It’s hard to believe that the month of October is coming to a close. After that, I’ll only have one week left working at the Bighorn National Forest and I’ll have to say goodbye to the place where I’ve spent 5 months learning the forests and meadows that make up the mountain range, 5 months scouting, collecting, and shipping seed off to be used for restoration efforts.

Uncharacteristically hot and dry fall weather (we were breaking high temperature records almost every day out here throughout September), resulted in perfect conditions for a fire, and a lightning strike in the deep woods meant just that. The Elk Fire, which started September 27, grew to about 97,000 acres (both on and off the forest) in the approximate month it was actively burning. As of writing this in late October it’s not 100% contained, but some much-needed precipitation and cooler weather have bolstered the tireless efforts of firefighters and other Forest Service employees, meaning that the threat of the fire spreading is down to almost zero.

It’s one thing to hear about fires across the country, and another to directly see the impact: a bustling office, evacuation orders in nearby towns, and heavy smoke throughout the area. We spent the entire summer getting to know that mountain, and now a good portion of it was burning. In fact, some of the areas impacted by the fire were places we collected seed – I didn’t imagine that I’d get to see an event that would require hands on restoration work the same summer I was collecting seed for said restoration!

Because my co-intern, Nick, and I are not actually Forest Service Employees, we were not allowed to do anything fire related (including driving people and supplies around), and vehicles were in high demand. So, October was mostly a month of days spent in the office.

Since late August and all of September were peak seed collection times, we were left with a backlog of plants to both identify and mount. This involved many hours making our way through dichotomous keys, either quickly coming to a conclusion about the species in front of us or lamenting about how difficult an ID ended up being, finding ourselves asking questions like: why are all the wheatgrasses so similar, and why do they span multiple genera? How do you actually tell if something is rhizomatous or not? What does the author even mean by this – you can’t convince me that there isn’t a more objective way to describe something than “relatively long”? And what even is a keel, really? (shoutout to the “Plant Identification Terminology” book, the real MVP of the month). At some point the hyper-specific language of dichotomous keys really starts to get to you. For example, after a couple hours of keying out some grasses, Nick described a plant pointing upwards (as opposed to creeping along a surface) as: “pointing in the direction opposite to the ground,” and I don’t think there’s a way to sound more like Dorn (the author of the Wyoming flora).

In particular, the genus Erigeron, which we (unfortunately) collected lots of in an effort to find one of our target species Erigeron speciosus, gave us lots of trouble; our specimen vs. the images of the species we ended on at the end of the key never quite seemed to match (I don’t know if I can call an image search another MVP because too often they just contradicted our key based identifications, but know that it was utilized often), so our IDs were questionable at best. You know you’ve spent too much time with one genus when you have the beginning couplets memorized.

After ID came easily one of my favorite parts of the month: getting to mount all of the plants we collected onto herbarium sheets (which with the two vouchers for each population we collected seed from and all the other plants we grabbed, ended up being about 200). It was basically a big arts and crafts project, which, as a crafting girlie at heart, was right up my alley. I honestly would have been satisfied if all we had done this month was mount specimen.

Don’t let all of the office time fool you, though; we still had the opportunity to get out on the mountain and collect some seed this month. A big thank you to Artemisia tridentata (sagebrush) for having mature seed so late in the season. It was a great collection to finish the season on – there are some pretty large populations of it on the forest so we got to collect a lot of seed from just the two collections we did, and it’s a crucial part of our forest’s ecosystem stability.

After our final collections, it was time to pack and ship our seed. It was definitely surreal to see a representation of five months of work packed into a stack of boxes. Those boxes don’t even begin to fully represent everything that went into getting that seed. From the long hours spent getting familiar with the plants and the mountain, to the time it took to find suitable populations, to the many miles spent driving and walking, to hours spent sitting at a desk (including the countless interesting conversations and observations that happened along the way), and to the personal growth that’s bound to happen when you spend a summer on the Bighorn mountains.

Now our hard work and growth (both the interns’ and the plants’) is entrusted into the hands of a seed nursery, where the seed will be grown out to produce even more seed so we can have a fall back when the ever-weirding climate continues to threaten our forests and grasslands – a threat I got to see up close and personal this season. The path forward looks to, hopefully, more new friends found in plants and a greater understanding of the world around us. At the end of the day, what more could I ask for?

Anyone who is interested in conservation knows how disheartening this work can be sometimes. Climate nihilism, especially, seems to be all over the place these days; we seem to have set a point of no return, a point where there’s nothing to be done, and it’s coming closer than ever (1). Because of this, too many people have turned their backs on even trying to change their behaviors at all; if it’s big policy changes and corporation choices that will make the real difference, why should I do anything?

Conservation efforts can also often feel aimless, another obstacle to personal motivation for change (and the reasoning for my mythology reference in the title). Science is fluid; new things are always being discovered, and the policy and politics surrounding it are changing endlessly as well. This reality can be especially troubling for the burgeoning scientist, for those still trying to learn even the basics. Close to the end of my college experience, I took a stream and wetland ecology class and came to truly understand how beautiful and crucial these environments are for our earth. Unfortunately, while I was taking that class, the legal definition of what a wetland is (distinctly different from any scientific ones) became more restricted, leaving countless wetlands that did not fit the new criteria more vulnerable to destruction. For example, ephemeral wetlands, which, due to their characteristic fluctuations between healthy wetlands and bone-dry soil mean they are no longer protected. So now, any of the species that rely on them for survival will suffer (2). This change in policy definition is holding a spreading impact, as many do.

As a result, the people seeing these impacts – those working on the ground – are tasked with figuring out where to go next, how to find purpose and guidance in an everchanging landscape. It feels like trying to solve a problem in a circumstance too similar to another Greek reference to be comfortable – you’ve heard of Sisyphus? It’s impossible to not feel some of the relentless pressure and futility, to question if what you’re doing is even worth it.

