Waiting to Leave

May Duong lies down alongside the team's packed bags, waiting until our departure from the historic Maud Williamson House just north of Salem, OR. This is our second-to-last day of our NCCC Round 1 working with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.


More Corps Members sit and wait on our last day at our spike housing location.


The Maud Williamson house, our project housing for 1.5 months near Salem.

Christmas Trees Gone Wild

Having been USDA Forest Service Class A Sawyer certified, we were able to remove an old, overgrown Christmas tree farm in Silver Falls State Park, Oregon. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department supplied us with chainsaws and maintenance tools for the job. Oregon is the United State's no. 1 Christmas tree producing state, and in the case of Silver Falls, some of its recently acquired land includes former tree farms.


Sarah Gadomski, Michael Green and Amber Anderson removes fallen Christmas Trees from the area into larger piles to later be removed.


Taylor Burback cuts down a Christmas Tree. We were able to take some back to our temporary residence of the Maud Williamson House.

While at Silver Falls State Park, we took some time to explore the falls that the park is famous for, including the South Falls here, a 93-foot cascade. All waterfalls in the park spill over 15-million-year-old Columbia River basalt.

Food Share

The team worked at the Marion-Polk Food Share in Salem, Oregon for an independent service project one Friday.


Alyssa Pun and Michael Green tie bags of frozen chopped broccoli to be distributed to the community.

The Eradication of Sanity

NCCC Team Blue 4 wields weed wrenches used to remove the invasive Scotch Broom at Milo McIver State Park.

The difficulty with removing invasive species is that you never seem to remove everything. It's because of this notion that the work, while physical in nature, is more mentally taxing than anything. Exotic species removal may set the invasion back a few years, but it's really just a small dent in the amount of work that really needs to be done. Why spend long 10-hour days removing a plant when, at the end of the week, there are endless fields of it still in sight? You are told that every bit helps, that persistence in the manual removal of the plant adds up in the long-run. But that's only if crews are continuously sent in to remove it. That, unfortunately, does not happen. Grants to organizations that support crews like ours are sparse and quickly run out of money. It could be years before the next crew is sent in, as evidenced by the 10+ year-old Scotch Broom we were removing. Scotch Broom wasn't eradicated during our time at Milo McIver State Park, and who knows if it ever will be?

NCCC Corps Members exit the government van to begin work at Milo McIver State Park.


The team enters the morning fog.

Corps Member Carolyn Stevens uses a weed wrench to remove a several-year-old Scotch Broom plant. Removing the roots is key to prevent the plant's regrowth.

Scotch Broom is piled up to later be removed.

An Introduction to Scotch Broom

Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparious) is a perennial shrub native to western and central Europe and is a noxious species in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Reminiscent of the dreaded hitches of the Nevada Conservation Corps where we pulled the invasive Brassica, or Sahara mustard, most of the time our NCCC team spent working with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department was spent removing Scotch Broom. Our first taste of this invasive was at a Willamette River tributary, the Luckiamute River.


Scotch Broom was removed from the landscape and placed into a trailer to later be burned.


The NCCC team takes lunch by the Luckiamute River.


Sydney Lawson handles a snake found on the rocks by the river.

Luckiamute Restoration

NCCC Corps Member Sarah Gadomski installs a native plant at a Luckiamute paddler's access point. The Luckiamute River is a tributary to the Willamette River located within the western Willamette Valley. Under heavy fog, the team planted natives in designated locations governed by the park ranger of the state natural area.


Taylor Burback and Michael Green install plants alongside a road at the Luckiamute State Natural Area.


More plant installation.

Willamette Mission Restoration

AmeriCorps NCCC Team Blue 4 at Willamette Mission State Park.


The team at Willamette Mission State Park.


Dog wood and willow stakes are harvested at Willamette Mission State Park to install in a restoration area. These cuttings will take root and eventually propagate throughout the former farmland.

Settling in Salem

Sarah Gadomski walks in Maud Williamson State Park north of Salem, Oregon.


Alyssa Pun walks through leaves outside of the Salem Public Library.


The Maud Williamson house.

Surely all the mist won't ruin my camera...

Niagara Falls at night.

Visitors ride the Maid of the Mist tour boat at Niagara Falls wearing their provided blue plastic rain coats.

A Maid of the Mist tour boat heads towards the falls.

