5 months in the desert, I can’t believe it’s almost over and that I’m writing my last blog post. I have just a few days left and then I pack all my things into my car along with my two cats and head back across California to the North Coast, about 860 miles away. It’s a bit scary too because I have not yet found a job and am currently planning on living off my savings from this internship. More than that though, I feel a great sadness, that I’m about to leave all this behind. It’s been 5 months and I am now familiar with the land, the plants, I know my way around, I know the people, the politics and feel very vested in this project. I defiantly plan on keeping in touch with my mentor and with the field office here to see how everyone is and how the project goes.

I am currently helping to edit a document that summarizes our summers worth of vegetation monitoring out at Dos Palmas. Other current projects include conducting ACEC (Area of Critical Environmental Concern) monitoring. We just went to the desert Lily Preserve last week and did an evaluation of the land. It looked really good out there. I have also wrapped up the seasons SOS work, sending in our last collection, wrapping up and sending in the vouchers we collected, and packing things away with good notes for next years intern.

The dried remains of a Bird cadge evening primrose (Oenothera deltoides) at the Desert Lily Preserve. Sorry Krissa, this was literally the only Onagraceae I found all summer.

I hope to get a field job this coming spring somewhere in the Pacific North West region, though at the same time one thing I have learned with this internship is that I am more of a long term person and as such would like a permanent position some place. Leaving and saying good bye is difficult, and when you have become attached to the land it’s even harder.

Out hiking desert canyons, washes and tributaries. Armed with loppers, hand saws, and herbicides, in search of invasive Salt Cedar to eradicate.

This is only the first chapter of my post college life. I am beyond excited to see where I go from here, weather that is back to school for a higher degree, to work who knows where, or what, I just know it will be fantastic. One thing this internship has really showed me is that I love working, and there are really honestly and truly jobs out there that will hire me where I can make a difference and contribute to something that I believe benefits everyone.

I learned so many things this summer, including how to use a plant press to make herbarium vouchers!!!

Making a pressing of Eriogonum inflatum for an SOS collection at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve

A long time ago my grandma asked me if I had all the money in the world what would I do? I said (thinking of the central valley of California and extending up all the way into the mountains eastward) that I would like to own thousands of acres and restore the land with native plant and animal species, including reintroducing mega fauna. Possibly build a large stone wall around the huge strip of land and reintroduce fire to the landscape in regular and healthy intervals. She said I was crazy and that was just a dream, maybe so, but now that I’m here and working at the BLM I feel like I have actually found that dream. There are thousands of acres of wild lands, millions in fact. I get to work and help restore them, protect them, and maintain them. I get to work on native seed collections for future restoration efforts and scientific research. I feel that I am living my dream actualized (and this is only my first job out of college!!!!!). I would love some day to become a a full time and permanent BLM employee.

Gathering seeds of Anemopsis californica that we patiently waited for and watched all summer long. (I can’t believe this is actually my job!!!!)

Anemopsis californica. My last SOS seed collection.

Thank you Chicago Botanic Garden.
You have done more for me than you could ever know.

Crystal S. Neuenschwander
CLM Intern, BLM, Palm Springs, Ca

We got a tropical storm today and it brought actual rain. The forecast called for an 80% chance of rain today due to the incoming system. As I arrived at the field office at dawn you could just smell it in the air, the smell of imminent rain and here in the desert that familiar smell is also accompanied by the smell of the creosote bush, which is very distinct and sort of sweet. On our way out to the field site by the Salton Sea the rain began.

(Video was too big to upload :'(  )

We also completed our vegetation surveys for the season, got all wet, soaked boots, and enjoyed a day that was so very nice (not the usual 100+ degrees that we are used to).

Doing these desert riparian surveys in a desert riparian/marsh habitat during a rain storm really made us all feel like we where anywhere but in the middle of the Sonoran Desert!

Yours truly

One of our survey sites

The plant list and an unidentified tree

18 m radius of our releve transect

Out in the field

An interesting unidentified spider

Clouds condensing over the Orocopia Mountains

When we returned to Palm Springs we found out that power was out in parts of town and had only just came back on in our office. When I left and drove home there was flooding on the streets.

Driving home through Palm Springs, Ca

And now it’s still raining!

Looking out the window of my apartment towards the San Jacinto Mountains

I love the rain and feel so lucky to have witnessed a desert storm.

