I have been doing a few more things since last month and mainly that has included getting out into the field more and working on a five year plan for the restoration department.

On most excursions into the SBNF, I work with a more experienced staff member on restoration monitoring. This means going out to sites where restoration occurred in the past to see what condition they are in. This gives me a chance to see a lot of different types of sites, conditions, and treatments. For example, last Thursday I saw a restoration site where extensive chunking had been done, a technique that rips up the ground creating swales that are not pleasant to ride an OHV on. I also saw a different type of fence, which is called pipe rail. It is good practice to diagnose additional treatments for monitoring sites when other staff can give you feedback. I am also getting much better at mapping features with the Trimble, which is a lot of fun.

Monitoring a restoration site.

On Thursday it was very interesting to monitor in a front country section of the forest. To drive to this area, you go down the mountain, cut through San Bernardino, zip along the highway which intersects the forest land, pull off abruptly onto a dirt road, and zig zag through private property to again reach the forest land. If I hadn’t known that the highway was on forest land, I never would have guessed it. I got to see one cool plant last Thursday, which is a rare cactus species. It does not occur in many areas, but it was very abundant in the particular area we worked in on Thursday. There was one area where it was growing on a slope that was partially eroded away, and you could see the root structure clearly where the dirt was gone. I have never thought about the root structure of a cactus much before.

I am also making some headway on the five year strategic plan for the restoration program, which outlines all of the goals the program wants to reach and how to reach them in the next five years. The most interesting part is reading all the policy related to the different areas the restoration program works in, such as native plant materials, OHV restoration, weeds management, and threatened and endangered species. Each of those areas has a little section about the federal policy that I wrote up; this section is kind of supposed to show the higher ups in the Forest Service why what we do is important, you know, this work is a federal government directive and such. I have been working on it a lot today, especially the threatened and endangered species policy section because on Thursday we will have a department-wide meeting to go over it. I am sure that will be very helpful in improving the document and the revisions I have made. I am looking forward to hearing what everyone says.

Additionally, I went downhill skiing this weekend which is just about the most fun I have ever had. It gives me a new perspective on Big Bear and why the tourists flock here. I had a lesson and actually went down a substantial hill and will definitely be back on the slopes as soon as I can to practice! I also went to Joshua Tree National Park a few weekends ago and have hiked around Big Bear a few times. Other updates, I have also joined a gym where I get beat up every Saturday doing yoga, and I am reading ALL the books in the library.

Looking out over Joshua Tree National Park. No Joshua Trees in evidence.

All the best,
Marta
San Bernardino National Forest
Fawnskin, CA

With our mentor Dean away this week for training, the Carson City Botany Interns were planning to spend most of our time in the field, seeding one of our restoration sites, American Flat Mill. However, the snowstorm that passed through the area this past weekend put our plans on hold since it would likely be too muddy to make it to American Flat. With a quick email from Dean Sunday night, we had a new plan for the week – start gathering information and putting together a story map for visitors at another restoration site, Swan Lake.

Entering Swan Lake Nature Study Area

Although we have talked a bit about the restoration work we will be doing at Swan Lake, we had not yet been there and knew little about it. So on Monday the research commenced, and I’ll share with you some of what we have learned.

Officially, it is known as the Swan Lake Nature Study Area. Over 150 bird species have been sighted here, so it is unsurprising that the Audubon Society designated Swan Lake as a Nevada Important Bird Area. It hosts birds that live here year round and is an important stop for migratory birds. The lake’s namesake is one of these migratory birds, the tundra swan.

What is so amazing is that Swan Lake is nestled in between a mix of commercial and residential areas. In fact, its primary water source is the Reno-Stead Wastewater Treatment Plant. And this is not an accident. About twenty years ago, local birders recognized the importance of Swan Lake and started working to protect it. Part of this protection was guaranteeing that water would be here year round, especially during years of drought, so the effluent from the nearby treatment plant was diverted to Swan Lake.

