This is my team Oak 7 (7 Up!) in Custer State Park, SD, just this past month of June 2012. We battled the mountain pine beetle infestation of the park and helped suppress the epidemic for next season. The "abyss" is what we eventually started calling our work: for weeks all we did was pile pine brush and roll logs over.

The brushpiling prepares the brush for winter burning and also reduces forest fire hazards (the brush was leftover from felled beetle-infested pine trees). Rolling logs over helps the sun dry out the bark of the undersides of the infested chunked trees, further suppressing the population of pine beetles. It was hard, laborious, monotonous work. Thus we went into the abyss for 8 hours each day.

The project did afford us some amazing views, one of which was captured by this image. I won't lie, scrambling up and over mountainsides was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the location in this picture. The willingness of our team to stick it out during this rough project greatly inspires me and I know without a doubt now that we can work through any situation and get things done.