CHICO Basin Ranch
Boxford & North Andover
By Bethany Bray
Away from home, on the range

Cam Adrian volunteers for summer ranch work in Colorado

Boxford 16-year-old Cam Adrian can say that he learned a few new things this summer-one of which was the best way to pick cactus needles out of his leg.
Besides that, the Masconomet junior also helped tag cattle, ride a horse, mend fences, rake tumbleweed on an 87,000-acre working ranch in Colorado.
Adrian spent 13 days on the Chico Basin ranch outside of Colorado Springs, working with Landmark Volunteers, a nonprofit service organization that connects high school students with community service opportunities throughout the country.  The ranch Adrian worked at, which is conservation land owned by the state of Colorado, has several thousand head of cattle.
“I just wanted to do it because it would be fun.  I wanted to get away from New England as well… to go gar away, have new experiences, and see a different part of the country,” said Adrian.  “I knew it would be really intense.  I knew it would be hard work, and I came ready to work.”
Adrian worked with a crew of 13 other Landmark Volunteers, teens from all over the U.S.  They worked eight-hour day’s together, cooked meals and slept in a two-room schoolhouse on the ranch property.  The schoolhouse did not have electricity; the shower was a 150-gallon water tank propped up on hay bales outside.  They often slept outside as we.., said Adrian, because it was cooler.
The most extreme part of the volunteer experience?  No cell phones allowed.  The volunteers had to give up their phones when they arrived on the ranch.  It didn’t matter much, said Adrian, because they had no electricity to charge a cell phone anyway.
“When I first arrived, I said, “Wow, this is going to be really rugged” said Adrian.  “I like being really far away from the city.  I missed it when I got home, my cabin with no electricity and all my friends.
The rustic accommodations weren’t too much of a stretch for Adrian, who describes himself as an outdoorsy type.  When at home, he like to hike, go camping and ride his mountain and dirt bikes.  He also owns his own landscaping company, and spends summers mowing and trimming lawns.  He’s saving his landscaping earnings from this summer to buy a car, he said.
The group of volunteers got to be good friends after 13 days, said Adrian.  On a day off, the group hiked Pikes Peak together, which is in the Rocky Mountain, not far from Colorado Springs.  He plans to drive to Florida next summer to visit a fellow volunteer from the ranch.
On a typical day, the group would “pile into the back of a pickup truck” each morning and spend the day helping the cowboys-the men who run the ranch full-time-with tasks around the ranch.  Most of the jobs Adrian had never done before: raking tumbleweed to be burned, cutting down vines growing on electric fences and painting, mending and building new cattle fences and water tanks on the ranch.  Some of the fences the teens help mend were original to the ranch, built in the 1800s.
A highlight of the trip was the afternoon they spent tagging calves.  The cowboys would lasso a 250- or 300-pound calf, and the volunteers would hold it on its side as it had an identification tag pierced through its ear.  It took them almost the entire day to tag 40 calves, said Adrian.
Even though it was very hare work-the group spent a day pulling up fence posts in 102-degree hear- Adrian said, “It was really fun because you have all these people working with you.”
Having never been around cattle before, Adrian said he was surprised to find how skittish they were despite their massive size.
“It’s amazing that the cattle are afraid of you.  It’s a huge animal that could take you out, but they’re scared,” he said.
After work, the group would usually visit one of the several swimming holes on the ranch for a refreshing dip.  Back at the schoolhouse, the teens would take turns cooking dinner and cleaning up afterward.  They had a campfire pit behind the school house, and the teens, cooked barbecue chicken one night, said Adrian.
The Landmark Volunteer program focuses on leadership, and the group at the ranch also took turns leading work projects.
“I learned I could work with a group easily, and be a leader at times, but let others lead too.  You have to be patient and motivate other people,” said Adrian.
Adrian said he’s very glad he took the plunge to try something new, and he hopes to participate in one of Landmark Volunteers’ 51 other trips next summer. 
He asked to go to Colorado this summer because he head always wanted to go there, said Adrian.  He had seen pictures and heard from friends how beautiful the landscape is in the Centennial State.
Through his 13 days on the ranch, Adrian earned 80 hours of community service, which will take care of the 40 hours Masconomet requires to graduate.  But clocking in the hours of community service wasn’t his primary motivation for going.
“The hours were just a bonus,” said Adrian

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