Dear B2B Families,
This week the trip was a week long and we spent it doing volunteer work in Utah with the Grand Canyon Trust (GCT). The GCT is a non profit organization based in Flagstaff which works to preserve and protect natural wonders on the Colorado Plateau. We helped them by working to remove old and unused cattle ranching infrastructure in the Escalante National Monument.
On Friday the trip leader from GCT came to the house and gave us the plan for the weekend and told us why the work we were going to do was important. We spent the rest of the day preparing and getting the new guys their outdoor gear.
We left in the morning and made the long drive to Escalante. We met up with the GCT team and caravaned down seemingly endless winding roads through a narrow but beautiful canyon until we reached our basecamp. The camp was at the end of the road and included an old shed which used to used by the ranchers who built the infrastructure which we would be removing. We set up camp then GCT cooked us some delicious and healthy food. We cleaned up after dinner and ran an AA meeting.
The first day we hiked to the work site and started cutting the water pipes. At first we tried using hand saws and the piping was much too thick. We had to switch the power tools and we started making slow progress. We got into a groove and started carrying out 6 foot sections of the thick pipe. We ended the day with another good meal and an AA meeting around the fire.
The next two days we worked hard and carried over 3 thousand pounds of old pipes out of the canyon. The most exciting part was when we got to through the pipe sections down the cliff that they were carrying water up. We made sure there was no one below and took turns throwing the sections down.
We wrapped up the trip with another good meal and a meeting. We helped pack up and the GCT group thanked us for our hard work. They have been working on this project for almost 25 years and they were thrilled that we made so much progress over the week. They also gave us some cool shirts. There were some high winds so we returned to Flagstaff that day.
The next day we drove to Sedona and hiked to a cool swimming area called The Crack. We had perfect weather and everyone had fun. We then went home and cleaned our gear and shared about our experiences in our “Community” group where we processed the week and gave each other feedback. It was a long week with some hard work but we all felt accomplished and had a good time in Utah.
Love,
The B2B Boys
