Summer is winding down here in the Rocky Mountain West. This past month was full of forest inventory, monitoring fuels treatments, collecting camas seeds, and continuing to search for the rare botrychium paradoxum (to no avail). The days are getting shorter, the nights cooler, but we are still holding on to that last bit of summer. Today, we floated on the BLM raft down the Clark Fork in order to access forest stands to inventory. We had awesome weather and gorgeous mountain views. While I am going to miss the summers here, I am very much looking forward to seeing the aspens, cottonwoods, and larch trees turn this fall!
Here are some photos from the past month:

Elephant head, pedicularis groenlandica

Cool mystery caterpillar!

Rafting the Clark Fork

Rafting the Clark Fork

A visit to Garnet Ghost Town

Beautiful forest inventory

The ability to monitor status and trends in the biophysical components of wilderness is an essential part of land conservation stewardship. It is also one of the most difficult. The tasks: quantify unauthorized actions that manipulate the land, inventory the abundance and distribution of non-native species, quantify visitor use, record travel routes, and accomplish all this while hiking for 15 hours, climbing 8,500 vertical feet, and topping out two of the top three peaks in the range.

The rugged desert-like range known as the Inyo Mountains presents one of the boldest mountain fronts in North America. They have similar topographic relief to the neighboring Sierra Nevada, but in a fraction of the horizontal distance. Traveling in the Inyo required physical fitness, rock climbing skills and route finding abilities, oh and water is non-existent. The lower slopes of the mountains are covered by desert scrub typical to the Mojave, while higher elevations contain pinyon-juniper woodlands, groves of limber pine, and one of the largest stands of bristlecone pine in California. For the desert explorer, this is paradise.

Similar to running water quality tests in potable water; conducting a wilderness inventory of human impacts in a rarely visited region can feel rather uneventful. We traveled by faint use trail for less than half the day and the only visible human alterations were cairns guiding the way when a trail was non-existent. Uneventful, purely from a data collection standpoint, but outstanding from a hiking/working standpoint. In my previous blog I described a trip up Matterhorn peak on my own time, and peak bagging has been the focus of my weekends. I never would have thought I would get to spend a work day doing almost exactly (I would have gone in the Sierra because there is water) what I want to be doing. I am so fortunate and honored to have the job I have.

Tyler (BLM-Bishop)

It’s been another busy month in Surprise Valley. I am wrapping up seed collections for the season, reaching my target of 16 species. If time permits, I will collect a few different shrubs when the time comes. Overall, I learned a lot from my experience as a collector. I hope for another shot at some point, knowing that I can do things better the next time around.

My current focus has been on writing Environmental Assessments and tracking down the equipment and seeds needed to re-vegetate some riparian areas and burn sites. It has been a challenge to find the right seed mixes within our budget because native seeds are getting to be expensive.

This past week I was able to get a break from plant stuff and help out at the Summit Lake Reservation. I went out to trap and collar sage-grouse which was quite the experience. I spent three nights in a row wandering about with a fishing net looking for the birds. We had success the last night and now we know where there are many birds roosting for future attempts. During the day time I got to track the birds that had already been collared. We were able to find 3 out of 7 birds. Although I am exhausted form being up around the clock for the past three days, it was an awesome experience.

Last time I wrote, we were waiting for rain here at the BLM Farmington Field Office. Now the rains are finally here! Many of our target plants have really perked up and we’re looking forward to boosting our collection numbers over the next few weeks. For now, though, we’re spending quite a bit of time indoors because the increased rainfall means that the roads turn to mud. Therefore, this blog entry is more about the awesome things I’ve seen in my free time.

The San Juan National Forest is only a short jaunt north of Farmington, so we’ve been taking full advantage of the cool mountain air during the hot summer in the high desert. There are so many great hikes that it would take me years to fully explore the forest.

We made a cute snake friend with a Liochlorophis vernalis (smooth green snake) along the Piedra River, CO

As a part of our work with Seeds of Success, we’ve partnered with the BLM and USFS in Dolores, CO to make some seed collections in Southwest Colorado. Last week we visited Disappointment and Big Gyp Valley, where we hoped to find a robust population of Plueraphis jamesii (Galleta grass). Disappointment Valley lived up to its name and was disappointing on that front, but we encountered some good populations of other native forbs and grasses and may return in a few weeks. Additionally, we learned all about one of the first settlers of Disappointment Valley, an English pioneer-woman named Lizzy Knight. After her husband left her, she became a blacksmith in the mid-1800’s to support herself and her daughter and later immigrated to Colorado with her second husband. As a homesteader she began cattle ranching and was the first female resident of Rico, CO. After divorcing, she wound up marrying her son-in-law and the couple lived in their cabin in Disappointment Valley until the 1930’s and the cabin is still standing to this day. Our all-female Seeds of Success team aspires to live up to a bit of Lizzy Knight’s spark.

Big Gyp Valley, CO. The name comes from the gypsum-rich rock in the background. In the foreground, the meadow is dominated by Krascheninnikovia lanata (Winterfat) and Hesperostipa comata (needle and thread)

My parents came out to visit and we took a long weekend exploring Southeast Utah, including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. While there I finally got to meet my favorite buckwheat, Eriogonum inflatum.

Eriogonum inflatum (Desert trumpet) at Arches National Monument, UT. The Kayenta Navajo made a lotion out of this plant that was used to heal bear and dog bites.

A lovely view through an arch in Canyonlands National Park, UT.

This past weekend we had the privilege of going on an edible mushroom hike sponsored by the Four Corners Native Plant Society. We learned about a variety of both edible and non-edible mushrooms and took a beautiful hike in the Lizard Head Wilderness west of Telluride, CO. After the hike, we had a delicious potluck dinner hosted by our gracious trip leader where we sampled the mushrooms we collected. I definitely feel more confident about my mushroom field identification and the day inspired me to try my hand at foraging.

Mushroom hunters hard at work.

Chopping up our bountiful harvest of Cantharellus cibarus (chanterelle). They were scrumptious!

This blog post also marks the approximate halfway point of my CLM internship. It’s truly flying by and I feel extremely lucky to have this opportunity. I’m looking forward to (hopefully) making many more collections when the rains let up. With that, I leave you with an enchanting New Mexico sunset:

Sunset at the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness near Huerfano, NM

The temperatures have cooled down a bit here in Southern Oregon. We’ve been enjoying weather in the low to mid 90s for much of the past couple of weeks which has been a much appreciated contrast to the 105 degree weather a month ago.

As far as plants go, the high elevation plants have been seeding for the past several weeks and will probably continue into the next several weeks. We have also been making the last collections of the season from the valley floors. These plants are often quite thorny or hairy which inevitably leads to a painful collection process. We have also been finding a lot of berries such as Oregon Grape, gooseberries and other currants, Bitter Cherry, and others. We have quickly learned that collecting berries can be quite a sticky affair.

I currently have approximately four more days of the internship left before I take off for seven weeks to teach 2^nd – 8^th graders in the field about ecology and the natural history of this region. My work for this internship has definitely beefed up my botanical knowledge, which will be helpful in identifying plants for kids.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about my time here at the BLM. I have discovered a lot of natural areas that I will be visiting for years to come. I am very happy to be able to recognize native plants in my region. I appreciate the knowledge that I will have walking away from this internship. As an avid gardening enthusiast and a hopeful garden educator, I hope that I will be able to use native plants more in my gardens and suggest various native plants and their uses to others.

On the other hand, by working for the agency and performing this work, I have realized that both working for the agency and doing this kind of work is not for me, although I have a lot of respect for those that love this work and this agency. Alas, by the end of this internship I feel like I’m in the same empty place, lacking direction, as I was before I started, and that feels disconcerting and very challenging. But I thank the CLM and Chicago Botanic Gardens for the chance to have this experience. It has been an interesting ride.

– Jason

What a whirlwind these past 3 months have been. There have been a lot of positives and negatives during my experience in the desert, but overall I have grown, learned, and am now off in a new direction in my life. I’d like to thank Dr. Skogen, Rebecca, and everyone else in the CLM program who have made this opportunity possible and works so hard for such a noble cause. Meeting the other interns in other field offices during the Chicago training makes me feel optimistic that we have some passionate and conscious people who will step into government offices and continue to protect our public lands and the plants and animals which call this vast western wilderness home. Cheers to all the interns and the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Now to wrap up my time in the Mojave.

