From rolling prairie to mountainous forests, I have made it to Missoula, MT. The landscape is incredible here, with Pondersoa pine forests, snow capped mountains, and moss and lichens EVERYWHERE. Even the wildlife is unique, like Sasquatch, just kidding! The biggest struggle so far is getting comfortable hiking up these mountains, and getting used to the elevation which is over 1,500 feet higher than Iowa, yowiee!

Right now all of the seasonals are starting to join the BLM crew and we are starting walk-through inventory. Which is just a fancy term for “hiking up a mountain then talking about all of the plants and wildlife you see”, which is pretty awesome. We have been collecting inventory for the layers of the stand, habitat type, canopy cover, average diameter breast height. During these stand inventories we are also looking the understory vegetation, invasive species and sensitive species. All of this information is used to evaluate stand overall health and for sites for further projects. We survey the stands every 10 years.

We are also preforming five needle pine surveys, which include limber pine (Pinus flexilis) and White pine (Pinus strobus). They are hard to find for several reasons: the first is the mountain pine beetle. These beetles are using five needle pine trees in high elevation to attract a mate and lay their eggs.  Then the beetle larvae eat the phloem, leaving the tree to die! The second is blister rust, which is actually a rust fungus, not a chemical reaction. The blister rust is basically a parasite using the bark of the pine as a home. Luckily, we have found quite a few viable trees!

Until next time!

Cara