A New Trail in the Beacon Rock
State Park

Nov 15^th, 2008

Not Just Hiking I held a
mind of aspiration sitting in the car on the way to the Beacon Rock
State Park. My younger
sister, my first younger brother, and I were going to an activity with a troop
of boy scow. We’d have to do some services there such as cleaning the trails
and fixing them. Along the road to there, many magnificent scenes went into my
eyes. The Columbia River shone in the
sunlight. Beacon Rock was right in front when we were on the road.

Before the Work After we
arrived at the camp field of the boy scows, a group of cold air wiped us. In
contrast to the warmth in the car, the air seemed likely to make our work
harder. I felt lucky that I’d taken a coat. We then know our work mates. They
were in a wide range of age. Some of them were adults. Some were just kids. It’s
fun because you wouldn’t get an idea that what would happen in the hiking with
so many different people.

Wolves, Deer, Plants, and Water On the beginning of the trail we’d work on, we had a game. In the
game, some people pretended deer, some played wolves, and the others were water
or plants. When you got your food, you changed your role to the food you just
chased for. At the end of the game, there were merely deer and wolves. The
leader then taught us why there should be enough wolves. That’s because if the
wolves eat some deer, the amount of deer won’t be too large that they can’t
find food after they eat it up.

“Watch Out!” After the
game, we officially started the trp. We rode- stood on- the car in the camp. We
“stood on” the back of the car. In the prosperous forest of wood, the way we
rode the car and the branches of that wood made up another game-“Watch Out!”
The way to play this game is to dodge the extended branches on the road. People
stood in front of others had to tell them that there came the branches to
remind them of avoiding being hit by them. That’s exciting. And with the helmet
on the head, it’s safe. We enjoyed the game until we arrived at the place we
had work to do.

“Don’t Eat Any Mushroom!”
Before the work, we had a mission to collect mushroom. We had to bring at least
one kind of mushroom or ivy back to the spot of gathering. It’s easy to find
mushroom in such a wet forest. The most common one was a red, circle one. It
looked poisonous, but I’m not sure. The brown one, the small yellow one, and some
orange one were also usual. Furthermore, you could see a kind of black mushroom
and other strange ivy under some rotten wood, leaves and stones. The black one
and the purple one looked mysterious like some creature from other worlds. Most
impressive was that there was a species of shining yellow ivy. It was very big
and looked moist. Everyone felt it’s beautiful and amazing. Beside the activity
of collecting mushroom, I found many other kinds of ivy during the work. All of
them seemed beautiful, cute, and dangerous.

Close a Trail Then we were
divided into two groups. One was composed of the people with hiking boots, and
the other consisted ones without them. My sister, brother, and I were in the
group without hiking boots, so were the other three people. Our first project
was to close a trail which was not good and was not made in a correct way but
gradually appeared because some people continuously walked on it. We put large
fallen branches, stones, rubbles, and fallen leaves on that trail, making it
look not like a trail. We gathered stuff near the trail and piled all the
things on it. After our damage, the trail was no longer like a trail. It’s
different from the work I often do. Most of my works are cleaning something but
damaging or closing something. What a special mission!

Be a Pioneer Later, we
were going to clean fallen leaves, branches, and stones on the ground which
would be the location of a trail. We followed some flags on the bushes and
cleaned obstacles along the road- in fact it’s not a road yet- to help the
other group building the new trail. We used swords and scissors to cut down
some short trees in the middle of the road. Because we were not adults, we had
no enough force to move some big thick branches directly. As the result, we had
to brainstorm to think of a method to move them. For example, we could erect
them first, roll them, and then fall them down. So we didn’t need to use force
and could still continue the work.

Hiking Down After having a
lunch, doing some work more, we finished today’s mission. We walked down
because the cars had left. Though having no “Watch Out!” to play, we could see
the nice scenery around. In a certain region of the mountain, trees withered.
The reason was likely that some kind of moss attached on their trunks and
absorbed their nutrition. Besides, if you see far away, you may see Mt. Hood,
which has a white summit. But walking did not last long. One car came back. We
had a car to ride again. It meant we had one more chance to play “Watch Out,” a
good beginning and a good ending, too.

Having a Dessert, Watching Horses, and Say Good Bye Down the mountain, we took a rest having some cookie and drinks.
Everyone chatted, had fun. Just before we left, some people took some horses
out. One of our partners happily called us to see. There were approximately
three to five horses. They looked handsome. Saying good bye to other people, we
went home. The leader once told us, “When you come here hiking, you can tell
your friends I built this trail.”