Crystal Neuenschwander

Palm Springs, BLM

30 days from now will be my last day as a CLM Intern here at the BLM office in Palm Springs. I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by, I feel like I just got here. As the time draws ever closer I face apprehension about what comes next, where I’m going to go from here. I have job applications out across the west coast and even a few in Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. Last month I flew up to Northern California for an interview that turned out to be some what of a surprise as I learned that the job was rather different from the posting. They advertised that they where looking for someone to do pollution monitoring in their county and conduct air and water quality testing, but when I got there I found out that they actually needed someone to do pesticide monitoring. I reread the ad and the words pest or pesticide are no where in the ad. I asked about the water quality testing and monitoring and they said that that’s a separate division of their department.

In the mean time as I wait to hear from potential jobs I am trying to come up with a back up plan, maybe save up my money, hunker down for the winter and wait for field jobs to open up in the spring. But where to move to? I guess as each day passes I am closer to knowing the answer.

I just saw that I got in the BLM News Bytes again. I was the DRECP where Secretary Jewell announced that California will use for 10 Million Acres of California Desert for renewable energy. A bunch of BLM folks that where in attendance all got together for a group photo and I just saw it in my email. Here in a link to the photohttps://www.flickr.com/photos/blmcalifornia/29399756270/in/dateposted-public/

For the reminder of my time here I will mainly be finishing up plant surveys out at Dos Palmas ACEC, continuing work with the Desert Pupfish, keying out unknown plant species, and finishing up SOS collections.

So many memories of the field season, so many amazing experiences. I have endured scorching temperatures,  found my self 8″ away from a coiled rattlesnake, and seen spectacular sites. I got to see my first petroglyphs too. I now know the raw beauty and wonder of the desert and just fallen in love with it.

Lost Lake at Dos Palmas

Selfie at Lost Lake

My mentor walking out onto a fallen Palm tree on the Lost Lake

What a great summer! I’m still kinda scared, but also looking forward to what this next chapter will hold for me.

Crystal Neuenschwander

Palm Springs, BLM

A few weeks ago I got to go along with my mentor and an archeologist from our office on an all day trip out to survey one of our offices ACEC’s (Area of Critical Environmental Concern). Bordering this place in the Mule Mountains is a proposed solar development, and we set out to see if this proposed development could infringe on the ACEC or on historical sites of the indigenous people.

A place known as Alligator Rock, on the way to the Mule Mountains.

We turned off the main HWY and began down long sandy roads. Eventually we passed a slab of concrete where a lonely yellow couch sat.

The things you find out in the desert

After sometime we came to a place where we stooped to look at a few sites. We where shown Indian trails, old ceremonial sites, a dance circle, and also more recent things like fox holes dug out for WWII training

This shot up sign tells about the site

It’s unknown exactly what these formations here used for. There where many of them, all in U shapes, all facing towards the mountain, and all with a central point in the middle.

This one was not as well defined as many of the others but I wanted to include it as you can get a sense of the scale with my shadow included

WWII fox hole dug out for training exercises

Back in the truck and down the sandy road we go. I start thinking about how it could only be 100 or so years ago that the indigenous people were here. About this place with a dance circle, well beaten trails, and ceremonial sites. This must have been an amazing place to be when everyone would gather here.

Next stop:

It’s sad that signs like these even have to go up. People come out here though and vandalize the site. They carve in the rocks creating their own modern petroglyph, and they will attempt to steel artifices, often just destroying things in the process.

I had never seen petroglyphs before. This site had so many!!!

It was explained to me that the dark color on the surface of the rocks is known as desert patina and happens via a slow chemical reaction. This process takes thousands of years and because we know this, we can put a rough age on the petroglyph that we see. That is, when the glyphs are brand new the exposed rock is nearly white. In time it gets darker, and after a very, very long time (thousands and thousands of years) it can even show signs of erosion as you will see below.

Cut marks on the edge of a rock. I was told that this is something seen often at sites like these.

Next we go to visit a much older site. This place was only recently discovered and is completely undisturbed.

So this petroglyph dates back between 12,000-14,000 years old! You can tell the the desert patina has returned, and boy is it dark. Not only that, but the edges of the glyph show signs of erosion.