This is only a small bit of what makes Swan Lake interesting; I could go on for a lot longer. I could tell you how the Washoe have lived around and subsisted off of resources from Swan Lake for 9000 years or that Swan Lake is a shallow playa marsh and its surface area shrinks from 1000 acres at normal water levels to 200 acres during dry years. I could also talk about a few of my favorite topics, the importance of wetlands like Swan Lake in nutrient cycles and the roles of plants and microbes in these cycles. BUT I’m not going to. First of all, that would be too much information, and second, we want you to come to Swan Lake and learn these things from the story map we’re making.

As you might imagine, we really wanted to see this place, and since it’s so close to developed areas, unlike our other site, we didn’t have to worry about getting stuck in the mud. So we went! Maybe naively, I was imagining a beautiful, green wetland teeming with birds. When we arrived, I realized that Swan Lake, like pretty much everywhere else in the area, was covered in snow (and/or ice).

Since parts of Swan Lake are densely vegetated with cattails and bulrush, snow cover makes it difficult to tell that a wetland is here

And the areas that were not vegetated were covered with a thin layer of ice

So it wasn’t as green as I was imagining, or as abundantly filled with birds, but it definitely was still beautiful. We spotted a few birds – a hawk, a couple marsh wrens, and a skein of Canada geese. Walking around, seeing all of the senesced cattails and bulrush, I only got more excited about the nutrient cycles I had been thinking about. I also got more excited about what this place will look like as the year progresses.

Besides the story map and restoration work we will be doing out here, we are also going to develop a lesson plan for a local fourth grade class. Hopefully, we will be able to convey how awesome Swan Lake is and how lucky they are to have this natural resource so close to home.

Alec
Carson City BLM

Introduction

Hello Everyone! I have arrived at my next destination in Buffalo, Wyoming! The last few months after my Wenatchee, Washington internship have been extremely busy! I have traveled to all of the western states except for Montana and I have traveled to Australia to explore the Great Barrier Reef. My friend, Heather (CLM Alumni), notified me of a great opportunity back in Buffalo! This experience would be a remote sensing/GIS based internship for the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). I would be working with Janelle Gonzalez and Diane Adams on the PRBR (Powder River Basin Restoration) project. Primarily, I will be looking at aerial photographs for areas of cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) using remote sensing techniques. There will many other GIS projects that I will be doing during the late Winter/ Early Spring season. All of this will be explained in detail below!

Opportunities
I have been at this internship for almost a month and I have been extremely busy with all kinds of GIS and office activities. At the very beginning, I had computer access trouble, so I did a variety of interesting jobs. I cleaned out the range files area and organized many of the maps and notes, so the overall area would not be cluttered. I helped out with billing and I learned about allotments in the Buffalo Field Office area and about the people who work with the BLM. I did two different kinds of data entry. I updated the Eagle Survey Database and I inputted AIM data into Microsoft Access and produced reports for the fire ecologist!

When I had access to my computer, I was able to do a variety of GIS tasks regarding the PRBR project. (I will explain more about this later on.) Another job that they wanted me to do was to document and organize all of the very old aerial photographs from 1954-1969. These huge aerial photographs were surprisingly heavy and it took me multiple trips to carry all of the photographs back to my office from cold storage. I think it was around seventy five pounds worth of aerial photographs. I had to look at the top of the photographs and type into a computer database the date and the serial number of each photograph. Then I had to look in the Wyoming NOC database to see if these aerial photographs have been scanned and digitized into a file. If they were not scanned in, I had to make a note about which of the photographs had to be scanned. Some of the photographs from the 1950s were eerily beautiful. There were clouds in the photographs and some of the landscapes had some light fog, so the pictures looked like they were taken during prehistoric times. Some of the forested areas looked very haunted in north central Wyoming. O___O

A collection of 1954-1969 maps! They were very heavy and were difficult to carry around. It was worth the effort! Looking at these aerial photographs was an interesting experience.

I had to write down the information on the top of each map in a Microsoft Excel file and document them. In the future, I will see if these maps have been digitized or scanned into the computer.

