Just over two weeks ago I began work at the Alturas BLM field office, which is located on the Modoc Plateau in the extreme North East of California. The Alturas region is North of the Sierra Nevada, East of the Cascades, and West of the Warner mountains which form a border with the Great Basin Desert. It is an incredibly remote and rugged landscape that is a world apart from the coastal California that I know.

At over 4,000 feet, Winter has lingered longer here. Most trees are still leafless, and during my first week here it was raining and snowing off and on. This made it hard to get in the field at all, but I was able to orient myself to the office and get a better idea of what I will be doing out here. My main project so far has been updating the office herbarium. There were recently many changes in the names of plants listed in The Jepson Manual (a flora of California), and I have been going through the old specimens and updating families, genuses, and species names. This has been good for me to get an idea of what plants grow out here, which is more than just junipers and sagebrush, believe it or not.

Yesterday I got a picture of how diverse the area truly is. The Alturas office also administers an area about a 90 minute drive to the West. This area is much greener and ringed by high mountains, including the impressive Mount Shasta. I accompanied the “weed crew” because my mentor Mike is gone for the week. We went to a BLM managed camping area on the Pit river and I learned how to use the Trimble unit to inventory noxious weeds. Majestic white oaks, black oaks, oregon ash, ponderosa pines, redbuds, and characteristic chapparal plants line the Pit River canyon. The landscape is entirely comprised of black volcanic rock which starkly contrasts the vegetation and river. We drove up above the river canyon to an area where I will be collecting voucher specimens and seed. A pair of Canadian geese and sandhill cranes waded near vernal pools at this stunning site, and I am excited to go back when more plants are in bloom. We also searched for a rare species of mint, but were unable to find any at this time.

Joe Broberg

Alturas BLM field office