that he would like us to do anywhere in that area and we will do that project as needed. I usually work as a liaison between Keith and the Can-do Crew. I communicate with agency staff usually through e-mails and or phone, and I disseminate all the information. Dana Van DeVeer does the cooking, meal planning and organizing of the food. I help her as needed with shopping, packing, organizing food prep, serving, and washing. Sometimes, other member of the crew will help out as needed with any of the meal related tasks. Mark Sinclair, who has worked with me for over 9 years, is sort of a “right hand man” on the crew as he will help out with any of the above tasks and helps with the trail work also in terms of taking the lead when needed.

Our trips are usually 1 week long, as most of us travel 6+ hours to get to the trail head. This year we had two 1 week trips to complete a large project. I usually lead 1 trip a year. We do all types of work rock, timber, structure construction, trail reroutes, trail maintenance, tree falling, bucking, water course reroutes, habitat restoration, and preservation. In California there are 5 classes for bucking and falling, based on the size, quality (living or dead), and the environment that the timber is in. i.e. is it leaning, is it hung up on another tree, what is the fall zone like, etc. Class one faller for instance can fall a tree up to “dia. Class 5 can fall anything dead snags, etc. Keith Dawley has had all of the crew certified class 1 buckers. Mark and I are certified class 1 fallers. Training we do on our own by finding courses, etc. that deal with leading. Or technical things. I have not done a good job in training the crew in more specific skills.

Finances I usually handle through PCTA. I will purchase the items or submit the request for the items and bill accordingly. Projects are advertised by the PCTA magazine and when I work on various projects, in the Bay Area. Word of mouth is the other way I recruit new people.  

I now have a truck so I will pull our trailer with the tools and the kitchen to the site or the pack station. We either car camp or we use pack animals to get into remote sites. We usually purchase our food at the local market and pack in dry ice as is appropriate. We use packing bear boxes for food storage. We usually back pack our own gear in and the forest service packers pack in the food kitchen, tools etc.

Each person brings in their own gloves boots, and safety glasses, hard hats if they have them. I provide for those who do not have them. I plan to have people wearing hard hats in future projects, previously I only used them on an “as needed basis.” We do safety talks each start of the project and cover equipment tools hydration, altitude, what to do if someone is injured, and prevention prevention, prevention.

It has been working fine. The last two years I have had a cook to help me other wise I was doing the cooking. I would rather be working on the trail than cooking, so I have appreciated the cook. I would like access to more cooks if my current cook were not available.