Onlookers gaze into the evening mist produced by the falls.

The last hitch

A view into the valley from camp.

Having forgotten ice for our cooler during the last hitch, we find some snow at the end of a work day and bring what we can carry back to camp.

Our summer NCC crew, minus Young and Luke who took their remaining discretionary days before the NCC term ended. We're standing by completed tread (not pictured) in the Mount Rose Wilderness Area.

Assistance arrives

To lessen our weight burden when hiking miles to our camp location, the NCC managed to get us some pack horses to carry our food and kitchen supplies up the mountain. Unlike our food, we had to walk up the mountain.

The NCC crew meets the pack horses before parting ways up the mountain to our campsite.

After retrieving tools from our tool cache made during the previous hitch, crewmembers continue hiking up the mountain.

Dan, Dylan and Luke look into the valley towards Reno.

Treading to the Tahoe Rim Trail

NCC members hike to location where they will continue the construction of a trail that connects the Thomas Creek trailhead to the Tahoe Rim Trail.

Dylan Stiegemeier adds wood to a fire at camp.

NCC crews have been working on the Rim to Reno project for months. Because of the now extensive distance between the closest vehicle-accessible location and where we are now working, we are camping back country. Normally, when car camping, we would bring jugs filled with water in our trucks, but as a result of our remote location and the displeasure we experience at the idea of hiking 50-pound water jugs up a mountain four miles, we are instead filtering water from nearby streams. Here, Lucas French maintains the water filters to ensure we're getting a steady availability of water.

NCC crewmembers take a break to eat.

An NCC crewmember slides down a snow-covered area by camp in July. Snow on Mount Rose usually hits a peak at the beginning of April and then starts to melt off. That wasn't the case this year, which has been referred to as the snowiest winter in the last 25 years.

An Alpine Lake in the Sierra Nevadas

People jump from boulders into Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America. Its surface elevation is 6,225 ft. For comparison back at home, Syracuse, NY has an elevation of 380 ft. Lake Tahoe is also the United States' second deepest lake, the first being Crater Lake, OR.

Visitors at Sand Harbor, on the east coast of Lake Tahoe.

NCC crewmember Trent Lieber jumps into Lake Tahoe.

Beach-goers play in Lake Tahoe in the early evening.

NCC crewmembers in Lake Tahoe. The Sierra Nevada mountain range is the background. The mountains encapsulate the lake. The highest peak in the mountains immediately surrounding Lake Tahoe is Freel Peak at an elevation of 10,891 ft.

Sierra Nevada Wildflowers

We have been working outside of Thomas Creek for the past four weeks, building a trail that will eventually connect to the Tahoe Rim Trail. Having to hike about four miles to our back-country camp location for the hitch, we pass a lot of wildflowers. Below are some of them I've documented using a Sierra Nevada field guide.

Alpine Penstemon | Penstemon davidsonii	Applegate's Paintbrush (orange) | Castilleja applegatei

Applegate's Paintbrush (red) | Castilleja applegatei	Bitterbrush | Purshia tridentata

Checker Bloom | Sidalcea glaucescens	Crimson Columbine | Aquilegia formosa

Dwarf Chamaesaracha | Chamaesaracha nana	Elephant's Head | Pedicularis groenlandica

Giant Mountain Larkspur | Delphinium glaucum	Granite Gilia | Leptodactylon pungens

Hartweg's Iris | Iris hartwegii	Heart-leaved Arnica | Arnica cordifolia

Horsemint | Agastache urticifolia	Peony | Paeonia brownii

Scarlet Gilia | Ipomopsis aggregata	Showy Penstemon | Penstemon speciosus

Sierra Nevada Pea | Lathyrus nevadensis	Sierra Onion | Allium campanulatum

Sierra Plum | Prunus subcordata	Sierra Stickseed | Hackelia nervosa

Snow Plant | Sarcodes sanguinea	Soft Arnica | Arnica mollis

Spreading Phlox | Phlox diffusa	Spur Lupine | Lupinus arbustus

Woolly Mule's Ears | Wyethia mollis	Subalpine Shooting Star | Dodecatheon subalpinum

Sulfur Flower | Eriogonum umbellatum	Western Blue Flag | Iris missouriensis

Western Wallflower | Erysimum capitatum ssp. perenne	White Rein Orchid | Platanthera leucostachys