Scene over the Black Rock Desert Salt-pan 

Now with the field season over, well at least in terms of camping, we have switch gears excitingly. When not traveling out to places still accessible to us, we are becoming deeply engrossed in the process of SOS beyond merely collecting seeds.

Now we are collaborating with many groups, to clean data, and prepare and lay the groundwork for the next year’s intern. However, by a stroke of luck perhaps we will also be involved in the preparation, propagation, and rearing of native seeds given to us in common gardens and greenhouses across the county.

It is with hope that in mid-October we will be chain sawing, brush cutting and clearing, laying tarps upon common gardens to begin the process of understanding success and phenology, in a cultivar setting.

After my first trip to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, I stayed busy at work continuing my rangeland monitoring routines. The cattle have been steadily transitioning out of the summer range allotments for the past month, so, many of the pastures within them are completely empty now. It has become the new norm to hardly see any cattle out in the field, but this means that we can focus on studying the patterns of vegetation heights in individual pastures. Lately, we have been in an allotment called Silver Creek. It has four pastures within it: Strawberry, McLean Meadows, Sweetwater Canyon, and Rocky Draw. As of right now, we’ve finished monitoring all but the very last one! We monitor them by mapping the grazing/utilization patterns. This requires us to venture around an entire pasture as much as possible. Whether we are in the truck or on foot, we are constantly observing the vegetation to determine what percentage has been grazed, and therefore, what percentage has been utilized. Once we agree on a number, we then mark the patterns we see on a huge map with colored pencils. This has definitely been one of my favorite responsibilities of my internship, especially considering all of the wildlife we’ve seen in Silver Creek. This includes more greater short-horned lizards, birds of prey, a badger, a prairie dog, and finally, two moose! 

Mid-September-ish, we were able to get one last autumn camping trip in before the cold really came to Lander. A few of my Wyoming coworkers and friends joined me and Johnny at Worthen Meadows Reservoir in Shoshone National Forest one weekend! We found the most perfect campsite right on the water, got a fun hike in, grilled burgers, and saw a really beautiful sunset. We had the best time!

In the following weeks, the autumn colors started to pop out everywhere in Lander and around our BLM field office. It had literally been a dream of mine to see aspen trees in the fall, but for some reason, I had only thought that they grew in Colorado. I was incredibly surprised when I saw them out here and realised that I would still be here to watch them change. Needless to say, I was out there almost everyday taking pictures. The landscapes turned magical, but soon after the leaves turned yellow, they were falling to the ground. I swear it changed from fall to winter in a matter of days — we have already gotten several snow storms!

While we were monitoring our third pasture of Silver Creek Allotment, Sweetwater Canyon, our timing couldn’t have been more perfect. We got to see several shrubs and tree species in their fall colors, and some incredible wildlife. On our way home one day, we came across a small family of prairie dogs, as well as a badger, all in a span of a couple miles.

The other week, I got to go out in the field with another one of the BLM’s rangeland specialists. Along with his main job responsibilities, Steve is in charge of collecting a few rain gauge and mercury samples for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program. This program, run by the National Trends Network, collects samples from all over the United States (and further). They study the bases, acids, and nutrients in nationwide precipitation in order to show trends over time. This was so fun for me to assist with because, earlier this summer, I was exposed to this program in Shenandoah National Forest! My Chemistry class took a field trip to the Big Meadows NADP site near my university. We learned about the same rain gauges, as well as various other equipment that the NTN uses.

The first NADP site we went to that morning was in Sinks Canyon State Park, one of my favorite places. Usually it’s a bit colder there in the mountains than in Lander, but that day, it was so cold that it was snowing! After work, I went back to take some photographs of the snow and fog that had settled throughout the day. I included just a couple below.