The desert gives you a lot of time to think. There’s few people, noise, cars, and even animals (during the day at least) besides the chirp of the lizards at mid-day from under the creosote bushes. There is beauty and peace in being able to access such isolated areas and I take pleasure in knowing that these kinds of places still exist. On one of my last days I had grabbed a few flowers from an apricot mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) and paused for a few second to admire some butterflies when suddenly a hummingbird came out of nowhere and started drinking nectar from the flowers in my hands, hovered in front of my face and cocked his head, probably thinking what an odd looking plant I was, and flew off. There are some magical moments in the desert, and while not in such geological marvelous places like Arches in Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, the Mojave is still a true wilderness.

But it’s a tough place to live if you’re a social animal, and as Abbey said the only thing better than solitude is society. Needles doesn’t have much of a sense of community, or at least I couldn’t find one. The lack of people (like-minded rather) was the toughest challenge for me to overcome, and not the 115 degree days. Without having other people to hang out with was a struggle so I had to find other ways to occupy my free time. But at the end of a day in the Mojave sun, it was hard to muster up the energy to do anything outside, so I spent a lot of time reading and cooking. By taking the time to slow down, and really think about myself, my emotions, was a very contemplative and necessary time especially right after finishing college.

But being in such a desolate area certainly has its joys. One of the best feelings about when you’re so far from civilization and stop to realize you’re in a location where you can hear no planes, cars, construction, etc. and it fills you with a child-like excitement. I’d say that this experience mostly allowed me to learn about myself, and while I had to end my internship early, without having gone through such a challenging internship I wouldn’t be as content now with where I currently am working. Each new experience places a different lens in how we perceive the world and when we look at our lives in that light it allows us to accept each new challenge and question how it has changed ourselves and how we can learn and progress.

~Dean

“In a day when you don’t come across any problems — you can be sure that you are on the wrong path”  – Swami Vivekananda

I doubt Vivekananda was performing field work when he said this quote.  It does however, add a positive perspective to the inherent problems and obstacles that comes with preforming field work.

In the past weeks, my team has had our fair share of problems to overcome. We have been stopped by locked gates, turned around by “NO TRESPASSING” signs, led astray by wrong turns, and delayed by severely washed out roads. We have encountered dark storm clouds and seas of Sisymbrium altissimum that make our job as hard as finding a needle in a hay stack.

Although, I would appreciate a field day that goes 100% according to plan; I must reflect on Vivekananda’s wise words and think about where this internship is taking me. My time here is a learning experience, which is not possible without encountering an obstacle here and there. Each day brings new problems to be solved, allowing me to  develop my skill set that will continue to take me down the right path.

An impassible, washed out road that made itself known

“No Trespassing” signs are everywhere!

Sometimes the “Keep Out” signs are quite peculiar

A sea of Sisymbrium altissimum that was encountered while fire monitoring.

Now in the sunset of my internship, I am wrapping up data collection for my project of baseline vegetation monitoring in the San Juan Islands National Monument.  I have spent most of my time here using the AIM strategy to look at vegetation throughout the BLM managed land in the archipelago, quantifying what plants exist where and in what numbers.  I run 50 meter plots starting at randomly generated transect points, counting plants at each meter and performing a rapid species inventory assessment for each transect.  I have enjoyed immensely days running transects within fifty feet of the water, seals barking beneath me and gulls squawking above.

Start of a transect at Colville Point, Lopez Island. In this photo you can see Roemer’s Fescue (Festuca roemeri), Puget Sound Gumweed (Grindelia integrifolia), and Hairy Cat’s Ear (Hypochaeris radicata).

I have enjoyed less immensely days inching through thick patches or roses, crawling on hands and knees to reach sample points in the deep forest.  During the data collection season, I have gotten to visit so many beautiful spots, from small rugged islands to huge lichen heaths hidden in the forest to expanses of pristine pebble beach.  I have visited a dozen islands during my internship, each with their own history, feeling, and most relevant, vegetation.