Another small opportunity was to attend a regional GIS meeting in Buffalo with Diane. I was able to talk with other GIS people in Wyoming and learn about GIS projects and activities that were going on in the Powder River Basin. I learned all about the GIS tools that were being used for the energy sector in Wyoming, which was very interesting to learn about. I also was fortunate to learn about the GIS programs that were being used for sage grouse monitoring!!

Remote Sensing

For the majority of my winter time in Buffalo, I will be working on remote sensing classification of landscapes in the Powder River Basin study area. In 2014, the BLM worked with the Department of Transportation to take aerial photographs of a large section of the Powder River Basin in north central Wyoming. The plane took very detailed aerial pictures and digitized them as four banded orthorectified photographs for computer use. The pixels size for the photographs were six inch by six inch. This meant we could get detailed and accurate images of sagebrush and individual plant colonies (even individual cows). The plane took pictures during a time when cheatgrass was drying up and becoming senescent. During this time, the cheatgrass would show up as dark red in a green landscape. Since the orthorectified photographs have four bands, I could easily use various remote sensing techniques to isolate the cheatgrass light signature and make a specific raster file for cheatgrass for the BLM to use for future restoration work!

There were about one thousand mosaic tiles of landscape imagery of the Powder River Basin. Each mosaic tile incorporated a few sections in a township. I would process each mosaic tile with a few tools. The first part would be to look at various signatures in the landscape. I would take samples of each signature in order to do a classification at a later point in time. Using an image classification tool in ArcGIS I drew polygons around various signatures I wanted and made a small template of sample signatures. I drew polygons around areas of cheatgrass (1), cured cheatgrass (2), roads (4), bare ground (7), riparian shrubs (10), scoria hills (12), grey badlands (13), sagebrush (16), deciduous trees (18), conifers (19), riparian grasses (20), shadows (23), upland grass (26), algae reservoirs (28), muddy reservoirs (29), and areas of no data (30). Once I developed a sample template with each group of signatures, I did an interactive classification method to see what the map would look like if each of the signatures were assigned a color. For example, all the areas of cheatgrass would be assigned a red color, all the sagebrush would be turquoise color, and all of the other signatures would be assigned a different color. The final product would show a raster map with ten to sixteen different colors representing all of the signatures.

I am using a classification tool in this picture. I drew polygons around certain signatures and assigned them a class. For example, I drew a few polygons around shadow, riparian grass and sagebrush signatures in the above photograph. The small box you see are the class signatures I created. Each color represents a different class signature. I will use this signature template for the image classification process in my next step.

After gathering my signatures, I used the interactive classification process. The process quickly looks at the signatures files and  projects the estimated results. You can see various patterns and images in the landscape. The Class 1 Red colored represents the cheatgrass signature. The image classification process is only used to see if different signatures results matched with the aerial orthophotographs. If there was a red area that shows up on image classification and it was not a cheatgrass area in the aerial orthophotographs, then I would have to readjust my signature sampling process.

If all the signatures were correct and the raster colors matched with the aerial images locations, then I would proceed with the maximum likelihood classification for the signatures. The maximum likelihood classification would look at the raster signatures and evaluate each pixel on the map. For example, the highest likelihood of a pixel with a similar signature to the cheatgrass sample would be assigned under a cheatgrass signature. The computer looks through all of the raster signatures samples and calculates which pixels belong to which raster signature class. The end result would show a raster signature map with a more accurate representation of each of the ~sixteen signatures that were sampled on the map. When you zoom in, all of the areas of cheatgrass would be assigned a specific color and the same goes with all of the other signatures. The overall product would show a very colorful mosaic of colors.

(Side note: Some signatures may not be present on the aerial photograph, so the number of signatures per mosaic tile may vary.)

The maximum likelihood classification process would fine tune the signature results creating a more accurate classification.

