Supervisor Joe Albrecht teaches a chainsaw lesson on how to fell a tree at the start of the day.

Meghan Ross grins at the end of her first chainsaw lesson in felling a tree.

(left to right) Diego Lechuga, Max Talbott and Diego Lechuga wait for instruction from Supervisor Joe Albrecht before they buck a fallen tree. The tree crosses the path of a trail the crew hopes to finish maintenance on that day.

Witches Butter glistens on a log in the mid-afternoon at Camp Gallagher.

(left to right) Max Talbott and Diego Lechuga run through a tool check before starting work on a maintenance trail for a crew building the Camp Gallagher tree bridge.

Trevor Steward uses a weed wrench, a device used to uproot shrubs with hard stems and tangled roots.

Max Talbot pauses after yanking a Scotch Broom invasive from the ground.

(left to right) Diego Lechuga and Trevor Steward team up to uproot a massive Scotch Broom plant from the earth.

Meghan Ross walks along a corridor where the WCC Belfair Crew has nearly finished pulling all the Scotch Broom.

Max Talbott cradles a beetle in the palm of his leather-gloved hand. He found the critter in the root system of a Scotch Broom plant he had pulled out.

(left to right) Diego Lechuga and Trevor Steward team up to uproot a massive Scotch Broom plant from the earth.

Diego Lechuga throws a Scotch Broom root onto a growing pile alongside the road of Camp Gallagher.

The Belfair Restoration Crew pulls invasives, including Poison Hemlock, Himalayan Blackberry, Scotch Broom and English Ivy along the pond of Camp Gallagher. 16 Diego Lechuga throws a Scotch Broom root onto a growing pile alongside the

Meghan Ross rises up from her weed-pulling with a bundle of ivy.

The WCC Belfair Restoration Crew breaks for lunch along the waterfront of Camp Gallgher on a grey day in December.

(left to right) Max Talbott and Trevor Steward walk the edge of the Camp Gallagher pond in search of poison hemlock to weed.

By Emmy Trivette

Beneath the boots of the Belfair Restoration Crew, pebbles sit unmoved on the shores of Camp Gallagher. On our break during the work week in the Gallagher woods, the crew soaks in a view of the Olympics, fortunate that these first weeks of December gave us some sun and visibility.

During the days, even amidst weeding 2.5 tons of Scotch Broom, Cytisus scoparius, we would each have our moments of appreciation for Gallagher’s beauty. For the Western Hemlocks that loom over us as we pull roots from the ground, the Native Huckleberry that decorates the roadside, leering us with ripe berries and the cool feel of metal canoes on our backs while we close our eyes for a lunch break.

By far, this was one of our crew’s favorite project sites. Our crew is a restoration crew. This means the majority of our work involves pulling out invasive—and planting native—species, along rivers to protect salmon habitats.

In the second week of our time, we began a bit of an atypical project. Beyond the archery range and climbing course is a trail for those who wish to walk in the woods at Camp Gallagher. A trail we dug and tramped, cleaning, structurally reinforcing it, then using as an access point to create a new trail for construction crews to access when they start wood bridge construction in the Spring of 2025.

Collectively, we agreed this work was some of the most satisfying we’d done yet. We cut shrubs, chainsawed a stump or two, and did enough digging and tamping to put the actors in Holes to shame. Tough, but rewarding when you see the mark of a trail, made with your own hands, etched into the side of a hill, that wasn’t even there a week ago.

Crew Members: