SAINT PATRICK’S DAY
Happy St. Patricks’s Day everyone! While March 17 was originally set aside as a religious celebration of Saint Patrick, the foremost patron saint of Ireland, the date has morphed a little over the years into a more general celebration of Ireland. In addition to the religious aspects of St. Patrick’s day, other time honored traditions have developed including wearing green, pinching those who do not wear green, drinking Irish adult beverages, an overall celebration of Irish descent and a celebration of the color green. Good times for sure! Feel free to celebrate or enjoy as your beliefs and preferences allow.
Here is the Los Padres, St. Patrick’s Day couldn’t come at a more appropriate time of year. While most of the country is still thawing out from winter, we’re in the prime of spring with GREEN all around. Take some time this weekend (after your St. Patty’s celebrations of course) and go find some green in the forest. It’s not hard to do right now. It should be a beautiful weekend and you never know, you might just find that leprechaun hiding his gold in that patch of miners lettuce…..
Upper Sisquoc Views from the Manzana Trail
The LPFA has two Working Vacation trail projects scheduled in April along the Manzana Trail in the San Rafael Wilderness. The first WV will be from April 1-9 and will be based either at Manzana Camp (6 miles from NIRA) or Fish Camp (3 miles from NIRA). The second WV will be from April 15-23 based at Happy Hunting Ground Camp (11 miles from NIRA). While the trail projects last an entire week, you are welcome to come for as long or short as your schedule allows. Both Working Vacation locations are upstream from the NIRA Trailhead and will take the better part of a day to travel to and from the base-camps. We do ask that you commit to a day or two of trail work, which means you’ll need to set aside at least 3-4 days for the Working Vacations. Better yet, come for the entire week, it’ll be beautiful out there!
For those of you who have been on LPFA Working Vacations, you know what to expect. For those who have not, the Working Vacations are stock supported volunteer trail projects with designated cooks and all meals provided. You can learn more here. Basically, you show up and commit to volunteering on the trail and we’ll make sure you have tasty food to eat, hot coffee in the morning and cold drinks in the evening. It’s great fun! Mike Smith will be leading both of these Working Vacations and can answer any specific questions you might have or sign you up! You can reach him at: TrailSmith@LPForest.org
More than anything else, the Working Vacations are a fun way to get out in the backcountry, give back to the trails we love and hang out with like-minded fun people. It’s great fun and very rewarding. We hope to see you out there……