The final step would be to isolate the cheatgrass signatures into a another raster file. I would use a Spatial Analyst tool known as Con to isolate the cheatgrass signatures. After running the Con tool, the computer would extract the cheatgrass signatures only and create a raster file showing only areas of cheatgrass. When I turn off all of the layers and show the aerial image, I could add the extracted cheatgrass raster on the map and show specifically where all the cheatgrass areas are on the aerial image. The final product would show all of the areas in the Powder River Basin that have cheatgrass areas. Later on, I would evaluate density levels of the cheatgrass and show areas that might need to be treated for future restoration projects.

The yellow on this map shows where all of the cheatgrass areas are on the mosaic tile. The Con tool extracts the specific cheatgrass signatures and creates a raster file that could be laid on top of an aerial orthophotograph.

The final result would be to process all the cheatgrass signature files for each mosaic and combine them into a large raster file. Anyone in the future could use this data to look at cheatgrass densities and find out where there needs to be treatment. It is good to look at all the raster files together to make sure everything lines up and that you did everything correctly when creating the signature files.

There were a few small issues that I did encounter with detecting cheatgrass. Some of the signatures were a little askew due to the quality of the aerial photographs. Some of the photographs around the perimeter or ends of the study area were lighter in color, making cheatgrass detection a little harder. Scoria hills were orange to red and showed very similar light signatures to cheatgrass, so I had to be careful when choosing my sample signatures.

Some of the interesting views I see from these aerial photographs were astounding! When working with these photographs for a long period of time, I pictured myself looking at a different alien landscape. Some badland or riparian areas looked very exotic and from the air, it did not look like a landscape you would see in Wyoming. The only dominant lifeforms on these alien landscapes were cows. Some of the cows were so big I could actually see what they were doing. Some were sleeping, laying on their side, climbing up very steep topography, and some were standing in water. I would actually see their trails and daily activities. Some of the red angus cows show up as a cheatgrass signature, fortunately they are rare and could be easily detected apart from the cheatgrass when looking on the aerial photograph. There were some areas in the Powder River Basin where the red to purple cheatgrass was so dense it looked like Mars! I would not want to walk through that area when the grass is seeding. My socks would be ruined!

A small screenshot of a very dense population of cheatgrass!! D: This cheatgrass population is surrounded by sagebrush, riparian grass, cured cheatgrass, and upland grass areas.

Preparing for NISIMS
A very small project that I will be working on during my BLM internship would be doing NISIMS! I did NISIMS for the Wenatchee, Washington BLM and I loved looking for and documenting different kinds of invasive plants. I put together a small power point and I am researching some of the invasive plants that were in north central Wyoming. Later, when I am ground truthing my remote sensing results for the PRBR project, I will also be documenting different invasive plants that I have encountered on the landscape such as cheatgrass, leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) and various thistles (Cirsium). I am very excited for the NISIMS opportunity and I can’t wait to go out in the field and begin classifying invasive plants again!
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Those are the events for this month! Stay tuned for more adventures, CLM Interns and Family Members!!

Have a Great Adventure Everyone!

Justin Chappelle
BLM: Buffalo Field Office
Buffalo, Wyoming

And Now….. Your Moment of Zen

Sunset at the Grand Tetons!

PS. Time for a Secret A-HA Moment! \(>_>)/
Be warned about eating berries in the sagebrush steppe or badlands. I have seen people eat berries from Astragalus and Sambucus and get really sick from them. You have to be aware of the properties of the plant before consuming a berry. Some berries have to be cooked and prepared. Different plants growing on badlands or salt flats may contain harmful alkaloids and selenium, which would be stored in the seed pods/ seeds. Please check with your supervisor or book about consuming berries.

I must admit I am way behind on posting to the CLM Blog. I started my second internship the beginning of December and every week since has been a whirlwind!

But I should start at the beginning…

In October, while finishing up my first CLM internship with the Rae Selling Berry Seed Bank, I was asked to present my SOS seed collecting adventures on Steens Mountain at the OR/WA BLM botanists meeting. I hadn’t thought much about what I was going to do once my internship ended, but assumed it would require a million job applications via USAJobs and scouring the internet for the best plant conservation grad school programs. But for now, these daunting tasks have been put on hold.

