July 2021 | The biggest project we did was create a switchback around a ton of fallen brush. We had to make a couple of rock steps and renaturalize the old trail. Because it was the last week, we also had to do the final derig. It’s cool to look back on what all we have done, but that also makes it harder to leave this crew.

July 22, 2021 | The bridge replacement project was especially interesting for me because of the ecological reasoning behind it. Our project partner wanted to use native timber to form the base of the new bridge, so we helped him by removing the bark from the trees that would be used.

June 7, 2021 | Then the real work began: we grabbed towels and knelt down on hands and knees to slowly and evenly scrape away centimeter after centimeter of soil, working steadily downwards in-depth and backward through time.

March 16, 2021 | What I enjoy most is being part of a crew that is working toward a common goal while still looking out for each other. This is something that I did not see much in the private sector and it was one of the things I missed most from my time in the Marine Corps.

November 4, 2020 | Jackie and crew #974 helped Joanna, the Forest Service contact partner, install metal Jack fencing at the Wambaw Cycle Trail, with the intent of keeping motorized vehicles from expanding trails and creating new social trails.

October 11, 2020| Member learns that the tools we use on the trail are the same tools our conservation predecessors used to pave the original paths now always requiring of a loving maintenance.

September 6, 2020| By a series of winding adventures I have not ink and paper enough to relate here, I found myself signed on as a mid-season addition to the Coblin Goblins crew of the SECC. As directed, I showed up to the Chattanooga office on my first day with nothing but two bags and a sort of confused grin.

November 4, 2020 | There was supposed to be rain, and the skies often spoke so, but no water fell. Our task this week was to survey campsites, and not just survey campsites, but to learn how to do it.

July 27, 2020| Crew #967 works to recover the John Muir Trail in the Cherokee National Forest from a recent landslide.

July 24, 2020 | "Our bridge is a mark of success, not just by my Women’s Youth Crew, but by the previous adult crew that had worked on it the year before. It is a massive piece of proof not only that SECC had been there, but that they had significantly improved the trail from where it had been before we’d come along."

By Ruthie Beeland, Women's Conservation Crew