Our Sweetwater Canyon monitoring still wasn’t complete until later that week when we hiked along the riparian land down in the canyon. This ended up being a 9+ mile hike, and so much fun. We saw a few snakes, two moose, and an abundance of heavily grazed land. Our team started on the East side of the canyon, while a second team started on the West side. The idea was to meet in the middle if possible, in order to map the entire riparian zone. Along the way, each team had several photo points to take for the rangeland specialists, and a few transects to run. We were also noting anything strange, unexpected, or over-utilized. The canyon seemed like it had been a paradise for the cows, with endless shade spots, water, and vegetation.

Our CLM Blog has been down for a couple of weeks, so this post is pretty late. The photograph that I found from the field below is one that I love, but have no idea where I took it. A bald eagle, or Haliaeetus leucocephalus, had been standing in a field we drove through, right next to a golden eagle, or Aquila chrysaetos. I was blown away by these magnificent birds. Usually, bald eagles live along rivers, or bodies of water, so I don’t know why this one was seemingly in the middle of nowhere. He took flight, and flew right alongside us for a half mile or so down the road. Just a couple of dreamy minutes. Another blog post or two will be following this one — so much is happening in my last month here. 🙂

It is not often that I get to spend the entirety of a day surrounded by millions (yes, millions!) of tree, shrub, and forb seedlings. We were sent to collect 1,096 wildflower starts from the US Forest Service Coeur d’Alene Nursery to plant in southeast Idaho for forb island research promoted by the Caribou-Targhee National Forest botanist, Rose Lehman, and Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS). This nursery is a force to be reckoned with. It consists of a seed extractory, germination facility, large cold storage warehouse, extensive land for tree reserves, and current forest health research sites. They also have roughly 20 greenhouses fully stocked with various conifer species such as: white bark pine (Pinus albicaulis), western larch (Larix sp.), and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). One conifer greenhouse can hold up to 1.2 millions seedlings! Additionally, they have four native plant greenhouses filled to the brim with multiple species including: kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), snowberry (Symphoricarpos sp.), and black elderberry (Sambucus racemosa). These plants are grown for various projects throughout Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, and Utah for reforestation, landscaping, timber sales, and forest conservation. 

The main goal of the trip was to arrive early enough to individually pack each one of the wildflower seedlings needed to complete the restoration project south of Idaho Falls on the Curlew National Grassland at the end of the week. The initiative is working to establish native plant zones in a low elevation, sagebrush-steppe landscape by hand-planting the following forbs: parsnip buckwheat (Eriogonum heracleoides var. heracleoides), curly cup gumweed (Grindelia squarrosa), tansy aster (Machaeranthera canescens), low beardtongue (Penstemon humilis), and tapertip hawksbeard (Crepis acuminata). These flowers provide strong pollinator habitat, upland establishment, and tender forage for sage-grouse chicks. The chicks thrive off of the insects found on wildflower species and often use the vegetation for shelter. 

Orchestrating a planting operation like the Coeur d’Alene Nursery is beyond impressive. Seedlings are documented from the beginning of their seed collection, through gestation, germination, upsizing, transplanting, and then their shipment. Every flat, in every greenhouse, has a barcode that provides a timeline and location for the individuals. It acts as an electronic paper trail for each organism on the property. For our specific project, we were able to see the final stages of a plant’s life at the nursery. This consists of collecting the flats, removing them from their plugs, getting rid of any dead leaf matter, cleaning the root bases by trimming them with scissors, compiling them into plastic bags, and placing them safely into large shipping boxes. We loaded them into the chiller for the evening so they would remain properly hydrated until we picked them up the following day.

Overall, this was an incredibly successful trip and partnership! Each one of our chosen species grew with great success which ensured we could get them to the restoration project safely. We were able to see a very small snippet into what it means to facilitate active plant conservation on a national forest scale. Learning that there are only six national forest nurseries made us both overwhelmed with the importance of these facilities. I certainly look forward to future opportunities that allow me to be involved with any one of these nurseries.

To learn more about what came next for these plants and the planting process for our project, check out my co-intern Olivia Turner’s recent blog post, “A Planting Frenzy”.

Here’s to working for three more weeks in such a special place!

Claire Parsons

Caribou-Targhee National Forest, S.O.