Tara Donovan transforms seemingly two dimensional index cards into towering three dimensional sculpture, Renwick Gallery.

It was at the botanists meeting in Oregon that I met the Plant Conservation Lead for the Bureau of Land Management, Peggy Olwell, and decided that I would move to Washington DC for a second CLM internship. So, that is where I am now.

Working at the Washington Office in DC has been quite the change of work environment − from the remote solitude of Harney County to the hustle and bustle of the capital city. Although my daily tasks at times feel far removed from the field botany I so enjoyed, the work happening in DC is what keeps all those botany positions funded and the native plant materials programs running.

Currently, most of the energy within the Plant Conservation Program is focused on implementation of the National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration 2015 – 2020. Involvement in this effort has me communicating with representatives from 12 Federal Agencies such as USFWS, NPS, USFS, and USGS as well as with the Smithsonian Institute and National Botanic Garden. The Seed Strategy has been a cooperative effort since its conception and it is inspiring to see collaboration between agencies at this level. With lands protected/managed by so many different agencies and organizations across the country, collaboration is essential in restoring the health and function of our ecosystems. Before beginning my internships through the Chicago Botanic Garden, I never would have thought the Bureau of Land Management was at the front of such concerted efforts for plant conservation.

The National Botanical Garden. Toasty warm in the winter!

I have also been involved with the Plant Conservation Alliance (PCA), a joint partnership among 12 federal agency members and over 300 non-federal cooperators. In addition to its work on the National Seed Strategy which was released in 2015, PCA also developed the National Framework for Progress in Plant Conservation in 1995. I am thrilled to be working with such a radical force for botanical justice! Currently I have been reaching out to leaders in the plant conservation world looking for potential speakers at the upcoming PCA meetings.

Besides the overwhelming amount of networking here in Washington, DC I have also been seeking out the local flora – not an easy task in the winter!

This little Oxalis species showing off its adaptive capabilities in the Petworth neighborhood.

Graffiti tree on Roosevelt Island

Snowzilla definitely has been a highlight! I grew up in Seattle where snow rarely sticks around and spent much of my adult life in sunny Arizona, so shoveling snow and experiencing “blizzard” conditions was super fun!

Snowzilla Sickels!

SNOW DAY!

I’m looking forward to the remainder of my time in Washington, DC. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities my CLM internships have afforded me thus far, and I am honored to be working with such an effective plant advocate and fierce feminist, my mentor Peggy Olwell.

Till next time,

Lindsey

“I bet you’re really wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

People have been saying this to me a lot during my first week as an intern with the BLM in Carson City, and I’d say they’re pretty much spot on with that assessment.  They’re mostly referring to the uncertainty that’s followed in the wake of recent events in Oregon. But I’ll be working here in an unknown place for the next ten months, so “what I’ve gotten myself into” is a question that I’d already been pondering anyways. It’s been a rather hectic first week here, and my fellow interns and I have already learned that our plans can be changed by events outside of our control.  So – what have I gotten myself into?

I arrived here in Carson City on Sunday after spending the better part of a week driving across the country from Pennsylvania.  The next day was my first day at the field office, so my fellow interns, Alec, Monique, and Margaret, gave me a tour of the place.  My first day mostly was filled with meetings and paperwork and training videos.  Now don’t get me wrong, all of those things are great – but the part of my job I’m really looking forward to is the time spent outside among natural scenery.  So, Tuesday was a bit more interesting in that regard.

One of the major tasks that our group is undertaking at the beginning of this field season is the restoration of the former site of the American Flat Mill.  This mill processed silver and gold during the 1920’s, but was subsequently abandoned.  When it was demolished a couple of years ago, a barren field was left behind.  Now it’s the task of our crew to plant native seeds in this area, in the hopes of preventing noxious weeds from claiming the land. We spent Tuesday morning mixing seeds from different plant species together, and after lunch we drove to the site to begin planting.

