Life in Colorado has been great since my last entry. Work has picked up and I am learning a lot. I went down to Boulder for (PFC) Riparian Assesment training which was very cool. We are done spraying invasives until the fall, so we are now starting monitoring and managment. We just got new GPS units that are very slick and fun to use. I have been going out to back roads on BLM land and collecting data point with the GPS to mark down invasive weed sites. Last week my mentor and I went up to Yarmony Mountain (which we sprayed several times earlier on) to put in some photo plots and to do some grazing utilization. We also met with some permitees up in North Park, CO who we work closesly with to manage grazing land and watershed rights. They were great and had a really respectful relationship with our BLM office, as they had been working with us for a very long time. It was nice to see the BLM and ranchers working well together, especially when all you hear about are the Bundy type situations. The older ranchers really seemed to understand our motive and said they manage the land as if it was their own. It was refreshing to hear and see. If we help them out, they help us out.
Soon we will be floating the Colorado to do some invasive monitoring/spraying with water friendly herbicide. I also contacted a professor out of CSU about possibly working with my mentor and I to combat cheatgrass becasue he and his graduate students are working on some research that would help establish native seeds to best outcompete cheatgrass. I am learning a lot here and am making good contacts. The weekends are pretty spectacular too. Kremmling is a small town, but it is surrounded by wilderness. Froma natural resource point of view it is a great field office to work in.
Some pictures from the past few weeks:
Pearl Lake, Steamboat
Zirkell Wilderness
State Flower
Spraying
Eagles Nest Wilderness
Hahn Peak
Work in North Park
Never Summer Wilderness At Work
Moose Sighting #1
Kremmling, CO Field office
BLM
-Ben