National Earth Day 042207
Nature does nothing uselessly.
Aristotle, Politics
Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)
The Valley of the Falls Search and Rescue Team had the opportunity to give back to the community on National Earth Day. The team worked with numerous members of the community and public to clean up Big Falls, Big Falls parking lot and the Falls Recreation Picnic area.
The Falls Recreation area is a very busy place. The area includes the Vivian Creek Trailhead, which is the shortest and steepest route to the summit of San Gorgonio at 11,500 feet elevation. As you know, when these areas get so much use, you will often see graffiti on the buildings and rocks. These street paintings (Vandalism) is often hard to get to, and hard to remove. The normal process by the National Forest is to paint over the graffiti with a rock gray paint, but this does not even come close to appearing natural.
To clean up this large mess, we called upon the professionals. Hydrotek Inc in Redlands, delivered a large steam cleaning pressure washer to the picnic area to assist. Bill Loenhorst from San G SAR is the Vice President of Operations for Hydrotek, and came along to operate the large machine.
After many hours of cleaning the rocks along the parking area, and at the base of Big Falls, the area seemed to return to its untouched glory of yesteryear. The thousands of visitors will now enjoy the beautiful surrounds of nature once more.
Community Service is a very important part of any volunteer organization. It’s a way we as team members can give back to those communities who have often supported our goals and efforts.
I hope you all had a wonderful Earth Day!
- Log in to post comments