Dividing up the seeds.

Native sagebrush will be sprouting up here in no time!

We’d also planned to head back out into the field the following two days, but Tuesday night’s events in Oregon forced us to change our plans.  It was decided that we would be safer if we didn’t go out to our field sites for the rest of the week, so we spent the time completing more training and orientation.  We also got a chance to visit the herbarium at UN-Reno.  For me, this just built up even more anticipation to dive into the ecosystems of the eastern Sierra Nevada and Great Basin and discover new plants – or at least plants that are new to me.  That’s what I’ll be doing as a BLM intern for the next ten months, and I couldn’t be more excited to find out what the future will hold!

Until next time,

Sam Scherneck

After a busy season of collecting seeds and pressing plants, it was a pleasant change of pace to start the year’s mushroom collection last week.  We began at Kanaka Valley Preserve, an oak-woodland parcel where grassland and chaparral shrubland lie adjacent, with an abrupt transition between the two.  We collected in a shaded, grassy area where old stumps and fallen branches hosted a wide variety of mushrooms.

Our team doesn’t have much experience with mushroom ID, but armed with several books, many photos, and dried specimens, we are confident about our prospects.  If you, kind blog reader, have any insight, please comment!

Since winter hit, work in the Eagle Lake Field office has slowed down a bit. With Seeds of Success completed and the remaining seasonals gone, its been extremely quiet in the office.

I was fortunate to take a few weeks off around the holidays, just as it was getting super quiet, to visit family and friends in Chicago and to take a tremendous trip to Italy. It was just long enough to make me miss Susanville!

Since coming back, I realized how short of a time I have left here. I have been working on taking full advantage of winter in Lassen County before heading to the Bay Area. Skiing at the local hill Coppervale was the first on my to do list. I also enjoyed some amazingly scenic hotsprings near Cedarville!

The Hotsprings in Cedarville!

Most of the projects I have been working on since I returned have involved teaming up with the Range Specialist and Wildlife Biologist to digitize some important information in GIS. One project involved adjusting wildlife polygons for pronghorn and deer habitat. Another project involved digitizing a series of utilization inspection points into a new layer for future range projects. I have enjoyed the opportunity to take some GIS training courses and to advance my knowledge of using this program. It has also introduced me to the other type of work different parts of the office are working on.

Every now and then I am given the opportunity to go out into the field. Those days are the best days! A couple weeks ago, I had a go at performing Bald Eagle Surveys at the perfectly named Eagle Lake. Although we only spotted one Bald Eagle along our transect, it turned out to be a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the lake was frozen, and the snow wasn’t too deep for the eight mile walk along the shore!

Eagle Lake in the Winter!

I also had the chance to go on a nice drive along Smoke Creek Road to my favorite spot in the field office. The previous few days were a bit rainy, so it made for a fun and muddy ride. Thinking about it now…that was probably my last time out in the field for the remainder of my internship!

Gotta love the baby Cows on Smoke Creek Road.

Until next time!

Jill

Before I moved to Big Bear Lake for the CLM internship, I lived in Washington state for eight months. Before that, I studied environmental science in northern California for four years. The epic California drought is a common topic of conversation among my environmentally mindful circle of friends, coworkers, and teachers. With very, very good reason. California is the most populous state, and delivers a majority of the thirsty produce and meats and other foods desired by people all over the country (and the world). The drought here affects most everybody, and the establishment of new priorities and solutions in the face of this new climate regime is essential.

