Fish Creek, by Josh Lawrence, Western Wildlands

My first hitch was the wettest (so far). It was pouring rain non-stop, I put on wet clothes in the morning and ate wet granola at lunch. I hadn't learned to pack very well and had a lot of weight in my pack, but we were car camping so it was okay. The weather directly affected the mood of the crew. When it was pouring rain, we just didn't really talk much, but when it stopped and the sun poked through the clouds, everyone was grinning. I ended up shattering the distal tip in my finger on day 3, and got driven back to town on day 5 because it was looking worse and worse. Hitch 2 was much better, the weather had cleared up quite a bit, and the crew was just generally happier. We do a lot of brushing. The brush is THICK out in Fish creek, so it's quite a treat when we get to work on structures, and carry rocks around.
Sometimes the mountains don't give us the rocks we want, but it's still fun carrying them. I especially enjoy using the rock Austins, and carrying really big rocks with other people, it reminds me of the work I did for "Randy's Stone Polishing and Repair," which was my father's business. I hope there's more chances to build crib walls in the future. I think the crew has taken to doing push ups during stretch circle in the morning because there's only a few jobs that work our arms out there. Lugging stone, using the pion jar, chainsawing, and using our picks.
There's been ups and downs, but overall I love my job. Being out in the woods is great, when it's dry. We've seen a badger, a black bear cub, and a moose. We've interacted with a family of mice, which showed up at camp at 8:00 sharp each night to search for food. They've hidden in our clothes for warmth, and once one of my team-leader's pulled all six of them out of her day pack in the morning. They've lost at least one family member, a baby that walked into our camp and collapsed not ten minutes after I pulled a stick out of his brother's eye, which was hanging down by it's cheek. As far as we know, the one-eyed rodent is still alive, but the one that collapsed definitely died. There may have been another fatality, after a corps member threw one out of his tent, but who knows.
Each hitch gets better and better, and the upcoming one is going to be in the best camping spot so far. And that'll be the last time we work at Fish Creek, the next spot is supposed to be extremely beautiful, so it looks like we've got a lot of good experiences to look forward to.