We recently obtained almost 2,000 baby plants from the Coeur d’Alene Forest Service nursery (see my co-interns blog about our experience there!), all of them bright and bushy tailed with green leaves and even a few flowers! These native plants are special because their source was known and local to Southeast Idaho. This is an important feature because it greatly increases each individual plants chance of surviving, once placed in their ‘home’ habitat, and reproducing successfully because of local adaptations they contain. Our goal for these kid plants was to establish them down on the Curlew National Grassland as part of a stream bank and habitat restoration initiative. Because all of them are perennials, if we get them into the ground before the first frost they will die back this winter and be ready to roll next spring! In one overcast and windy day, we planted over half of them within and above the floodplain of Deep Creek on the Curlew. Volunteer master naturalists, citizens, and other Forest Service and NRCS employees came out to help. Shovels were flying, compost was distributed, and plugs were pressed into the ground. We were rewarded with a lunch of hot, homemade chili (made by our wonderful mentor) and then wrapped up the day by putting a layer of mulch around each plant, to tuck them in and discourage weeds from popping up.

We still had a handful of plugs after the Curlew planting effort so our mentor took some to local National Forest District offices to establish native plant displays and then we took the rest to a Juniper treatment area (where removal of Juniper trees occur in order to stop their excessive encroachment on meadows and shrub-lands). The piles of branches and twigs had been burned, leaving sooty circles of bare ground. Our mentor was interested in planting some of the native forbs in these bare areas to asses growth and reproduction potential over the years and to help establish pollinator habitat within the meadow itself. Our team of three (myself, my co-intern, and our mentor) quickly got to work digging, composting, and planting in the circles of dark soil and ash; the ‘forb islands’ we created sites of promising green. . At the end of the day we counted the plugs that remained-we had given all but 200 plants a home in the ground!

Our plan is to store the plugs securely over this weekend and then spread them in more areas that need some native plant TLC over the Forest the following week-we may even be able to donate some to a local University in order to help them in their effort to become a pollinator friendly campus!

I have to be honest, before this week, I had never been a part of such an extensive planting initiative. I learned that it is hard work that feels good and rewards you with a lovely visual of fresh green on the landscape and the knowledge that the baby plants are happy and at home, ready to grow and soak up the sun come springtime.

The last week of September was cold but sunny. Up in the mountains, the wind tore through us and I was glad I had thought to bring my fleece jacket. But what really kept me warm was the anticipation; that day, we were to take horses down a mountain trail. It was something people come to Wyoming and spend a hundred dollars to do, and yet here I was, getting paid to ride a horse all day. I was elated: bucket list item completed and I hadn’t lifted a finger to set it up. My supervisor had arranged the whole thing with someone in the office who owned horses, and all I needed to do was be there, ready to jump off my horse and pound in signposts.

My horse that day was named Lassie. She was a beautiful brown mare who immediately gave me the side eye before turning her back on me, unimpressed. But after I brushed her down she seemed slightly less disdainful of my presence, and consented to some groundwork bonding of my having her run in a circle. Then we loaded up the horses: two were to be ridden and the third was to carry the posts and pounder in a crazy looking saddlebag setup. Everything and everyone secured, we began our day.

While I had taken horseback riding lessons as a child and had a few experiences riding horses since then, the day had a steep learning curve. Lassie especially liked running me into low-hanging tree branches to see if I would fall off (which, despite being routinely stabbed and gaining quite a few twigs in my hair, I managed to avoid). Generally, we would ride until we either found an old trail post that needed to be replaced, or until we reach an ideal location for a new carsonite post. Carsonites are the brown fiberglass posts to which one attaches stickers or other forms of signage, and are commonly used to designate trails or the boundaries of public lands. We pounded these posts into the ground using our obnoxiously orange and heavy carsonite pounder, which utilized gravity and some human force to drive the carsonite into the ground. But woe to you who chooses a rocky location for your sign – between a carsonite and a rock, the rock wins and you are left with a mangled carsonite that has a small chance of proving reusable. And even more woe to those who touch the carsonite with bare hands while attaching signage, for the fiberglass likes to embed itself in unsuspecting or careless fingers and itches for days after.

