Saturday we did some community service, and got our hiking in too! We packed up early in the morning and drove out to West Blocton in Bibb Co. to be a part of the Renew Our Rivers – Cahaba River cleanup project. Renew Our Rivers is a project that Alabama Power has sponsored since 2000, along with the Friends of the Cahaba River . I had heard that the only location in the world that the Cahaba lily could be seen was on the Cahaba River, but according to http://www.cahabalily.com/, it’s also known as the shoal lily and can also be found in certain areas of South Carolina and Georgia. It is a delicate species that only flowers for a very short time in May. 
Luckily, West Blocton holds a Cahaba Lily Festival each year to showcase the blooms, and more importantly, protect them from careless visitors.Our local chapter of NA-YGN (North American Young Generation in Nuclear) put a small group of volunteers together to help with the Cahaba River Cleanup, and we all (Jessica, Cotasha, Moanica, Nick & I) met to carpool to the river at 7:15am Saturday morning.
Nick and I did this last year with the same group, and had a great time. The officials allowed us to take the canoes and collect litter from the riverside, so it was a good time for all! This year was a little more challenging though. It had stormed heavily earlier in the morning and the river was very high, and dangerous (according to officials at least), so the canoes were out of the question.
We instead were sent a few miles up river, I think, where we had a long hike through the woods to get to the river. It was absolutely beautiful there after the rain, but we were too busy hiking or picking up trash to get many good photos. I’d say it was about a mile hike to the river.
You’d be surprised what you might find washed up on the river bank.
Sure there are fishing lures and plenty of Styrofoam pieces that were at some point either ice chests or cups, but there are a few things that make you wonder… why?
Motor oil,
Milk jugs,
Cold cream...
Bottom half of a bear?
We spent less than an hour picking up trash alongside the river, and then someone mentioned hauling the bags back.
That’s when the alarm went off. The only way to get the trash back out of there was to haul it out by foot, a mile of hiking with 10-20 lbs of trash on our backs, mostly uphill. Ugh! 
When we finally got back to headquarters, we each scarfed down a hotdog and a few drinks, and headed to our next project: roadside trash pickup. This also seemed like it would be an easy task, until Eva, our Cahaba National Wildlife Refuge official, showed us exactly what she wanted to do. She had driven us to a special roadside location that had become an unofficial dumpsite, because of a steep 20-30 foot drop next to the road that keeps trash hidden nicely. Our task was to scale down the cliff and haul bags of trash back up the cliff with no normal climbing tools, like… say… a ROPE.
That’s where we found the really interesting (and more often gross) stuff. Liquor bottles, refrigerator shelves, old rolls of linoleum flooring, batteries, many, many tires, whole bags full of every-day trash, all of which had to be pulled up a dangerously steep grade, amid a gazillion pesky gnats. The hike back from the river was much easier!
It was all very much worth it though! After another hour and a half of scaling the cliff with heavy bags and tires, we were rewarded with more food, snacks, drinks, plus t-shirts, hats, and heartfelt thank you’s from the locals.
Oh! Fox 6 News showed up to interview a few of us during our last break, and a few of us were featured on the Saturday night news! Half my face was featured throughout the segment.
Like I said before…. A fun time for all! We’ll definitely be back next year.
We spent less than an hour picking up trash alongside the river, and then someone mentioned hauling the bags back.
That’s when the alarm went off. The only way to get the trash back out of there was to haul it out by foot, a mile of hiking with 10-20 lbs of trash on our backs, mostly uphill. Ugh! 
When we finally got back to headquarters, we each scarfed down a hotdog and a few drinks, and headed to our next project: roadside trash pickup. This also seemed like it would be an easy task, until Eva, our Cahaba National Wildlife Refuge official, showed us exactly what she wanted to do. She had driven us to a special roadside location that had become an unofficial dumpsite, because of a steep 20-30 foot drop next to the road that keeps trash hidden nicely. Our task was to scale down the cliff and haul bags of trash back up the cliff with no normal climbing tools, like… say… a ROPE.
That’s where we found the really interesting (and more often gross) stuff. Liquor bottles, refrigerator shelves, old rolls of linoleum flooring, batteries, many, many tires, whole bags full of every-day trash, all of which had to be pulled up a dangerously steep grade, amid a gazillion pesky gnats. The hike back from the river was much easier!
It was all very much worth it though! After another hour and a half of scaling the cliff with heavy bags and tires, we were rewarded with more food, snacks, drinks, plus t-shirts, hats, and heartfelt thank you’s from the locals.
Oh! Fox 6 News showed up to interview a few of us during our last break, and a few of us were featured on the Saturday night news! Half my face was featured throughout the segment.
Like I said before…. A fun time for all! We’ll definitely be back next year.
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