USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences

Today was going to be our first day managing a group that would be assisting us with our trail work by removing fennel. I was nervous before the boat arrived while we were putting our tools near the trail-head, we hadn’t organized a day like this before and I didn’t know whether the group would be enthusiastic. However, when I saw them getting off the boat with their LA Conservation Corps shirts, with work boots and water bottles I knew they would be ready to remove fennel. The fact that Ellen Kelley, the education coordinator for WIES, met them with us and welcomed them to the campus helped put me at ease. Also Katelyn Horn, one of the Stop the Spread coordinators from the conservancy came out and gave a talk about invasive plants and the importance of managing invasives, such as fennel, to the LACC group. We hiked up to the trail, discussed fennel removal techniques with the shovels and pulaski, then Nick Riehl and Steve Anderson separated the crew into two groups and we hit the trail. Sabrina and I were with Nick’s group which involved a longer hike to our fennel area. Along the way, we stopped in the toyon grove along our trail and Nick, who had spent time working on Catalina, talked about the toyon’s red berries and how Hollywood’s name should be Toyonwood because all of the red and dark green that was seen by the people coming to the area were actually toyons.
After this talk, and a little shade, we continued our hike, past the waterfall to an area of fennel dominance which we had decided would be a good area to work.  We started removing the fennel and everyone started pulling out fennel with vigor.  It was a hot day, but everyone had plenty of water and sunscreen, and before I knew it there were already large piles of dead fennel littering the hillside. I was having a great time, chatting with the group and getting lots of work done and pretty soon it was about time to head down for lunch. We snapped a group photo and began to gather up all the fennel, water bottles and backpacks that needed to come down. Since there was so much fennel and the hike was pretty long, some bundles of fennel that I saw people carrying down the hillside were quite impressive.  We made it down the hillside with enough time to make sure that we had gotten all of our tools and water bottles and then helped the other group clear their fennel.
We ended up having a great lunch with the conservancy, getting an opportunity to get to know them better and talk about the other work they were doing. They were really happy to get a cooked lunch as their past week had been spent camping and their meals were mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As a thank you for all their hard work throughout the morning, we headed down to the waterfront and gave a talk about kayak and snorkel use and asked the crew which they would want to try out. Most were interested in kayaking, a couple wanted to snorkel and a few of them wanted to get some sun and sit out on the loading ramp. Miller helped people get the kayaks and load them into the water, Sabrina was out in a kayak to lead the group, Alex was helping the people that had flipped their kayaks and I was getting the snorkelers in the water.
Even though many of the Conservancy members had not kayaked nor snorkeled before, their enthusiasm and resiliency was impressive. It seemed that no matter how many times they fell out of a kayak, just a few minutes later they were back in, trying all over again. This time at the waterfront was the highlight of my day. I fell in love with Catalina spring semester 2010 when I came out for a class. One day after class and lab a group of us decided to kayak and snorkel. I had previously been kayaking but had never snorkeled before and it was an amazing experience. Seeing all the flora and fauna that lived in the Marine Protected Area opened my eyes to a whole new world underwater. Getting the opportunity to share my love for the water was a spectacular experience. At the end of the day, we all watched them getting on the Miss Christi and waved goodbye; I was wishing the day could have gone on and on.