During the few weeks prior to my internship, I drove the full spectrum of the state in terms of moisture. Beginning on the North Coast, under the noble redwoods, I soaked up steady rain showers with college friends. Down in the Bay Area, a few pitiful sprinkles fell on the green-brown hills. Further south, on the Central Coast near San Luis Obispo, little more than a few live oaks survive to dot the golden hills. Another 200 miles south on Highway 101 the gold gives way to intense human development, palm trees, and the gray-green of coast chaparral. Finally, I turned east from Los Angeles towards the vast Inland Empire for the last leg of my trip. Along the road through Riverside and San Bernadino, I took note of the truly arid landscape. I’d never traveled this far south on the West Coast. Scrub, cacti, and yucca are the status quo here. I switched on Mountain At My Gates by Foals to magnify the montane vibes, and ascended into San Bernadino National Forest in my old Suabru.

Passing by the first National Forest sign I wondered if someone had made an egregious error designating this a forest. Where were the trees? It was just too hot, too dry, too sparse here to support a true forest ecosystem. But as I climbed another hundred feet and then another, the landscape rapidly transitioned. Hello trees. And hello everyone from SoCal. E v e r y o n e. Traffic up the mountain slowed to a crawl. My supervisor warned me this was a heavily utilized forest. She warned me it’d be a good idea to consider alternate routes on New Year’s Day. But, sometimes I mistakenly place too much trust in Google Maps, so spent an extra two hours in bumper to bumper conditions en route to Big Bear Lake. For all the roads in the world to crawl along, though, I was grateful this was mine. The brigade of southern Californians and I twisted and turned from dramatic mountain vista to vista, alongside diverse, beautiful plant communities. At last, I reached the lake and my new home.

I’d chosen to arrive a few days early so that I could properly settle in and explore the new digs. As it turned out, there was a trailhead just outside the front door of my government barracks that connects to the PCT and tops Mt. Bertha, which offers spectacular views of the lake and surrounding mountains. I seized upon the convenience, and made it to the peak in about two hours. I look to my left, lodgepole pine. To my right, juniper. Seems about right. I look down. Cactus. Growing straight out of the snow! What is this place? I share a photo with a few of my friends who assert the cactus is actually a set of dinosaur scales. Hmm. I can see it. But the naming scientist thought the species more closely resembled a beavertail. Therefore, beavertail prickly pear, Opuntia basilaris. While snow did cover some shadowed spots on the trail where I found this cactus, along the roads, and by the ski slopes, the majority of the area was dry. Like the rest of California, right? Not for long!

Two days into my internship, I was enjoying the company of a savvy USFS crew, I’d completed the bulk of my entrance paperwork, and spent some time transplanting baby buckwheat in a delightful greenhouse. Then the heavens opened up, and out spilled two feet of heavy, wet, snow. In southern California! This was a great thing. One storm will not cancel a four year drought. But snowpack will provide some degree of relief to the landscape and the community. The snow, however, also presents its share of challenges to a USFS district office complex.

Our priorities shifted from more paperwork to snow removal. The greenhouse was coated with a growing layer of frozen precipitation. We needed to relieve this weight from the roof of the structure, so got to scraping with a very long shovel. Fortunately, the other intern and I both grew up in New England and are no strangers to shoveling. It’d been a while since I’d seen this amount of snow, though, and it’d been a while for the locals as well. A couple informed us this was their first “big snow” in 3-4 years. The mountains and trees covered in glistening white is a spectacular sight, especially in contrast to the sharp blue mountain skies. The Forest Service vehicles and my Subaru, however, I prefer snow-free.

For the remainder of our time, the other new intern (the incredibly accomplished Marta) and I attended an informative meeting between our SBNF restoration team and non-profit partner, the Southern California Mountains Foundation. It was interesting to learn the ways in which these two groups of highly committed conservationists and educators work together to achieve forest restoration. Both rely largely on grant funding to carry out an array of impressive projects within one of the most heavily utilized stretches of public land in the country. So glad I took that grant writing class in college!

We also got to enjoy a bit more time inside the greenhouse, which remains humid and warm despite the chilly snow outside. SBNF collects seed and propagates several dozen species of native vegetation for out-planting at resto sites all over the forest—grasses, forbs, cacti, trees, and yucca, among many others. My favorite thing about the Big Bear area and San Bernadino National Forest so far is the dramatically different types of vegetation that grow side by side, and the variety of diverse habitats that exist in close proximity to one another. In fact, SBNF is part of a bioregion designated by Conservation International as one of 25 global biodiversity hotspots, demonstrating “high vegetation diversity, unique ecological communities found nowhere else, and many endemic species…” How fortunate I am to be stationed here for the next several months in this special corner of California. More soon!

