I love the DC metro area. There are great restaurants, lots of cool museums, and of course, a ton of different gyms. That said, the DC metro area suffers from the same cons as many big cities - horrendous traffic, constant noise, and no shortage of individuals with an almost alarming level of self importance. An escape from this atmosphere is sometimes necessary. It was in the spirit of escape that my friend decided to purchase land down in the Shenandoah Valley, which is roughly two hours outside of the city. I attended James Madison University, which is in the Shenandoah Valley, so I am a total sucker for that region and the gorgeous mountain views (the second picture in this post is the view from one of my favorite spots on campus). My friend went on www.landwatchusa.com to find his patch of 25 acres in the mountains. His intention was to clear a little portion, perhaps a quarter acre. He plans to camp and eventually build a cabin to enjoy the quiet of the wilderness during those times when the noise and the douchebagery (yes, I've decided that is a word) of the city get to be a little too much. After he purchased his land, he began soliciting help from his friends to clear some of the trees to make space for his camp site. Though the thought of camping terrifies me, I do love the outdoors (before nightfall because that is obviously when the bears and the ax murderers would come for my tent), so I volunteered to help with clearing the brush and some of the trees.
Though I had no flannel to don, I did have super cute boots and came equipped with cheese, crackers, wine and a picnic blanket. Those seemed like lumberjack staples. That turned out to be as dumb as it sounds. There was no clear, flat land for a picnic. Also, wine should be limited when using a hatchet or ax. Finally, woodland creatures also like cheese and crackers. I am not sure exactly what I pictured happening, but upon arrival I realized whatever was in my head was entirely off (not an uncommon occurrence in my everyday life). That said, I did house the cheese because cheese is appropriate for every occasion...and, I got scared that bears would smell the cheese. Now, we did not go down and just start chopping down trees willy nilly. On the contrary, the purpose of this land is for it to forever be preserved and be nothing like the DC metro area where we live. We just needed to take down a few trees and eliminate some brush.
To my surprise, clearing land is extremely fun and it is a great workout! Right off the bat, there was no road to get to the portion of the property where we were clearing. We had to hike up an old ATV trail while carrying tools. Everyone had a tool. I had bolt cutters for the saplings. Fun fact, bolt cutters are heavy. To cut the saplings, I held out the big bolt cutters (hello, shoulders) while squatting (glutes) under brush to cut at the bottom of the sapling. Once I cut the sapling (biceps), I had to drag the sapling to our pile of brush and trees (Every. Muscle).
Eventually, I felt very bold, and I took a turn with the hatchet. Huge arm and oblique workout. There was also another brief cardio workout when I ran away from a spider.
There were no electric saws involved in the entire endeavor, which was probably for the best since we were all first-timers in the tree clearing business. In spite of our basic tools, we got pretty far in the excavation process. That picture to the left is the land with the sun peaking through the trees. Very beautiful.
There was another added bonus to the clearing. In case you haven't read any previous posts, I work in an office. I am a desk jockey. Some days, I would love to reenact the scene from Office Space where they destroy office equipment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsSr3z5nVk). Unfortunately, my office printer is twice my size and probably three times my weight, and there aren't readily available isolated fields in the DC metro area.
Tree felling allowed me to get out the aggression everyone has towards their office equipment in the seconds before calling the IT guy for the 3rd time in a week (just me?).The other thing that was pretty cool was that we were creating something, but there were no real boundaries except to stick to a certain area of the woods. There was also no judgement regarding my process or product (even if I looked like an idiot and failed to take down some trees). As adults, you rarely get the opportunity to participate in an activity with no boundaries and complete freedom of methodology.
The next day, I was incredibly sore. It was the second weekend in a row that provided me with an unexpected workout.
Unfortunately, unless you have a friend who has purchased land and needs free manual labor, I cannot recommend this workout. People frown upon the random destruction of trees, and I like my parks pleasantly shaded. Maybe go take your office printer into a field?