But here’s the thing, there are so many people trying. In fact, I would hope that I could call myself one of those people. As of writing this, I have spent all but one working day of September collecting seed to be used for revegetation and other conservation efforts, and my preceding summer has had a similar purpose. Outside of myself, when I got to my assignment at the Bighorn National Forest, it was amazing to see how many people there were committed to maintaining and conserving just this one forest. Step back even further, and you would see that commitment from countless people extended to other national forests and public lands as well.

Even people not devoting their entire lives to conservation are finding commitment in other ways. I have loved getting to interact with people on the forest who are wondering what we are doing – and who wouldn’t; I’m sure we paint an interesting picture with our paper bags, working in the middle of a random field. I have gotten to hear personal anecdotes about the plants on the mountain and have been shown plant photos with the hopes I can give an ID. Outside of a work context, I have also seen successful social media pages, those that teach others about the planet and plants (check out Let’s Botanize, The Black Forager, or The Native Habitat Project), that promote climate optimism (like The Garbage Queen), and that encourage people to petition their government to protect the natural world (see Alex Haurus and the approximately 6 million people he got to sign a petition against a pipeline set to drill in an Alaskan wildlife refuge). These are both managed and supported by countless people committed to at least knowing a little bit more about our earth and how to protect it.

Contrary to popular belief, our actions can make a difference. Whether that’s collecting seed all day every day, petitioning for policy change, or decreasing single use plastic waste, individual efforts are powerful (3-5). Even something as simple as getting outside more often can influence us more than we know (6). Small efforts add up.

So, find what ways you can to connect back with the earth and help it out just a little bit more. Conservation does not have to be an aimless wander or an unapproachable goal – we’re not actually walking the Asphodel Fields. But let’s have a different aim than Sisyphus. Let’s NOT reach the top of the hill, not because the stone rolls back down as soon as we get close to our goal, but because we are pushing together, and because we see how much higher we can go and how things can be better than we’ve imagined.

Sources – to find more information:

1. UN climate report: It’s ‘now or never’ to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees | UN News
2. The EPA removes federal protections for most of the country’s wetlands : NPR
3. Environmental education outcomes for conservation: A systematic review – ScienceDirect; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108224
4. Are Global Conservation Efforts Successful? | Science; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1131302
5. How can people save the planet? | Nature Sustainability; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0273-7
6. Psychological and physical connections with nature improve both human well-being and nature conservation: A systematic review of meta-analyses – ScienceDirect; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109842

With the mountains stretched out in front of her, Penny Stricks heads out for another day of adventuring. The days have been long and arduous, but she is experienced now, and has the support of the Botanical Guild of Chicago and countless more, including her trusty companion Dalia, behind her. Many would balk at these wild forests and rural grasslands, but she’s here on a mission: to collect seeds from crucial native plants so they can be used for conservation and revegetation. She understands the importance of her goals, and will do anything to fulfill them.

Travel through the mountains is easy [20**]; Penny is more than familiar with mountainous terrains, and has her trusty carriage to help her move more quickly. But when the roads become too rough, she abandons her carriage and sets out on foot. Dalia heads off in a different direction so they can cover more ground, but they can always contact each other with their sending stones.

As Penny moves along, getting closer to the area she hopes the plant she wants to find, Chamerion angustifolium, is (based on the guidance of the closest town’s apothecary owner), she sees what may be another species she’s interested in, Erigeron speciosus [10]. But, as she reaches down to check on it further, it comes alive. Rather than being the aspen fleabane she was hoping it would be, it’s E. glabel, a notoriously similar looking, but dangerous and animated plant. Penny is startled, but not surprised or unprepared; this sort of thing happens a lot, especially with the more difficult to distinguish plants (don’t ask her how many times she’s been attacked by something she thought was slender wheatgrass). Her preparation and familiarity means that she gets to attack this dangerous plant first [7 vs. 1], and she’s able to take it down with one fell swoop of her sickle [17].

Penny recovers quickly, and keeps on her way. After walking for a ways more, with occasional stops to check out more cool plants or as her swarm of bumblebees pollinate some flowers, she believes she’s approaching her desired location [17], so casts Locate Animals or Plants. The spell easily leads her to the large patch of fireweed, ready to be collected from (though whatever isn’t can easily be readied with a use of druidcraft).

With the help of her bag of holding and a little bit of mage hand, Penny makes quick work of collecting from the population, and makes plans to meet back up with Dalia to rest and recuperate by the fire after a long day of adventuring. There’s plenty more to be done in these mountains, though; many more plants to see and seeds to collect, and Penny can’t wait.

[**numbers is square brackets are actual rolls I made that dictated Penny’s adventures; for example, the first roll was to get through the mountains, I rolled a survival check with advantage because she was traveling on her favored terrain and she rolled a 14 and then added 6]

*DND Terms (much like science, the DND space is full of jargon, let me decode some things for you):

• Proficiency: there are various things you can be proficient in, and it basically means you get to add your proficiency bonus to whatever rolls you make to use those things, the bonus is determined by your level (how experienced you are)
• Ability Checks: roll a 20 sided die and add (or subtract) the number found in the skills box for whichever skill you’re rolling
• Advantage: roll 2 dice instead of 1
• Difficult Terrain: rough land that halves your speed as you travel over it
• Druidic: a druid is a nature magic themed character
• Spell slot: you get a certain number of allowed casts of each spell level (determined by power/difficulty) determined by your level, they reset after every “long rest” (8 hours of sleeping); cantrips are lower powered spells that can be cast without using a spell slot