Youth crew performs improvement project at Mill Pond

By Rod Jones

September 26, 2007

Although it isn’t a clearly defined park as of yet, the Mill Ponds area is well on its way to becoming so thanks to the efforts of a working crew this week.

The "Blue Crew" from the Northwest Youth Corps (NYC) arrived Sunday night, Sept. 23, for a weeklong trail building project around Mill Pond, which was expected to be complete by Friday.

The team, composed of about a dozen teenaged workers, camped at the pond while their project continued. With some mechanical help from the Seaside Public Works Department, the team set to work with hand tools in motion to cut a trail around the pond before finishing it off with gravel. The finished trail will be about 3,300 feet long.

Neal Wallace, public works director, said he is hoping the park will soon become an attraction where residents can canoe around the pond or hike around the trail, with a small parking area at the north end off Alder Mill Road. The pond was formerly the home of two lumber mills, but has since become overgrown with blackberry bushes and other forms of thick vegetation. An improved parking area, with room for half a dozen cars, could incorporate pieces of the old skatepark half-pipe into a fence around the area.

Wallace said the pond is already popular with wildlife, as many different kinds of waterfowl can be seen living in the area.

After seeing the finished product at the Fort to Sea Trail, a previous NYC project, Wallace decided to recruit the organization responsible for that handiwork to install a similar trail around Mill Pond. And the NYC was happy to oblige.

"These are educational projects," said Jon Connor, one of the two crew leaders of the Blue team. "We’re not only working, but we’re learning the ‘leave no trace’ way of life."

The NYC was formed almost 25 years ago as a way to help young people learn about the outdoors while improving forestlands and hiking trails around the Northwest. Many of the Blue Team members, including Connor, already have a lot of experience working in the outdoors and try to camp as much as they can, even when they’re not working.

"I love this kind of work, and these kinds of people," said Derek Gast about his job and his co-workers.

Gast recently graduated from the NYC Outdoor School, a high school in the organization’s home base of Eugene dedicated to those who really love working outdoors. He said his mother suggested going to school there when he ran into some difficult times, and he hasn’t regretted it since.

Once he’s done working with the NYC, Gast plans to take classes at Southern Oregon University in hopes of becoming a forest ranger. He already has several years’ experience working in the woods, including a previous session when he helped build the Fort to Sea Trail near Warrenton and Astoria last year.

During that project, Gast said the NYC crew was also called upon to assist in a search and rescue operation for Michael McDonald, a 68-year-old Gearhart resident who went missing during a solo hike along the trail. Loggers found McDonald’s body in April this year.

As if working outdoors isn’t enough, Gast said he likes to go hiking in the off season. The NYC performs work sessions in the spring, summer and fall. The Mill Pond project is part of the final five-week summer session.

Melissa Bennett, the other co-leader of the Blue Team, explained how the jobs are divvied up and how the NYC work sessions are organized. The NYC has four teams, which get together at the end of each session for a little outdoor-themed non-work time.

Other than that, team members work eight-hour days clearing and building trails, camping each night at the site of the project. They only have one day off per week during the session.

"One beautiful day," described Connor, noting that the team members use that opportunity to catch up on showers and laundry.

On the Sunday before each project, the team members gather the equipment they will use and get it into working order.

"All of the youth must learn how to sharpen and use all the tools," Connor explained.

The Mill Pond project is considered a front-country job, he said, because their campsite is next to civilization. Sometimes the team works in the back country, requiring the crew members to carry all their gear with them on a hike to the job site.

On Monday morning, the first day of the Mill Pond project, the crew had already cleared about half the trail and gathered up large items of litter. A couple mattresses and other various objects were stacked at the head of the trail.

Meanwhile, a group sing-along indicated the location of the "chain gang," which was busy swinging shovels and clipping foliage at the south end of the pond. Despite the hard work and heavy lifting, the members were in good spirits and seemed content with working outside.

"This is my office," Connors said while digging up small boulders. As an English major in college, Connors said he changed career plans when he decided indoor work didn’t suit him. "I didn’t think I could work in an office setting, so I made a career move."

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