It's rare to find an individual who survives the toughest experience of their adult life and says "hey, I'll go back and do that again!"
Yet here we have two of them: Grace Andrade and Jackie Jollay, a pair of interns from 2024 who ventured back into the Kalmiopsis Wilderness for another taste of trail work.
Both volunteered as part of our annual Memorial Day Volunteer Trip. The grueling 26-mile trek across the 180,000-acre Wilderness Area is a challenging feat, not something for the faint of heart. And this crew carried tools and worked along the way.
Starting at Babyfoot Lake on the east side, they dropped steeply into the Chetco River canyon, and then climbed back up to Vulcan Lake in the west. At the end of their journey, they were greeted by program manager Trevor Meyer, who cooked up some hot dogs and made sure they were well fed.
Jackie and Grace might be a little sore and have some poison oak, but together with a crew of volunteers, these two alumnae of the Wilderness Conservation Corps not only finished the route, but clipped brush, cut logs, and dug tread along the way.
The 26-mile route is in much better shape thanks to their hard work.
At the Vulcan Lake trailhead, I pulled them aside and asked why they decided to return after completing the arduous internship only a year ago.
Grace, a current student at Oregon State, says she needed a "slap in the face" to whip her back into shape before coming on as an assistant crew leader in June.
Jackie, meanwhile, hails from Illinois, and made a long trek out west to volunteer for the trip. "I've been inside too much," she admits. "I needed to prove I could still do it."
We're so thankful to Jackie, Grace, and all the volunteers who came out to the Kalmiopsis this weekend to volunteer their time over Memorial Day.
Interested in volunteering with us to meet new people and maintain our local backwoods trails? Sign up for a trip on our calendar. We have opportunities for everyone (not every trip is 26 miles in 5 days!).
Just this weekend, we'll be sending a crew out to the Upper Rogue River Trail May 31 to June 1. Check out our website for more details and to sign up!