The morning moved somewhat slowly. By the time we stopped for lunch, we had fixed or added some 20 carsonites on the trail and entered truly steep and beautiful terrain. After lunch, we began the process of rerouting the later part of the trail, our main goal for the day. But after a few more hours, it became clear that we simply did not have enough signage to complete this task, making it so next year’s CLM intern will also be able to have a wonderful day of horses and trails and signs to look forward to. When we turned around, I switched places with my supervisor, who had been hiking ahead and scouting out spots for signage. Hiking back up the many hills we had covered, it hit me just how impressive horses are, with their ability to travel long distances with great weights on their backs and not really break a sweat, whereas I was dying be the bottom of the fourth hill. But the vigorous hike was an essential break for my aching body, so I couldn’t complain.

By the time we returned to the trail head the light was starting to fail. We had achieved much of our task, but it had taken longer than anticipated. Driving back to the office, I knew that although my body would not thank me the next morning for the 6+ horse I had spent on a horse, it was completely worth it. Not many people get to have such adventures on a work day and I know myself to be extremely lucky. Although the workday ended up being 13 hours, it was an awesome experience that I will always remember as being a highlight of my time in Wyoming.

-Buffalo BLM Rec Intern

For the first week of September, my work brought me to the Mountain City and Ruby Mountain Districts in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. These districts of the forest burned significantly last year, so we were sent to identify the plants that were coming back to assess how plant communities are responding post-disturbance. Additionally, we were supposed to make seed collections on certain target species if there were ideal populations. Collections made from healthy populations in post-burn areas are most ideal because the population is more likely to grow in areas with the same seed zones after a burn.

For the first few days of our hitch, we cam[ed at Wild Horse Reservoir and scouted the Mountain City District of the Humboldt-Toiyabe forest. We were able to make collections for Phacelia hastata and Macaeranthera canescans before storm clouds began to form on the second day. We were fortunate to make two collections before the storms because afterwards all of the seeds from populations were completely gone.

Exploring the burned areas was educational, yet devastating at the same time. We noticed significantly eroded hillslopes and disturbed sites as a result of the burn. The loss of plant communities as a result of the burn made the hillslope exceptionally erosion-prone, especially after a wet winter and spring in the following season. Many forest roads were damaged from the erosion, making scouting in the area very difficult for my field partner and I. While in the Mountain City District, we found ourselves on a road that became increasingly narrow as it hugged the highly eroded banks of a creek. Traveling took much longer than we anticipated because of the large amount of debris and dead trees alongside the road. As we slowly approached sunset, we were eager to get out and onto the highway to get back to our camp. Soon we hit a private fence that blocked the road leading to the highway. Nervous to travel onto someone’s property, we tried the other roads that diverged from the ones we were on because they seemed like they might lead us around the property to get back onto the highway. We tried all of these roads only to find that they all lead back to a fence from the private property. The sun was now setting and we were running out of options, we were to either ask for permission to pass through on the property or turn around and take the road back (which would take several hours into the nighttime). We decided to ask for permission once we made it to the second fence. As we came up to the property, a friendly older man came out of the house and jokingly said, “Gosh I am so sorry girls! I saw you about an hour ago coming up to the fence. I should have told ya right there and then to come on through! Of course, you can pass on through!”

He was so kind and offered to give us a ride back to our truck on his UTV. As he drove us back to our truck, his grandsons wearing cowboy boots and pajamas ran with the UTV. We thanked them for the ride and allowing us to pass on through and they all said, “Anytime! Please, anytime you need to get past.” Happy to have had such a positive interaction with the rancher, my field partner and I hastily got the truck started. As we drove off, the young boys chased after our truck screaming “Wait! You guys have a flat!” We looked at the sun setting over the mountains and then jumped out of the truck to change our flat. Luckily, the rancher and his grandkids helped us change our flat tire and we were able to get back on the road in less than thirty minutes. While we changed the flat tire we must have been swarmed by mosquitos the entire time!

