Since departing Chicago, the Alaskan summer season is gaining momentum and, consequently, my work has guided me to a number of breathtakingly beautiful locations. The Friday I returned home, we (I, my co-intern, and a group of AK NHP staff) ascended Sheep Mountain in search of any interesting or uncommon calcophiles that might be growing along its steep, gypsum-talus slopes. As you can see, stunning scenery abounds on and around Sheep Mountain, and my co-intern even spotted an uncommon Oxytropis, O. huddelsonii.

Looking N at Sheep Mountain from “the parking lot”

Looking S from a bench on Sheep Mountain toward Mount Thor

Crazy cool rocks of Sheep Mountain

After finishing up some FORVIS walkthroughs at Campbell Creek Science Center here in Anchorage, the following week sent us to Fairbanks for two (grey, rainy) days of training, for ATVs and NRCS Botany protocols, respectively. We used the return drive as an opportunity to scout for potential SOS collection sites. After a very long day of travel and scouting, we set out to explore our final site of the day, and I suddenly found myself butt-deep in mud while trying to cross a stream. I’m not sure whether it was genuinely funny or a byproduct of delirium, but it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed that hard. Good ol’ field memories in the making. (Ah, the wonderful feeling of cool mud in your XtraTufs!) All in all, our scouting trip was moderately successful. Even when we were unsuccessful, though, it’s hard to grow discouraged with the Alaska range smiling down at you.

Site #1 – Donnelly Creek Recreation Area

Site #2 – Gunnysack Creek

This week, I’m alone at the NHP, mounting specimens and helping one of my mentors with some morphometrics research, while my co-intern is out in the Yukon Flats with NRCS. I’m a bit of an herbarium nerd, so I’m excited to spend some quality time here before shipping out to Sitkinak Island with NRCS next week.

Until next month, fellow CLMers!