So many amazing things that I got to see that day. As it turns out, we will have to return to to complete our mission and see if the solar site will in fact impact the ACEC and archeology sites.  I was so grateful to be able to witness these sites and learn more of the deserts secrets and history.

This is the start of my 5th week in Palm Springs, California. I drove here 860 miles in total from California’s North Coast in Humboldt County. I lived there for 3 years while attending Humboldt State University. The climate on the North Coast is nearly a constant 60 degrees F, with a humidity of around 80% so it always feels about 10 degrees warmer than it actually is. There are redwood trees and I was right by the ocean. I began my journey across California to my new home in the desert promptly after graduation. I packed up my car, and my two cats and two days later I was in a whole new world with a whole new climate that I was completely unfamiliar with. As I write this, today’s forecast predicts 122 F with the relative humidity at 14%. Of course Yesterday they said it was going to be 114 F and it got to at least 119 F, so we’ll see how hot it gets today!

My first desert sunrise!

My first day at the Palm Springs BLM office included a tour of the field site that we would be focusing on over the course of my 5 month internship. The place is located next to the Salton Sea and has an elevation of -226 feet below sea level, which makes the area hotter than Palm Springs who’s elevation is 479 feet above sea level. I will be working at Dos Palmas Oasis (elevation -210 feet below sea level) and part of it sits right on top of the famous San Andreas Fault. The landscape is dominated by Larrea tridentata or Creosote bush (which can live 1000 years!!!!), Allenrolfia occidentalis or Pickleweed, Atriplex lentiformis or Quailbush, and several tree species including two types of Misquote. I’m currently in the process of learning the rest of the species in the area. In addition to plant species, the Oasis is habitat for the endangered Desert pupfish that we will be monitoring and protecting and also offers critical habitat for an endangered Rail (which is a bird).

Driving to a field transect site at Dos Palmas

The waters of the Oasis are however in big trouble. Let’s go into some history, this area started off as a natural Oasis and a critical watering hole in the desert as Europeans passed by 150 years ago and of course also for the indigenous people who knew about the place and lived here since time immemorial. Things changed dramatically here in the 1930’s as construction began of the Coachella Canal, a 122 mile long unlined canal that brought water from the All American Canal that channels Colorado River water. The water now is brought across the desert in the Coachella Canal to farms in the Coachella valley. This unlined canal also inadvertently provided water all along its expanse via seepage through the ground and greatly increased the water at Dos Palmas as water here cannot penetrate the depths of the ground due to the presence of the San Andreas Fault. In 2006 a new concrete lined canal was dug parallel to the old canal and when the water was diverted into the new lined canal the water supply for Dos Palmas was cut off.

Three years after the water was diverted into the new canal and Dos Palmas was cut off from it’s water supply, mitigation efforts began where by some water from the canal was siphoned into the old unlined canal where it could once again flow through the ground to recharge the waters of the desert oasis. There are large(ish) seepage ponds in place for Dos Palmas as well as small ones specifically designed to be “sheep drinkers” for the desert big horned sheep that live in the adjacent mountains. Pipe lines were also put in place to feed even more water back into Dos Palmas and protect its endangered species. This was a wonderful improvement from nothing, but 1.3 years had passed with no canal water entering the system and 2. This new supply of water was next to nothing compared to what Dos Palmas once received from the canal for about 60 years.

Monitoring efforts began 6 years ago and continue today. They document the plants in the area and their response to the mitigation efforts. All in all quite a lot of Dos Palmas, particularity an area known as the San Andreas Oasis, is looking very sad. Plants are dead or dying, Oasis’s are dry or drying, and in response many wells have been dug to keep some of the Oasis filled. However not every Oasis has a well and some oasis’s are completely dry. Don’t get me wrong though, this area is still beautiful and the Oasis’s that have water are spectacular!

A water meter sits high and dry at the San Andreas Oasis

Here is a view of a healthy Oasis filled with water

Much of my job this summer aside from SOS (Seeds of Success) work, will be monitoring plant communities at Dos Palmas as well as monitoring the endangered species that call this place home. As long as I don’t step on a rattlesnake (and there are a lot of snakes out here!) and I stay hydrated I think I am going to continue enjoying this work as much as I have since I arrived. This internship is fantastic, I love working and I love the desert!!!!

Heading down to the Salton Sea to rescue endangered fish in an area that was rapidly drying up. Sitting on the water (those white dots) are American White Pelicans