STANISLAUS BACKCOUNTRY TRAIL CREW
JUNE 2008 MONTHLY OVERVIEW
Brian Lussier, BACKCOUNTRY TRAILS SUPERVISOR

“If you maintain it, they will come.”  That’s just what we did, we maintained over fifty miles of trail this month. “Phew”! “Glad that’s over,” so everyone thought.  Little do they know there’s plenty more where that came from.
Onward to Kennedy Meadows..,. our new home. We moved from Strawberry Engineer’s Camp up towards Sonora Pass at the heart of the entrance to the Emigrant Wilderness. Our new camp is a beautiful one, tucked away amongst the trees, adjacent to a large green meadow, a stone’s throw away from the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus River and just south of the Kennedy Meadows resort/Pack Station. Not quite the backcountry yet, we’re so close we can taste it.
The crew, eager to face the challenges of growth, strengthening, pain and development has set their standards high, giving their very best on and off the trail. “Together we can move mountains,” was the slogan of the month. Utilizing that saying, that’s what happened; maintaining the steepest trails, pushing through extra long days to get the job done – we’ve become one solid team and I’m proud to be right here with them leading the way along with our incredible sponsors.
Carrying on a 30 year tradition of getting things done, miles upon miles of trails maintained and preserved for public use, teaching young people the true essence of hard work, establishing, developing and maintaining a healthy community with support, respect, honor, discipline and love, changing or shaping the lives of many who persevere this journey… A gift, a gift of life from one summer spent “living and working” in the mountains.
We all salute and thank all the people who make this possible. Our hats are off to you!

Weekend Adventures:
We’ve discovered some adventurous, exciting and beautiful places to journey to. Everyone gets out of camp on the weekends to see and explore this magnificent place we call home.
With that, crew members venture to bask in the sun and fish at some lakes, saunter through meadows, climb and conquer mountains, rest and relax in hot springs, toured through history during the Gold Rush in a ghost town called Bodie, road tripped the east side of the Sierra’s through the Mono Basin, Owens Valley, the Alabama Hills and setting their eyes on the highest of them all, Mt Whitney and much more fun filled, action packed, cool and exciting stuff too.
Sword Lake was an epic trip one weekend. The crew enjoyed the pleasures of a rope swing and jumping into warm soothing water. A change from the ice cold river they’d been bathing in. A few set out to climb the Dardenelle Cones and they have a blast. An bald eagle greeted them in the sky above on their ascent and came back to guide them on their descent.
Curriculum and Evening Activities:
The nights at our Kennedy Meadows Camp have been fantastic.  We’ve had a wide variety of classes, playing games, making arts and crafts, letter writing, campfire readings, guest speakers, wildlife info and more. The crew members began teaching classes: Owen Ridings taught us the Zen of Yoga, Ben Brown provided everyone with the facts about the Pacific Salmon, Gage Kerrigan showed us how to have great dreams with his lucid dreaming class, Zach Lichty and Kip Valestrano tag teamed the game “Mafia”, Amanda Tracy showed us her competitive spirit with Apples to Apples, Peter Lewis sung and played his harmonica to us while inspiring us with his words of wisdom one night, we made necklaces for each other (a sign of friendship), wrote letters to our loved ones, read an inspiring/uplifting book “The Prophet” and we finally finished our mission statement. We also played basketball on a dirt court too!
Personnel Changes:
We still have everyone who joined us for the season.
Odds and Ends:
We are still striving for an injury free season!
The weekend of the 21 and 22 we had some honored visitors in camp. Zach Lichty’s mom Rose and sister Heather, Owen Riding’s mom Sue and aunt Terry Castleman, Nick Howe’s parents Ron and Mindy, my mom Darlene and her 2 dogs Duke and Blondie and Gage Kerrigan’s dad Rick and girlfriend Annette all came to visit us.
It was a pleasant, wonderful weekend to share with you all. Thanks for the treats too!
We celebrated three and a half birthdays: Renae Perez 6/1/08 (25yrs), Frank Gato 6/4/08 (?) , Me (Brian Lussier )6/7/08 (31 yrs), and Amanda Tracy’s un-birthday 6/21/08 the summer solstice. Happy Birthday to all.
Pete came and the crew jumped for joy. It’s always a pleasure, you bring high spirits, love of the program, insight, great stories every time you come. Thanks ,Pete.
Three volunteers from the SCA came and joined us to help with our trail work – Joel Markin from North Dakota, Taylor Ganz from Orange County, CA and Heather Larson from Oklahoma. Thanks for your hard work.
Again, a special thanks and love to everyone out there supporting us and this wonderful program.