Soon we were able to be on our way again and thanked the family for helping us that night. We drove in the night back to our campsite and made it back just in time before the torrential downpour and lightning strikes begain. It rained that evening until 6 am in the morning! However frightening, we woke up to the most beautiful sunrise in the morning.

My time in Carlsbad is quickly drawing to a close. I decided to take a break from packing to take a minute to reflect on the five months I’ve spent here…

There’s a hill on the north side of town with a gravel trail I frequent. This morning I decided to visit once more before I depart. The weather’s been atypical. Dreary, cold, and hardly a glimpse of the sun. The last time I had visited this trail, the mariola hadn’t quite started blooming. Today, the hillside was covered in a blanket of creamy composite flowers with a fragrance unlike anything else. Every so often, a dayflower would fight for pollinator attention with its striking azure flowers.

While I’m relieved to be returning home to my loved ones, I realized this place and the work I’ve done here have left a profound mark on me. I have learned so much from my coworkers, my mentor, and the landscape. I can only hope I’ve left a similarly positive impression on this place.

This season has been one of the shortest chapters in my life, but I believe it has also been the most profound.

I would encourage people to take some time to explore the land should they ever find themselves in the Desert Southwest. While the climate can be less welcoming than the forests found in other parts of the region, this area has its own distinct beauty. The richness of life and colorful essence of the land will move anyone who stops to take it in.

My time here was not without challenges, but I suspect that element persists wherever one ends up. I am excited to take all the knowledge and experiences with me as I continue this journey. I’m also happy to proclaim my love of plants has not wavered. It has grown exponentially since my arrival in Carlsbad. Furthermore, I’ve come to the conclusion people who don’t like plants can’t be trusted… But that’s a different soapbox.

To anyone thinking about applying for CLM, I would say this: It won’t be easy. The work conditions and expectations will test your limits. However, this work is some of the most rewarding work I’ve done, and the connections I’ve made with people and landscapes will remain with me for a long time. I can’t think of a better opportunity to learn and grow. I’m deeply grateful to have had this opportunity with CLM.

The Dodge

            The white pickup truck thunders North on hwy. 789. It turns West on a dirt truck, bucking over bumps, rocks and ruts. The track turns Northwest, but the truck turns West on to a new smaller, rougher track. It reaches another fork and stops. At the fork is a sign:

“<- No Public Access ->”

The truck hesitates, uncertain, debates internally, and then turns around and goes back the way it came.

            The truck comes upon a small cluster of pine trees, surrounded by the rolling sagebrush steppe. The truck slows down, a window opens for a better look, then it stops. The doors open and people pile out. We walk around the trees and search the branches for raptor nests.

            Another truck pulls up- it stops- a man gets out. He says that he’s looking for horses (a close evolutionary ancestor of trucks). He leaves.

We find an owl in one of the trees; but we don’t see a nest.

The truck returns to the highway and flies back South. It comes upon a green truck also driving south. The green truck is labeled “Game and Fish”. The green truck flashes its lights and then pulls over to chase some pronghorn, stuck in a barbed wire fence.

Did you know that Pronghorn antelope can attain a top speed close to 60 miles per hour?

It’s a fact.

Pronghorn evolved this incredible speed in order to outrun one of their predators, the North American Cheetah. North American Cheetahs went extinct towards the end of Pleistocene. While antelope have retained their incredible speeds, they are useless against their new modern predators: the internal combustion engine, and the barbed wire fence.

Antelope regularly attempt to race and elude fast moving vehicles; the vehicles often win, but unlike the cheetahs are unable to digest pronghorn (at least for a few million more years).

Pronghorn aren’t good at getting through traditional barbed wire fences. The countless miles of fence out here hinder their migration. Wildlife friendly fences with a higher smooth bottom wire help to mitigate this problem. Marking fences with black and white plastic clips make fences more visible to sage grouse which might otherwise fly into them.

Trucks use gates to cross fences.

Cheers

Zeke Zelman

SOS- intern Rawlins, WY.