This summer has been a great opportunity to experience parts of the San Juans and of Lopez Island, the monument home island.  As someone who has lived in this area before working with the BLM and is hoping to reside here in the future, I am hugely gratified to see places and go places I would not have had the chance or boat to otherwise.  I have been able to get out to remote islands and meet the people who care about the place most.  I’ve seen the rugged landscape of these islands and the incredible tenacity with which people preserve and restore it.

View of lighthouse and landscape of Patos Island

On Lopez and off work, I’ve gotten a taste of rural farm life.  I’ve been living on my partner’s family property, which consists of five acres of once tilled farm land and over a dozen plum and apple trees.  In the last few weeks, we have been harvesting cherry plums like mad.

Cherry Plums on Lopez Island

More cherry plums

With their sweet juice and tart skin, cherry plums are perfect for jam and we have been using an old grape press to harvest gallons upon gallons of sweet use (which I am hoping to distill) and pulp (largely for vanilla ginger cherry plum jam).  I digress.  Being on rural farm property gives great perspective on plants.  Gardening has allowed me to work more intimately and gingerly with plants while harvesting is a great reward.

All in all, this program has been a wonderful experience.  I have met a number of great people in the BLM community as well as in the San Juan Islands.  I learn at least something every day, whether a trick to identifying grasses or learning from my bosses’ incredible skill communicating and managing with kindness, care, and incredible efficiency.  I’m grateful to work in this great place with wonderful people.  I’m also grateful for cherry plums.

I hope everyone is loving their positions and the people around them.  Happy botanizing to all and to all a good hike.

Jennifer McNew

The summer is flying by in Lander, Wyoming.  The month of July was a frantic storm of collecting tons and tons of seeds!  Most of my 18 (so far) collections were done in a few busy weeks in July while the month of August has been filled with lots of processing, counting, weighing and packaging.  I have also been using the month of August to brush up on my shrub identification, pun intended.  I am hoping to reach my collection goal and beyond with collections of sage brush, salt bush, winter fat and bitter brush.  Wish me luck!

I’ve also been able to do some work with rare plants.  We took a field trip to the Casper Field Office to look at the elusive orchid, Ute Ladies’-Tresse.  After getting a good idea of its habitat, we went back to our field office and scouted out a few possible habitats in the Lander Field Office.  We didn’t find any Utes, but we did find some good habitat for it.

Checking out Ute Ladies’ Tresses in Casper Field Office

The elusive Ute

 

I’ve been able to do a little exploring around the Cowboy State, have meet some amazing people and have seen some amazing places.  I took a trip to the Grand Tetons a few weeks ago, went swimming in cold mountain lakes, ate antelope sausage and elk steak!

a quick nap in Cascade Pass

Forbs are getting hard to come by in the Lander Field Office, but they are in full swing up in the mountains!

I’m lichen this rock

One of my favorite places to work, Red Canyon

All in all, my time here in Lander has so far been full of new plants, new people and new places.  I’ve leaned so much and still have three months to go!  As the summer quickly fades to fall my work load will also be transforming….I’ll keep you updated!

Until next time,

Emily Usher

Lander Field Office, BLM, Lander Wyoming

This has been a great week in Lakeview, OR. Late developers have surprised us; we exceeded our seed collection goal and found a new population of special status plant, Hymenoxys cooperi var. canescens. We also did an intense collection of Sambucus nigra in a steep canyon with pruners and a basket on a pole. My partner Anna and I got funding through September, so we’ll be sticking around a little later. There are plenty of other projects to do besides seed collection, even so I feel like work is winding down.
Some of the smoke has cleared and it has only been in the 70s the last two days. I wouldn’t mind if fall came early! The heat really isn’t too bad but I can do without the smoke.

I’m looking for jobs almost everyday and trying to make a plan, but it’s proving difficult to predict anything. I’ve saved money, but it won’t get me though another winter of unemployment. I wish I were a fox and could burrow in the snow, appear 6 months later as a woman and botanize and restore creeks the rest of my life.

We have a botany clearance, a week of pulling weeds, a re-seeding evaluation and a few late collections that hopefully fill out. Machaeranthera canescens is growing around a neat lava flow and has good success in grow-out settings but wasn’t very productive when we checked it last.

Not bothered by us collected Mimulus and Epilobium.

Defines only a fraction of Lakeview Resource Area.

Scouting for anything where the soil is deeper and not desiccated.