I was welcomed to the San Bernardino National Forest with a cascade of snow. By Tuesday, January 5, my second day of work, over three feet of snow had fallen. Despite being in Southern California, I was returned to my typical Boston and St. Paul winter duties: clearing roofs and digging out cars.

After clearing the greenhouse roof.

This is my second CLM Internship, and I am working at the Big Bear Ranger Station here in Fawnskin, CA. It’s about two hours to Los Angeles, an hour and fifteen minutes to Joshua Tree National Park, and steps away from forest recreation opportunities like hiking, skiing, mountain biking, and OHV riding. Interestingly, my first CLM Internship site has been in the news a lot recently: heard of Burns, OR lately? Yep, it’s crazy to read about what’s going on there and remember visiting the Malheur Wildlife Refuge on a sunny spring day to watch birds.

I am working with the Resource department in their Restoration program. This is not a normal Forest Service department, like botany, wildlife, or recreation; my mentor, along with some others, created and built it up to work on restoration and revegetation within the forest. Many of the restoration sites are OHV damage sites, and the majority of the money funding the department comes from OHV grants. The resource department also works closely with a non-profit, the Southern California Mountains Foundation (SCMF), and together they get this restoration and revegetation work done. Sometimes the Forest Service people will take the lead on a project; sometimes it will be SCMF. This way they can complete a chunk of the many projects waiting to be done.

So far, I’ve been in and out of the office and the greenhouse and spent one day visiting some restoration sites in the forest. I am reading a lot of literature as part of my work updating and revising the Native Plant Materials Notebook. This notebook will be a guide to San Bernardino restoration and plant propagation programs and provide links to many resources to help other National Forests or interested groups create their own program. This is already quite an impressive document, but needs updating as well as some additional sections.

I am learning all about the plant propagation process in the greenhouse. The plants begin in flats, are transferred to “small bullets”, then to “large bullets”, and then into the “tall pots”. They may be out planted, that is, planted at a restoration site from any of the last three pot sizes depending on need. What is really interesting to me is the focus on proper genetic selection of source plants for propagation for your restoration site. I read several papers on such selections, and they focus on choosing local plants in order to avoid both inbreeding and outbreeding depression, i.e. you want to gather seed from enough plants that you have a high genetic variation from within the population, but you do not want to swamp your restoration site with genetic material that could make the plants less fit for the ecology of the site. Interestingly, in the Resource program at Big Bear this translates to gathering plants from within the range of 500 feet vertically (because of the elevation change in this mountainous area) and about one mile horizontally. I have also learned about the watering regimen, some common pathogens, and how to plant seed and transplant seedlings.

It was great to get into the field this Wednesday to visit some restoration sites. Seeing OHV damage in the field, which is such a huge problem here, helped to connect everything that I have been learning from other Forest Service employees and the literature. The landscape was also stunning, with the San Bernardino Mountains brown against the snowy San Gabriel Mountains in the distance. I was happy to recognize plants from my days as a CLM Intern in Burns and to learn some new plants from Mary, a seasonal employee who has been working with the Forest for two years, starting as a CLM Intern. I also got a quick lesson on how to use a Trimble and was able to map a fence.

I am very much looking forward to attacking the Native Plant Materials Notebook, starting some milkweed plantings in the greenhouse, and getting out into the field again to learn monitoring methodology. Other things I am looking forward to doing during my free time are hiking or snowshoeing, joining a gym, volunteering, going to the library, exploring more of the town, eventually going to LA, Joshua Tree National Park, and the hot springs, and studying for the GRE.

Best Wishes,
Marta
San Bernardino National Forest
Fawnskin,CA