First two weeks as Ridgewalk

To begin, May is my least favorite time on the Trail. Reason one: its beginning to get hot. Reason two: the water is drying up and becomes harder to find. Reason three: I give you exhibit A below.

I am highly allergic to the gnats that come out this time of year. I'm not kidding when I say I got bit next to my eye within five minutes of getting out of the vehicle on my first week as Ridge. This is what I looked like the next day. People were actually recoiling from me which made me laugh because I was calling myself quasimodo. I wasn't planning on going to the doctor for it, but I had to take a youngwalker to the doctor anyway and the office staff convinced me to get it looked at to make sure it wasn't getting infected. I had already taken 4 benadryl with no affect so the urgent care people gave me a cortisone shot. Needless to say I was in a bit of a haze for the rest of the day. I still can't quite remember how I got back out to where the bands were on the Trail.

When I was asked to be Ridge, the Field Team told me I was going to have two weeks of training. I should have known better because that hasn't really been my experience on the Trail. The day before I was supposed to go out, I asked who would be my trainer. They looked at each other and then told me how a general week goes and to ask Kyle to show me how to send reports. I was so nervous after they told me I would be on my own. On the drive out, we had car trouble and I had to figure out who to send in the first vehicle because we had no idea how long it would take to send out a replacement. It was pretty funny cramming into the suburban; we even had people sitting on the floor. That was the start to my week followed the next day by the gnat bite. Besides that bit of craziness, the rest of my first week was pretty mellow. I had no idea just how much Ridge has to keep track of out there. Thankfully the TWs were really patient with me.

My second week was going great until Monday when one of the rabbitstick girls decided she wanted to walk away from the program. I had to pull a trailwalker from another band so there would be two trailwalkers with her plus I had to tell the TW's with the other RS girl to hike her to Final D. It got a little crazy and there was a point when I wondered why I accepted this position especially going into summer when things generally are more crazy. But I have terrific TW's who were willing to help wherever they were needed and Jeremy, my windwalk, took care of everything with the other bands at Final D. By the end of the week, everyone had made it to Final D, which I was not expecting, and things were relatively normal. Actually it was a fantastic week minus the gnats which were horrendous.